Party Martyr

AKA the list of movies to watch while you're shit-faced. Or, the list of movies to watch while you're getting shit-faced. However you want to look at it.

• Sideways (2004)
  Paul Giamatti and Oscar nominee Thomas Haden Church play, respectively, a wine snob and his chick-crazed best friend who head to the Santa Ynez Valley wine country in this road trip dramedy that also features Sandra Oh and Virginia Madsen. The latter (also Oscar nominated) memorably emotes at length about wine as a "living thing." More grapes: "Bottle Shock" (2008), with "Star Trek" star Chris Pine, Alan Rickman and Bill Pullman, focuses on Napa Valley and the inception of its reputation as the maker of world class wines.


• The Hangover (2009)
  The surprise comedy blockbuster of last summer, with Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, and Zach Galifianakis as three guys who wake up in a Las Vegas hotel suite with no memory of the wildest bachelor party on record (it involves a stripper, a chicken, a tiger and Mike Tyson, for starters). The trio spends the rest of the movie shakily retracing their steps and trying to find the groom (Justin Bartha) who has gone AWOL. Other entries in the grown-up-frat-boy-getting-drunk category include "Bachelor Party" (1984), "Old School" (2003) and "National Lampoon's Animal House" (1978).


• Arthur (1981)
  The movies have never had a more bubbly, "pickled tink" imbiber than Dudley Moore, whose pixilated rich playboy of the title so delighted audiences that he inspired a sequel (dubbed naturally, "Arthur 2: On the Rocks," 1988). Other over-the-top drunks: William Powell in "The Thin Man" (1934) and its many follow-ups, Peter O'Toole as the blasted ham movie star in "My Favorite Year" (1982), Goldie Hawn as the plastic-surgery addicted, booze-swilling movie star in 1996's "The First Wives Club," and Johnny Depp, three sheets to the wind at the helm of his schooner in the "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise, which started in 2003.


• Bad Santa (2003)
  Billy Bob Thornton is the vilest department store Santa imaginable, helped along by lots and lots of liquid Christmas spirits (and we don't mean egg nog). Other mean drunks: Woody Harrelson as the nasty father of 10 raging at wife Julianne Moore and kids in "The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio" (2005) and Tom Hanks, either berating his female baseball players or drop-dead drunk as they play in "A League of Their Own" (1992).


• Withnail & I (1987)
  Two out-of-work actors (Paul McGann and Richard E. Grant) struggle to get jobs, and they drink and drink and drink while doing so while on holiday in the country. There's so much boozing in between this drunken chat fest that enterprising folks have made a drinking game out of it. As the alcohol intake of the duo increases, so does their razor wit.


• Swingers (1996)
  Vince Vaughn, Jon Favreau and Ron Livingston as three bachelors who troll the hip night-life scene in Los Angeles drinking martinis and calling each other "baby." This homage to the sophisticated, swingin' bachelor-pad lifestyle of the early '60s created nostalgic night-life trends in music, decor, and fashion, not to mention a lot of memorable catchphrases (as in "you're so money").


• Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
  Mike Nichols' multiple Oscar-winning picture, based on the award-winning Edward Albee play about a battling college professor and his coarse, slatternly wife (Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor) who invite an unsuspecting couple (Sandy Dennis and George Segal) for late-night "fun and games." The film shocked mainstream America with its blue language and adult themes — though the vast amount of alcohol consumed by the foursome didn't bring out many protesting Carrie Nations.


• Strange Brew (1983)
  Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas play Bob and Doug McKenzie, the Canadian, beer-swilling "hoser" brothers, first seen on the SCTV sketch TV show. In this comedy the McKenzies going to considerable lengths to keep themselves supplied with the suds. Other comedies dedicated to brewski: "Beer Wars" (2009), "Beerfest" (2006), and "Beer" (1985).


• The Lost Weekend (1945)
  The best picture of its year stars Ray Milland as a writer so desperate for a drink he tries to hock his typewriter and hallucinates a giant bat in the D.T. ward. Milland won an Oscar and brought the problem of alcoholism to movie audiences.


• Leaving Las Vegas (1995)
  Nicolas Cage won an Oscar as a depressed boozer sliding to the bottom who finds a kindred spirit in Eliszabeth Shue as a hooker with a heart of gold. Other movie-drinking companions: Faye Dunaway and Mickey Rourke in "Barfly" (1987), Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson in "Ironweed" (1987), Joan Allen and Kevin Costner in "The Upside of Anger" (2005), and Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick in "Days of Wine & Roses" (1962), which features one of Henry Mancini's most achingly beautiful compositions and, considering the film's subject matter, perhaps Johnny Mercer's most ironic lyrics.