Posts by Matt Sailor

December 24, 2015 |

Great Moments in Cinematic Drinking: Scrooged

Matt Sailor

Christmas Past

Bill Murray has come a long way. His corner office is all black lacquer and polished chrome, a monument to late-80s decadence, a temple whose sole object of worship is money. His

October 2, 2015 |

Great Moments in Cinematic Drinking: Jaws

Matt Sailor

Roy Scheider is afraid of the water. He has been his whole life. It’s a difficult one to explain, especially considering the life he’s chosen: chief of police for a beach community on a small

August 20, 2015 |

Great Moments in Cinematic Drinking: Die Another Day

Matt Sailor

Pierce Brosnan only has so much time left. He doesn’t know it yet, but this will be his last James Bond film. While it will gross almost half a billion dollars worldwide, it won’t take long for Die

July 30, 2015 |

Great Moments in Cinematic Drinking: Live and Let Die

Matt Sailor

All Roger Moore wants is a drink. He’s had a rough couple of days. He’s Bond—James Bond—but nobody seems to believe him. He’s not in the mood for a martini, doesn’t care to micromanage the

June 5, 2015 |

Great Moments in Cinematic Drinking: Goldfinger

Matt Sailor

Sean Connery has been waiting three entire movies to say this line. The first chance he got, Dr. No beat him to it, ordered the drink for him with that genteel menace so common among Bond villains.

May 15, 2015 |

Great Moments in Cinematic Drinking: Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

Matt Sailor

Sean Astin is ready for a break. Time to take a load off. Put up his hairy, latex feet. Empty his pockets of Lembas bread and Elven rope and cozy up next to the fire. Join the other Hobbits down

January 1, 2015 |

Great Moments in Cinematic Drinking: Tommy

Matt Sailor

Oliver Reed isn’t wasting any time. He has work to do, and he’ll be god-damned if he’s going to let anybody get in his way. The work, of course, is drinking, and in the Christmas scene from 1975’s

October 31, 2014 |

Great Moments in Cinematic Drinking: The Thing

Matt Sailor

Kurt Russell needs a moment to himself. It’s been a hard day. Night. Days? It’s hard to tell. He’s been in Antarctica so long, the days so long that they become nights, the nights so long that they

September 5, 2014 |

GREAT MOMENTS IN CINEMATIC DRINKING: The World’s End

Matt Sailor

Simon Pegg would kill for a beer. Will. Has. Is. Over and over again. An hour into The World's End, halfway through a pub crawl he's been waiting twenty years to finish, he engages in a beautifully

June 27, 2014 |

GREAT MOMENTS IN CINEMATIC DRINKING: Silkwood

Matt Sailor

It’s a hot day in Oklahoma, and Kurt Russell has been working hard. At what, we’re not entirely sure. There may have been a throwaway line of dialogue about fixing cars or mending fences or digging

March 28, 2014 |

GREAT MOMENTS IN CINEMATIC DRINKING: Lost in Translation

Matt Sailor

Bill Murray’s Oscar clip comes exactly twenty minutes into Lost in Translation. His character, Bob Harris, a famous actor like Murray himself, is in Japan to film a series of commercials for

February 14, 2014 |

Great Moments in Cinematic Drinking: High Fidelity

Matt Sailor

In one of the last scenes of High Fidelity, John Cusack drinks a beer. Actually, he doesn't. And that's kind of the beauty of it. He treats a beer the way I don't think I've ever seen anyone treat

December 27, 2013 |

Great Moments in Cinematic Drinking: Gremlins

Matt Sailor

Kingston Falls, USA is the most beautiful matte painting on earth. An idyllic little town with buildings clustered together for warmth on the snow-covered streets, brush-stroke lampposts casting a

November 15, 2013 |

Great Moments in Cinematic Drinking: The Shining

Matt Sailor

Halfway through The Shining, Jack Nicholson accepts a glass of whiskey from a ghost. It’s by no means the most memorable scene in the movie (or the second most, or the twentieth most). But like

October 4, 2013 |

Great Moments in Cinematic Drinking: The Bad News Bears

Matt Sailor

Walter Matthau, we assume, has had a bad day. Or a bad night. Or both. Hell, back it up as far as you want to go:  Week. Year. Fucking life. Drinking a beer in a Pizza Hut a few minutes into the

September 6, 2013 |

Great Moments in Cinematic Drinking: Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

Matt Sailor

At first, you think it’s going to be that old cliché:  men and their brown liquors sitting in leather chairs in front of fireplaces, fiddling with models of ships and speaking their “big important