Category: Dramas

Dramas

Atonement

LizLocke1 Comment
Image credit: Atonement, 2007

Happy Valentine’s Day to all the lovers (of cocktails and movies!) out there. This week, I’m honoring one of the great love affairs in cinema history: the one that exists between the infamous Jacqueline Durran-designed Green Dress, and my eyeballs. Grab the tissues and the chocolate bars for this week’s film Atonement (Disc/Download).

Based on the novel by Ian McEwan, Joe Wright’s adaptation is every bit as gorgeous as the source material. This story of young lovers separated by class difference and a fatal lie is gripping, haunting, and always leaves me feeling like I got hit by a truck. But the clothes- THE CLOTHES. I keep coming back to see Keira Knightley swan around like she’s on the cover of a 1930s issue of Vogue, in everything from evening gowns to slips to swimwear. Honestly, the saddest part of this movie isn’t the ending; it’s watching Cecilia trade her couture for a WWII British nurse’s uniform (although, I do enjoy a good wool cape). The cast of this film is a who’s who of British talent, such as James McAvoy, Juno Temple, Brenda Blethyn, Vanessa Redgrave, and Benedict Cumberbatch, but it’s a young Saoirse Ronan who really steals the show as imaginative, manipulative Briony. Such a devious villain in such innocent packaging! In the end, this entire story is Briony’s attempt at atonement, and the audience is left to decide whether she’s finally paid for the sin of being a fanciful, jealous girl. Perhaps, having the same boring haircut for sixty years is the real punishment.

As I mentioned earlier, chocolate plays a hefty supporting roll in this film. Benedict Cumberbatch’s character owns a chocolate factory, and he is more than happy to make everyone his signature sipper, the “Choc-tail”, which is described as rum and dark chocolate syrup over crushed ice.

However, his character is the creep to end all creeps, and I don’t feel like celebrating this perverted Willy Wonka. So let’s do our own “Choc-tail”, in the form of a Chocolate Rum Old Fashioned.

Chocolate Rum Old Fashioned

1 1/2 oz Dark Rum

1/4 oz Simple Syrup

1 dash of Angostura Bitters

1 dash of Chocolate Bitters

Grapefruit Peel

Grated dark chocolate

Combine rum, simple syrup, and bitters in a mixing tin with ice. Stir well, and strain into a glass filled with a large ice cube. Express the grapefruit peel over the drink, then drop in. Grate a dusting of dark chocolate over the top.

If you enjoy Downton Abbey, World War II epics like The English Patient and Dunkirk, and dinner parties where people get very dressed up, then Atonement is the movie for you. Passion, glamour, chocolate, and rum- sounds like a perfect Valentine’s Day to me. Cheers!

Classic Films · Dramas

The Shining

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Image credit: The Shining, 1980

I always thought the scariest place a person could be is in The Overlook Hotel with a murderous Jack Nicholson and a whole bunch of angry ghosts. Not to mention, those hallways of hypnotic carpet patterns! But that was until I made the decision to renovate my home. A decision which has forced me to become trapped, in increasingly smaller spaces, as the days and weeks bleed into one another. Suddenly, this quote from The Shining (Disc/Download) makes so much sense: “A kind of claustrophobic reaction which can occur when people are shut in together over long periods of time.” Let’s just say, I’m looking increasingly vacant-eyed over my keyboard. The dog is calling out to Scatman Crothers.

Directed by Stanley Kubrick, The Shining is based on the Stephen King novel of the same name, inspired by his own stay at a Colorado resort (the Estes Park Hotel, which I can personally say is quite lovely… in the summer). Jack Torrance (Nicholson) moves his wife and son to a remote hotel for the winter, accepting the job of caretaker. As a writer, he thinks an empty resort will be the perfect spot to work on his novel. However, the ghosts of the hotel have other plans for the Torrance family. Slowly, Jack begins to go mad, while his telekinetic son senses the presence of the hotel’s previous dead occupants. Little Danny has a touch of “the shining”, just as the hotel itself “shines”. There are a lot of hallucination scenes in this, several times involving a bathroom. I too have been hallucinating a bathroom during long stretches of isolation, so this part of the film makes sense to me. When Jack and I dream, we dream of a beautiful, spacious retreat fit for a luxury hotel. My nightmare is that I’m as old as the decaying woman in Room 237 by the time my soaking tub gets installed, but that’s probably just the claustrophobia talking. Surely, my contractor will get his act together by then.

Another dream sequence involves one of my favorite movie bars, host to many glamorous parties throughout The Overlook’s storied history. Lloyd the bartender may have served up a mean Bourbon on the rocks, but I prefer to take my cocktail cue from Danny. While watching The Shining, I recommend drinking this variation on the Negroni, a Redrum cocktail.

Redrum

1 oz Dark Spiced Rum

1 oz Campari

1 oz Sweet Vermouth

Blood orange slice

Combine rum, Campari, and vermouth in a mixing tin with ice. Stir until chilled, then strain into a glass over a large ice cube. Garnish with a slice of blood orange.

If you’re not typically a Negroni drinker, this may change your mind. Rum gives the cocktail a sweeter, spicier edge, and I actually prefer this to its gin-based cousin. It’s the perfect drink to toast five miserable months of home renovation, and the irreparable harm it has caused me. Cheers!

Dramas

Inside Llewyn Davis

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Image credit: Inside Llewyn Davis, 2013

I’ve never been much of a “cat person”, but Inside Llewyn Davis (Disc/Download) has definitely made me a “folk singer with a cat” person. If you look at my record collection, you’ll see a lot of 1960s folk/singer/songwriter albums, but leave it to the Coen Brothers to make me fall in love with my favorite music genre all over again. I guess that’s the thing about folk music, as they say. It was never new, and it never gets old.

When we talk about unsympathetic characters in movies and fiction, we may as well have a poster of Llewyn Davis hanging up as an example. This incredibly talented, perpetually broke singer bums couches and meals from his gullible friends, impregnates a married woman (though, to be fair, it does take two to tango, Jean), and insults his fellow Gaslight performers with no regard to the frequently sensitive nature of artists.  In short, he’s an ass. And yet, his talent makes him someone you still want to root for. Surely, if the whole world could just hear him sing “Fare Thee Well”, he’d finally get the recognition he deserves, get his life together, and become a more thoughtful person. But since the movie itself is like a folk song, we see him make the same mistakes over and over, caught in a loop of reacting (badly) to crisis after crisis.

Perhaps Llewyn’s biggest mistake made is letting a pet cat escape from the apartment where he’s been crashing. He’s then forced to carry it around New York City, in the dead of winter, and we all know how cats just love to be toted like a handbag. While watching Inside Llewyn Davis, toast his feline friend with this Tomcat cocktail. Working with an animal may have been misery for the filmmakers, but it was magic for us.

Tomcat

2 oz Old Tom Gin

1 oz Sweet Vermouth

2 dashes Orange Bitters

Luxardo Maraschino cherry

Orange Twist

Combine gin, vermouth, and bitters in a shaker with ice. Stir to combine and chill, then strain into a glass with a large ice cube. Garnish with a cherry and orange twist.

Oscar Isaac carries this movie so well, but let’s not forget about the stellar supporting cast. Adam Driver makes a fun appearance as one third of a trio singing a gimmicky song about astronauts, and even Justin Timberlake does a great rendition of “Five Hundred Miles” with Carey Mulligan. As ever, the Coen Brothers have created a world that’s very specific, and at the same time universal– much like the music they so lovingly celebrate. Cheers!

Classic Films · Dramas

Leave Her to Heaven

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Image credit: Leave Her to Heaven, 1945

All aboard the crazy train as we attempt to go inside the twisted mind of Ellen in this week’s film Leave Her to Heaven (Disc). Played by the impossibly beautiful Gene Tierney, this femme fatale will stop at nothing to claim the undivided attention of her man. Obviously, nobody ever taught this gal how to share her toys.

When novelist Richard Harland (Cornel Wilde) first encounters Ellen on a train to New Mexico, he assumes she’s merely an attractive bookworm. The fact that she’s holding one of his books is a nice stroke of the ego, but here’s his first mistake—underestimating Ellen for even a second. Indeed, every interaction from here on feels plotted; part of a grander scheme to fully possess this man. She takes out everyone who gets in her way, from a disabled polio survivor, to her unborn baby, and even <spoiler alert> HERSELF!!!! That’s right, Ellen finds a way to make sure this man thinks only of her, even from beyond the grave. It’s a stunning psychological thriller, made haunting by the cool, calculating eyes of Tierney. Even the movie’s end credits can’t stop her effect on the audience.

Although the acting and script are huge draws, I also enjoy the Leave Her to Heaven’s settings. From the rocky desert of Sedona to the crisp, clean wilderness of Maine, this movie is a celluloid vacation. But rather than getting in the lake with Ellen, I think I’d rather stay on shore sipping a classic Remember the Maine cocktail.

Remember the Maine

2 oz Rye

¾ oz Sweet Vermouth

½ tsp Absinthe

2 tsp Cherry Heering liqueur

Luxardo Maraschino cherry

Combine rye, sweet vermouth, absinthe, and cherry liqueur in a shaker with ice. Shake until chilled, then strain into a coupe glass. Garnish with a cherry.

Having read the book this is based on, I can confirm the film adaptation does a great job of capturing Ellen’s mysterious, devilish allure. In a weird way, you start to understand where she’s coming from. Like her, I wouldn’t want my husband’s relatives to interrupt my romantic vacation, nor would I be thrilled to find myself with child. I don’t think satin pumps and a trip down the staircase would be my solution to that problem, but the way things are going with our reproductive rights, who knows? And that’s what makes Ellen so scary—she could be any woman, who gets pushed just a little too far. Cheers!

Dramas

Cast Away

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Image credit: Cast Away, 2000

Isolation, survival—these are words we’ve heard a lot over the past several years. They’re words that echo in my head as the summer blues set in, and I start to forget what it’s like to walk outdoors in the middle of the day, meet a friend for a drink, or even talk to anyone outside of my immediate household. My dog may as well be named Wilson. Thus it seems appropriate to revisit the Tom Hanks classic Cast Away (Disc/Download), the movie that always reminds me that no matter how lonely or frustrated I may feel about spending June-September trapped indoors, things could be worse.

When FedEx employee Chuck Noland washes up on a remote beach in the South Pacific after a harrowing plane crash, he’s still sporting a fuzzy Fair Isle Christmas sweater and a little holiday weight. He must use whatever was in his pockets to stay alive until he’s rescued, which it turns out consists of nothing more than an antique watch, a flashlight, and one sock. Eventually some FedEx packages from the crash wash up, giving him a few more marginally useful items (VHS tapes—who knew???), as well as volleyball BFF, Wilson. The audience thinks this will be just a short stay on the isle of loneliness, until the film jumps four years into the future and Hanks is… still there. He’s slim, he’s blonde, he’s learned to catch fish and make fire, and he’s made a little cave home. He’s adapted, as we all did in the spring of 2020. The struggle is still there, but now it’s a constant buzzing in the background, instead of an intermittent roar.

Speaking of struggle, this guy has it rough. Making fire is a battle waged with calloused, bleeding hands, and don’t even get me started on the coconuts. Piña Coladas will never look the same to me. Let’s toast this castaway’s ingenuity and perseverance with a tasty Tiki cocktail, the Suffering Bastard.

Suffering Bastard

1 oz Brandy

1 oz Gin

½ oz Lime Juice

¼ oz Simple Syrup

2 dashes Angostura Bitters

4 oz Ginger Beer

Fill a glass with ice and set aside. Add more ice to a shaker, along with Brandy, Gin, lime juice, simple syrup and bitters. Shake until chilled and combined, then strain into prepared glass. Top with ginger beer and stir gently.

To look at still frames of this movie, one would think Noland has landed in paradise. But what that picture doesn’t show is the yearning he feels for his loved ones, the sadness from feeling forgotten and stuck, and the desperation that would drive a man to head into the vast ocean with nothing more than a few logs and half a Porta Potty. And of course, Wilson. Because like the Bette Midler song says, you gotta have friends. Cheers!

Classic Films · Dramas

Magnificent Obsession

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Image credit: Magnificent Obsession, 1954

I’m always up for a good Rock Hudson catfishing scheme, and after watching him ensnare Doris Day in Pillow Talk and Lover Come Back, I’m ready for him to hook Jane Wyman in Magnificent Obsession (Disc). So long Rex Stetson and Linus Tyler—meet Robbie Robinson.

In Douglas Sirk’s classic melodrama, Hudson plays Bob Merrick, a supreme jerk who enjoys fast boats and fast women. That is, until his actions contribute to the death of Helen Phillips’s husband, and eventually, to the loss of her sight. Realizing he has to make a change, he seizes his chance when the newly blind, widowed Helen encounters him on the shores of her lakeside retreat. They begin a relationship, which becomes a… wait for it… magnificent obsession as Merrick does everything in his power (including going to medical school and becoming a world-renowned brain surgeon???) to transform himself into a man worthy of her. The only catch? She doesn’t immediately realize the person she’s falling in love with (Robbie) is the same guy (Bob) who brought so much tragedy to her life.

If this sounds like a soap opera, that’s because it is. And because it’s made by Douglas Sirk, you can expect glamorous gowns, gorgeous homes, beautiful scenery, and schmaltzy music. Crafting a drink that’s fitting for the elegant Helen is no small feat, but this lovely sipper seems like something she’d enjoy either sitting beside Lake Tahoe, or on the balcony of a Swiss chalet. While watching Magnificent Obsession, I recommend drinking this Saint Helen cocktail.

Saint Helen

1 ¼ oz Gold Rum

½ oz Velvet Falernum

¾ oz Lime Juice

½ oz Lillet Rosé

Champagne, to top

Lime twist

Put all the ingredients except champagne in a shaker with ice. Shake until chilled, then strain into a coupe glass. Top with champagne, and garnish with a lime twist.

Although I wouldn’t have immediately thought to pair Jane Wyman with Rock Hudson, somehow, their chemistry just works. I love them together in All That Heaven Allows, and I love them in this movie. Catfishing aside, it isn’t the worst thing in the world to become obsessed with doing good deeds for others- just maybe don’t wait until you’ve killed someone to start. Cheers!

Dramas

American Beauty

LizLocke1 Comment
Image Credit: American Beauty, 1999

I’m not going to lie—this week was a challenge. Do I revisit a movie that was dubbed the Best Picture of 1999, a movie I really liked at the time, but have since abandoned after its star’s misdeeds made watching it an incredibly uncomfortable experience? American Beauty is a difficult film to write about in the year 2022 because it’s hard to reconcile my original opinion with an ever-evolving consciousness of cinema’s impact and responsibility. Nevertheless, if I’m going to look at the year 1999, I feel like I have to look at it warts-and-all. And by warts, I mean the casual acceptance (perhaps even, glamorization) of statutory rape. Dear lord, what were we thinking?

Here’s the thing—I still believe there are some great performances in this movie. I still adore the cinematography and score. I still enjoy the critique of the suburban middle class, and the way the ending unfolds like an episode of Dateline. It leaves us guessing about what comes next, which I find exciting. If I could only watch the brilliant Annette Bening in the role of a frustrated wife, mother, and realtor, I’d be watching this on repeat without hesitation. I want her to sell that house today, and the ensuing breakdown when she fails still reflects the tiny voice inside me that screams every time the thing I desperately wanted to achieve just doesn’t work out—you weak, stupid, baby. But American Beauty isn’t a one-woman show. It also features Kevin Spacey, in a role where we, the audience, are supposed to be rooting for him to turn his boring life around by seducing his daughter’s teenage friend. It isn’t cool now, it shouldn’t have been cool then, and shame on all of us who looked through his perverted lens and couldn’t see the trauma for the rose petals. I’m amazed that it took the star’s real-life crimes to wake us up to the problems with this character, but I can only assume we were distracted by Lester Burnham’s “Great Resignation” before it was a trend.

Maybe, like me, you’re curious and want to go down this rabbit hole one more time. If so, you will need a drink. Let’s celebrate Carolyn Burnham’s prize rose collection with this simple cocktail, tailor-made for easy refills. While watching American Beauty, I recommend drinking a Rosewater Gin & Tonic.

Rosewater Gin & Tonic

2 oz London Dry Gin

6 oz Fever Tree Tonic

3-4 drops Rosewater

Lime Slice

Rose Petal (for garnish)

Juniper berries (for garnish)

Combine ingredients in a highball glass over ice, stirring gently to combine. Garnish with a lime slice and rose petal.

I suppose this whole ordeal opens me up to thinking about my own tolerance for movies that have not stood the test of time. There are some I find easier to watch than others, and I can’t even explain why. But I think that complexity is true for a lot of us—we’re not perfect, and our understanding and reaction to painful histories is an ever-evolving process. However, I think having the space to examine things through a more critical lens, without judgment, is key to creating better content. We can’t move forward in a productive way without examining mistakes of the past. And in 1999, I’ll be the first to admit—I was wrong about American Beauty. Let’s not do this again.

Dramas

The Sixth Sense

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Image Credit: The Sixth Sense, 1999

Cinema Sips has gone back in time to cover 1967, 1976, 1985, and now <drumroll please> I’m ready to party like it’s 1999! In my opinion, I’ve saved the best for last on my mini journey through late-20th century cinema. Maybe this is my favorite movie year because I was sixteen and impressionable at the time, or maybe it’s because the movies were SO DAMN GOOD. I’ve already covered many of my favorites (The Talented Mr. Ripley, Notting Hill, 10 Things I Hate About You, etc), but now I’m turning my attention to a few other films that made a hell of a lot of money, started a lot of conversations, and represented what audiences were most looking for at the time. Kicking things off is M. Night Shyamalan’s thriller, The Sixth Sense (Disc/Download).

I saw this movie with my dad during its initial theatrical release, and I remember him being decidedly pissed off by the ending. It was a bait-and-switch, overturning everything we thought we were watching for the last two hours. I believe his direct quote was, “Those JERKS!” But it was this very ending that made people keep talking about the movie, giving it box office staying power beyond any other psychological thriller at the time. Similar to Hitchcock’s Psycho, this movie about a young boy who sees ghosts lives and dies by its final ten minutes, and if anyone spoiled the twist before you had a chance to see it, I hope only bad things have happened to them over the ensuing twenty-three years. I’m not going to go into it here in case you’re very young or have been living under a rock, but what I will say is that Bruce Willis gives a career-highlight performance as the child psychologist tasked with helping a scared little boy (an adorable Haley Joel Osment), and Toni Collette has somehow aged backwards in the last several decades?? This goes to show that a dark lip color and heavy eye makeup did us no favors in the late ‘90s.

The thing about the ghosts in this movie is that they don’t actually know they’re dead. Similar to its charming rom-com counterpoint Ghost Town, spirits between worlds come to Haley Joel Osment in crisis, and he has to fix their problems in order to set them free. I know what you’re thinking—how do they not know they’re dead? Well, this is conveniently explained away as “they only see what they want to see.” I guess one of the things they turned a blind eye to was their obituary, but I’m not making the same mistake. While watching The Sixth Sense, I recommend drinking a classic Obituary cocktail.

Obituary

2 oz Gin

¼ oz Dry Vermouth

¼ oz Absinthe

Lemon twist

Pour ingredients into a mixing glass filled with ice. Stir until well combined, the strain into a chilled martini glass. Garnish with a lemon twist.

I previously featured this cocktail as a pairing for Who Framed Roger Rabbit, but it’s just as lethal now as it was then. You need something strong and spirit-forward for this movie (see what I did there??) because you don’t want to end up like my dad, angry and bitter that M. Night Shyamalan pulled a fast one. Instead, you want to ease into this psychological mind-bender on a cloud of absinthe fumes, ready to be spooked and surprised. Cheers!

Dramas

Out of Africa

LizLocke1 Comment
Image Credit: Out of Africa, 1985

Concluding my journey through 1985, I couldn’t resist a peek at the year’s Academy Award winner for Best Picture, Sydney Pollack’s Out of Africa (Disc/Download). Some might say this is not the best movie to watch when you’re already sweltering under a summer heat wave; however, I like to think of this as a how-to guide for surviving climate change—wear a lot of white linen, stock up on quinine, and make alfresco nighttime vinyl cocktail parties a thing.

Starring Meryl Streep as Karen von Blixen (the writer who would later go on to be published under the pseudonym Isak Dinesen) this is an epic tale of one woman’s struggle to live her best life, despite the incompetent men she’s forced to deal with on a daily basis. Sounds familiar, amiright ladies? Wealthy Karen signs herself up for a marriage-of-convenience that involves a ticket to Nairobi and a coffee farm she never really wanted. But still, she makes the best of it, forging a friendship with handsome safari hunter Denys Finch Hatton (Robert Redford)- a friendship that later turns into a passionate romance. Confronted with war, fickle crops, male chauvinism, as well as a fun little bout of syphilis thanks to her deadbeat husband, Karen never loses her classy attitude. She’s all about crystal decanters, Victrola record players, Limoges, and fussy feminine decor, even while on safari. In other words, she basically invented glamping, and we should all bow down.

Because this movie is definitely not climate controlled, I think we need an icy cold beverage to get us through. There’s no greater summertime pleasure than a gin & tonic, so let’s combine the flavors of a G&T with Karen’s beleaguered coffee crop in this Spiked Coffee Tonic cocktail.

Spiked Coffee Tonic

1 oz Gin

1 ½ oz Espresso Cold Brew (canned)

2 oz Tonic

½ oz Brown Sugar Syrup (Combine 1:1 ratio brown sugar with water, blending until sugar is dissolved)

Dried Lemon Wheel (garnish)

Combine gin, cold brew, tonic, and syrup in a highball glass filled with large ice cubes. Stir until combined, then garnish with a dried lemon wheel.

It’s a little surprising to me that this won the Academy Award for Best Picture, given how lackluster the script is. But nevertheless, it’s worthwhile viewing, if only to watch Meryl master the Danish accent as well as those safari-chic fashions. Cheers!

Classic Films · Dramas

Network

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Image credit: Network, 1976

If you live in America, you’re more than likely mad as hell right now. The question is whether you can take it anymore. As the mad prophet of UBS instructs us in this week’s 1976 classic Network (Disc/Download), open the window and scream. Listen to the screams of others.

If I had to pick one word to describe Network, that adjective would be ‘angry’. All the characters are angry about something (ratings, the general state of the world, market shares, etc.), and they do a lot of shouting about it. But the interesting thing is that these characters were angry about many of the same things in 1976 as we are today. News as entertainment is a problem we were warned about forty-six years ago, and now we’re seeing it play out in real time. Unfortunately, we no longer have a Howard Beale (Peter Finch) on the airwaves to get up from behind his desk and shine a spotlight on the corporate greed that fuels the television networks. Now we have something scarier—a whole generation of anchors whose only job is to shock, enrage, inflame, and pretend they’re doing the opposite. Diana Christensen would be so proud.

Veteran newsman Howard Beale and his colleague Max Schumacher (played terrifically by William Holden) start out the movie getting roaring drunk, before becoming passionate critics of a changing industry. For this week’s pairing, I used spicy Habanero peppers to infuse some Añejo tequila, resulting in the angriest of cocktails. While watching Network, I recommend drinking a Mad Prophet.

Mad Prophet

2 oz Habanero-infused Añejo tequila (let tequila soak with peppers for at least 1 hr, then strain pepper out)

1 oz Orange Juice

1 oz Lime Juice

1 oz Passion Fruit Syrup 

Combine tequila, orange juice, lime juice, and passion fruit syrup in a shaker with ice. Shake until chilled, then strain into a glass filled with fresh ice. Garnish with a pepper slice.

Network is a dark satire of television journalism that only gets darker as time drags on, letting us see the effects that pandering to our most racist, sexist, darkest tendencies can have on a group of people. And if that doesn’t make you mad as hell, then you’re not paying attention.