Romance. Laughter. Occasional bloody, senseless violence. It’s no wonder Hollywood is drawn to New Year’s Eve. It’s the perfect moment to declare your love in a snowglobe-esque confection (Bridget Jones's Diary, The Holiday), commit a robbery (Ocean’s Eleven, Money Train) or embark on a spot of casual slaughter (Better Luck Tomorrow, Bloody New Year). None of those made our list of favourite NYE moments – although Jamie Lee Curtis might turn up – so here’s a countdown that hopefully won’t leave you with a hangover.
Big Boy Caprice’s big New Year’s party gets pooped on from a height as Club Ritz finds itself surrounded by Tommy Gun toting coppers, who’ve been tipped off that Caprice has kidnapped Detective Dick Tracy’s long-suffering girlfriend Tess – this frame-up job being the only crime Big Boy didn’t actually commit. The big Dick proceeds on a kill-crazy massacre as the baddies try to escape, before sending Caprice plummeting to his doom. The villains probably preferred this to staying in Club Ritz and listening to Madonna murder Stephen Sondheim.
Partying like it’s 1999 turned out to mean getting caught up in a Blade Runner-ish cyber-punk future-noir where LA is a virtual civil war zone and Ralph Fiennes can’t quite nail an American accent. Fiennes is the black marketeer selling people’s real memories, who finds himself in a conspiracy theory that threatens to finally spark the whole city into a big, explodey NYE riot. But then any kind of social scene that involves Tom Sizemore wearing a Peter Stringfellow fright-wig isn’t going to end well.
No one likes to be the first person to turn up at a New Year’s Eve party, so spare a thought for Joe Gillis who discovers that there’s no one else invited to the posh shindig either. Joe’s the sole beneficiary of the dubious charms of Nora Desmond, the predatory old Hollywood queen laying on an expensive do for two – complete with orchestra - for her bemused new pet. The perma-sneering vamp has picked this moment to announce her affections – and then attempts to top herself when he rejects her, guilt tripping him into returning. That one should have run while he had the chance.
A party of 1,400 with only six survivors? That’s what we call a shin-dig. New Year’s Eve goes literally belly up for the passengers of the SS Poseidon. The huge liner is completely capsized by a freak wave, leaving a small band of revellers – led by faithless priest Gene Hackman – trapped in an airhole at what’s now the bottom of the vessel, desperately trying to work their way to the top. Still, if you board a boat captained by Leslie Nielson, you get what you deserve.
Make way for a lady. The Ghostbusters take the Statue Of Liberty out for a spin, a burning beacon of hope to raise New York’s positive vibes in their battle against Vigo The Carpathian and his enormous warping cranium. They do this by covering her with emotion-sensitive slime, attaching a Nintendo Advantage controller to her and banging out a tacky '80s update of Jackie Wilson’s finest. Like most dockside dolls out for a night on the tiles, Lady Liberty starts the night dancing but ends it by smashing up public property and being covered in suspicious ick.
As Harry Burns discovers, it’s not a proper movie NYE declaration of love unless you’ve sprinted across town and crashed a party in order to do so in front of a room full of strangers just as the clocks strike midnight. But he quickly reverts back to type, grousing about Robbie Burns’ finest. Because some people don’t like their rom-com all together, but want a big slab of sticky romance in one lump with some rich comedy on the side so it doesn’t get all mushy together…
Cigars, beef jerky, Sveeedish meatbölls, a wee shot of Irish whisky and a nasty man disguised as a gorilla getting violated by an actual gorilla. That’s how the overnight party train to Philadelphia rolls, the setting for a shonky bit of robbery as a disguised Louis, Billy-Ray, Ophelia and Coleman - or is that Lionel, Nenge, Inga and the Padre? – attempt to pull the old bag-swap routine on Clarence “I’ll rip out your eyes and piss on your brains” Beeks. It doesn’t go according to plan. Merry New Year! Or is that Happy New Year?
No matter how bad your New Year’s Eve is going, it’s better than Little Bill’s. Although it’s not much different from any other day of Little Bill’s life, in that it involves him watching his porn star wife have sex with other people while humiliating him. December 31 1979 differs in that upon discovering his wife ‘in rehearsal’, this time Bill calmly returns to his car, removes a revolver and then unloads it on his wife and her co-star, before offering the eighties a little smile and redecorating Jack Horner’s house a new shade of brain matter, mullet and turtle-neck.
Ring a ding dinging in the New Year with her skeazy boss, Miss Kubelik suddenly realizes that – of course – maybe she should be Auld Lang Syning with C C Baxter instead. But director Billy Wilder obviously can’t let this go too cheerfully – letting the film’s spectre of suicide descend again as Miss Kubelik mistakes a popping cork for a gunshot. Thankfully, the very much alive Baxter has a spare glass for champers and an unpacked desk of cards – staying indoors for NYE with a game of gin rummy has never looked better.
Everyone wants to see in the new year with a snog, but Michael Corleone sets up 1959 with a kiss that’s got more than a whiff of Judas about it. Having just discovered that his elder brother Fredo had set him up for a hit, Michael gives his astonished sibling a smacker that’s ripe with love, fury and disappointment. But Fredo’s smart – not dumb like what everyone says – and does a runner amid the chaos of the Cuban revolution kicking off around them, suggesting that deep down he knows he won’t be seeing 1960.
Source : ign[dot]com
No comments:
Post a Comment