White Irish Drinkers

Not too long ago, I got an e-mail from a reader of the site. A fairly long time reader and commenter who wanted to tell me about a movie that she and her husband financed on their own and made and wanted me to go see it. Well, it turns out the movie was written and directed by John Gray. Yes, the same John Gray who created Ghost Whisperer. My first reaction was, "You do know that I make fun of Jennifer Love Hewitt every chance I get right? You still want me to go see this movie with that in mind?" Apparently there are no hard feelings about that and yes, they wanted me to go. Well, when you hear about a movie called White Irish Drinkers the first thing that comes to your mind is probably a bunch of guys sitting around singing Irish songs and drinking. With that in mind, I naturally am going to take my dad and we are going to sneak in a flask of some Bushmills and get loaded and sing songs with everyone. In my family we call it bonding. Well of course, mom was not going to let us all go out without her on a Friday night. Seeing the need for a designated driver we readily agreed.

Well, when we pulled into the Arclight, the flask was almost empty, so the first stop was to the bar. I cannot sing the praises enough of movie theatres that have bars. Bless all of you. Anyway, right away I saw Tim Curry and my mom was like, "who?" I said, "you know, the guy from Rocky Horror." My mom said, "who?" So, I went with Home Alone 2 and she got it. The man has really good posture and much to my annoyance apparently does not make it a habit to go out in public with a corset. Then my dad spotted Tia Carerre and took his 80 something self and shuffled off behind her muttering, "Party on." When a 20 year old does it, she probably finds it annoying but when an old man does it, somehow, it is ok and the next thing you know he was buying her a drink and wondering how he could probably get away from us for the night.

Fortified by more drinks we made our way to the theatre. It was filled with lots of the cast and crew and their friends so it was definitely a pro White Irish Drinkers crowd, but surprisingly few flasks.

I don't like to read reviews about movies before I go in to see them so I really did not know what to expect, but did know that John and his wife (Hi Melissa) spent a great deal of their money making a movie based on their families and lives they had growing up. Well, it is a good thing to know that Ghost Whisperer syndication money is going for something great like this movie.

The movie stars Nick Thurston, Karen Allen (who had Tim Curry practically in tears and ready to give her an Oscar that night) Peter Reigert (Animal House reunion anyone?) and a bunch of newcomers including Leslie Murphy. Yes, there is drinking in the movie, but it is so much more than that. It is the story of a family in the 1970's who are struggling to make it through each day. It has a Good Will Hunting kind of vibe to it and Nick, who plays Brian Leary, is an amazing artist who struggles between wanting to explore his talent and being a good brother which involves criminal activity with his brother who is played by Geoffrey Wigdor who is great. Set among all of this is Karen Allen as the mom who is trying to remain faithful to her wedding vows while dealing with two sons she does not understand and a husband who enjoys getting drunk and beating her.

This is 1970's Brooklyn and you can see John Gray's passion and heart come through in this movie. You can see that he inspired his actors and his crew to give their very best. The great thing about indie films is that everyone is so devoted to making sure everything is real and authentic and this movie succeeds in that. There are no wasted scenes or words. Everything has a purpose. Every character is developed. You can feel the backstories of everyone. You feel what they were living and going through. It is raw and intense and by the time it is over, you find yourself so grateful that someone took the time to make a movie that is actually worth spending your money on.

George Clooney movies notwithstanding, there is no more honest critic when it comes to movies than my mother. This movie had her so excited that she said she was going to sign up for that Facebook thingy just so she could tell people to go see it. She would not stop talking about it all weekend. That alone is good enough reason to go. Her only criticism. Nick, who was at the screening wore a pair of construction boots to the premiere. She said, "Did he steal those from the 90's Ice Cube?" Yep, my mom threw out an Ice Cube reference. Have to love her.