Why Spend The Upcoming Eve Boozing When You Can Watch The Pros? By Stacey Richter ANOTHER YEAR, ANOTHER round. New Year's, of all the holidays, is the most closely associated with juice, boozing and getting smashed. But why go through the exhilaration, confusion, embarrassment and remorse of a night on the town when you can just stay home and watch experienced actors go through these emotions for you? Be safe, stay home and let professionals handle the partying. So here, roughly arranged from least to most moralizing, is a guide to recommended movies about the bottle. For sophisticated martini lovers craving atmosphere, The Thin Man, a 1934 adaptation of Dashielle Hammet's novel, offers all the decadent glamour and overconsumption for which Depression-era cinema is famous. Nick and Nora Charles (William Powell and Myrna Loy) are a pair of wealthy layabouts with nothing better to do than solve crimes. Between clues, the couple does practically nothing but mix drinks, swallow them, and complain of hangovers with witty dialogue and plenty of long, drawn-out "dahlings." They love each other and they love Asta, their dog. This is a film to make you feel fabulous about being a lush. Another film which broadcasts the romance of the bottle is the 1987 Barfly, a paean to the sloppy joys of skid row life. Mickey Rourke plays Henry Chinaski, a character based on Charles Bukowski, himself a famous drunk and the author of the screenplay. Chinaski drinks, fights and fucks his way through the very bottom and the very top layer of L.A. society, growling like a beatnik troll, hiding layers of wisdom and talent beneath a disgusting exterior. Barfly deserves praise for being so depressing and romantic at the same time, and for teaching us that we'd all be on skid row if Faye Dunaway were waiting there to date us. Fellini's 1963 masterpiece 8 1/2 presents perhaps the most complex view of imbibing. Marcello Mastroianni plays Guido, a film director zipping around Italy in dark glasses, dropping in on exotic parties, and, in his spare time, trying to revitalize his creative spirit. For Guido, drinking is sometimes a route to exhilaration and communion (in that warm, Italian way), and sometimes a route to alienation and pain. Life's a party, and it sucks. Especially recommended for those in mid-life crisis. Moving on to more depressing movies, there's the overwhelmingly sad 1995 Leaving Las Vegas, a tale of the doomed love between a prostitute (Elisabeth Shue) and a die-hard alcoholic (Nicolas Cage). "I am a drunk, and you're a hooker. I want you to know I am a person who is totally at ease with this," Cage says, pretty much pegging their relationship. Leaving Las Vegas features what may be the most extravagant drinking scenes on film, as Cage guzzles bottles of vodka in the car, in the shower, and underwater in a pool. Nothing pleasant happens; it's a good movie, but hard to watch. Billy Wilder's 1955 The Lost Weekend, winner of a zillion Academy Awards, is perhaps the classic, moralizing film of how drinking can screw up a life. Ray Milland plays Don Birhnam, a hopeless drunk on one last binge. Everyone loves him, he's a talented writer (why are all these drunks writers?) but he can't give up the bottle and face himself! The thirst for the big life haunts him: "Most men lead lives of quiet desperation," he says. "I can't take quiet desperation!" Wonderful, brisk, fifties-style acting and a great cast make this a melodrama everyone can love. Invite a teetotaler and sip tomato juice. Similar in theme though bleaker is Blake Edward's 1962 Days of Wine and Roses, a story of the courtship, marriage and corruption by drink of Joe and Kirsten Clay (Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick). The two start out fresh and hungry for life, but after they get a few years on them, they're simply destroyed and thirsty for another. Joe manages to claw his way back up with the help of Jack Klugman, playing a friendly AA sponsor, but Kirsten has no such luck. Of the bunch, this film would make the best Alcoholics Anonymous commercial. Finally, and saddest of all, is the 1952 Come Back, Little Sheba, based on the play by William Inge. This movie is so depressing you'll need a drink when it's over. Burt Lancaster plays Doc, a 12-stepped alcoholic who has been dry for a year but goes on a binge when a fetching new boarder reminds him of all the youth and passion he's lost forever. Shirley Booth (TV's Hazel) plays Lola, his childlike wife who can't fill the void in her empty life. Together, they form a nifty little definition of "codependence." Sheba is their dear, lost puppy who has left them--like their youth--and it doesn't look like she's ever coming back.

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