Happy Holidays, everyone! Christmas is here, and we here at For Your Inebriation couldn't be more excited. We love a good Christmas movie as much as the next guy. But you know what we love just as much?

Random senseless violence.

That's right, our Holiday drinking games are going to involve the baddest, bloodiest movies that have ever graced the winter season (without going into campy territory. Nobody wants to play a drinking game to "Jack Frost", right?). We begin with a game for our favorite "Christmas" movie: In Bruges. The story of two hitmen who get sent on holiday by their potty-mouthed boss after an assasination gone awry, to the most magical town in all of Belgium. 

Never seen this movie? Experience the wonder and delight in Martin McDonagh's tight, beautiful story of guilt, friendship, and the beliefs people are willing to die for. All in fucking Bruges.

Is it just me, or has the action genre been a little weird this past decade or so? Maybe it has to do with the rise of CGI in feature length films, or maybe it's just as simple as a change in the aesthetics movie-goers look for when they see a film, but action lately movies have lacked punch. They feel the need to over explain, to drive exposition into the ground, dragging down the pace of the movie at the same time. Even Transformers, one of the highest grossing action movies ever, is bogged down by tedious dialogue-driven scenes; the movie doesn't get going until it's nearly over. 

It's not that Looper doesn't do this, but that it threads its exposition and "character driven" scenes pretty well together with the guns and blood. It delivers its plot to the audience at breakneck speed, and only gives you just enough downtime to catch up with it...mostly.

I guess what I'm saying is what makes it a successful movie, and makes our drinking game successful as well, is Bruce Willis and Young Bruce Willis (I mean, Joseph Gordon-Levitt). What bogs it down is...everything else. 

Happy almost Halloween, everyone! It's that time of year, where people like to indulge in pumpkin spice lattes, apple picking, and watching spooooky movies. So we decided to give you a couple of spoooky drinking games to try on for size.

Or at least that was the idea, but then this 80's classic caught our eye. "Teen Wolf" has received a resurgance in popularity since the television adaptation, which is now in its third season, hit the airwaves. I can't speak for the quality of the TV show; I've never seen it (I know, for shame), but I'm not sure it can top this cult hit. This movie taught us that you should always stay true to yourself, because people will accept you...as long as you're good at organized sports. And if you get turned down constantly by the pretty popular girl, don't worry! Your childhood friend is there as a back-up. And make sure to avoid dangerous stunts unless you have the strength that only the full moon can bring you.

Yeah. This is a weird one. How did it slip past my radar for this long?

This is one of the most difficult drinking games I have made to date.

The rules are pretty standard. The game is difficult because in order to enjoy this movie, you have to pay close attention to EVERYthing said.

Memento launched Christopher Nolan's career, and as a first major hit, it's fantastic. Its  compelling story, small but mighty main cast, tight plotting and all around sense of creepy make it an incredible piece of film. However, all of the elements that make it a wonderful movie make it a...challenging film to drink to. By the time you get to the end, you might not remember enough to be shocked by the thrilling twists and turns the film throws at you.

While this does put you in good company with our hero, it's not company you should share on a first viewing. This game is a brain teaser, as well as a timed relay. How far can you get into the movie playing this game before it stops making sense?

Creating these games can be harder than one might realize.

I've been experimenting with the structure of these games over the past few weeks, with middling results on average. In getting more creative with how the games are set up, it might make for a more interesting night in certain circumstances, but it doesn't necessarily fulfill the requirements for a good drinking game. A good drinking game should get you drunk. That's really the only criteria.

With the Little Miss Sunshine game, I went back to basics in a sense. I looked at this perfectly constructed movie, at what made it great, and at what defined it as a piece of film. The resulting game is proof that, when it comes to creating drinking games, it's best to follow one rule: keep it simple, stupid.

I thought this was the first indie movie we were making a game for at For Your Inebriation, until the Disco Sheriff pointed out to me that The Passion of the Christ was independently produced. However, in that case, nobody besides Gibson wanted to touch it with a ten-foot pole. This is a little different.

When we think of indie movies now, we don't just think of movies that are independently produced. We think of a style of filmmaking: lower budget, stranger situations, off-beat humor, alternative or punk music playing in the background. The word "Indie" has been reappropriated, and whether that's right or wrong, it's spawned a lot of big-budget imitators who are looking to cash in on trends.

This movie isn't one of those. But it has a distinctive, off-beat flavor to it that makes it both very interesting as a piece of film and very difficult to make a game for. Not to mention it's not even two hours long.

How exactly did we pull this off? In my opinion, with panache.

Now might be a good time to reiterate the purpose of this blog.

I love movies, and I love television. More than that, I love exploring the medium, finding similarities throughout different genres, making connections between different types of stories. I have always considered this blog a film review site seen through the LENS of drinking games. The games are important, but the movies are the focus.

That being said, somehow, some way, this movie ended up on my list, and against all odds I picked it out of my magic hat. Now, I remember being very young when this movie came out, and knowing nothing about it except that people could NOT stop talking about it. If you were an adult and you had not seen this movie, you weren't worth talking to about films at all. I've heard several people who were grown at the time praise it as a worthwhile piece of cinema. I know very few people who ENJOYED watching it.

I almost chickened out. Making a drinking game for "The Passion of the Christ"? No. No way. Who would want that? Certainly not me. Nobody's going to want to play it with me. And it's not in very good taste. And what if nobody reads the article? Isn't that the point?

And then I thought, what the hell. At least it'll make a great story. That's what's important.

And by God, it did.