Alcoholic

I sometimes have to stretch things a little to work my love of movies (especially sci-fi) into an addiction and recovery themed blog, but this is not the case at all with what may be the blockbuster to beat this summer, Ironman.

Robert Downey Jr. plays the iron clad superhero of Marvel Comics fame and Jeff Bridges, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Terrence Howard play supporting roles… all seemed exceptionally cast for their specific roles. This is especially true in Mr. Downey’s case, as a real life recovering alcoholic/addict he can draw upon personal experience when relating to Ironman’s Achilles’ heel, alcoholism. This of course is the reason this movie has been on my radar since its inception.

The movie keeps things simple which is a good thing considered it was spawned from a comic book, however it makes it almost impossible to tell much about the story without spoiling the entire movie. Here is your 10 second synopsis: Man builds super cool combat armor. Man waxes floor with terrorists. Betrayal. Bad guy armors up and almost prevails. Super cool armor and changed man inside triumph.

There really is not much else to the story, but the characters are believable and developed in an extremely small amount of time. The special effects are so good that you don’t even realize that they are there. It’s fast, fun, and even though it is chocked full of partisan topics including the government, arms dealers, and terrorism- the film stays refreshingly apolitical.

One of the first frames of the movie is a close up of a glass of scotch and throughout the movie it becomes obvious that Tony Stark, Ironman’s inventor and public persona, is a hard drinker but this does not become a large part of the story. (See 1979 "Demon in a Bottle" comic book edition of Iron Man to the left)

Click "Read more" to continue...

From time to time I send TDA interesting things regarding alcohol. I must admit as a recovering alcoholic myself, I have a morbid curiosity for celebrity missteps that involve alcohol and/or drugs. I guess it’s just a way to make myself feel better and say look – here’s someone who has or had such a cool life and they are just as screwed up as me.

Today I was actually looking at mug shots of the famous and infamous who have gotten in trouble with the law when I came across the recent story of Megan Harper. Megan is not a super celebrity of the Lindsay, Britney, or Nicole variety but she no less ranks as an equal in her “accomplishment” of a .55 BAC at the time of her DUI arrest. Her small claim to fame before this event was as a “music video vixen” of the Tawny Kitaen variety (see video below after page break).

When I originally sent the info over to TDA, he suggested I just write a story about it myself. I made several snarky and cute remarks about her video, her good looks, and how she missed her calling in a Sammy Hagar video (see above story title). But after I accepted the challenge of doing the story and I thought about what I was going to write about – it just wasn’t funny. The more I think about. It’s not funny at all.

Click "Read more" to continue story...