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Hair Of The Dog: Best Things To Watch With A Hangover

Happy New Year, dear Backlot readers! I hope everyone's 2014 has gotten off to a great start and that you all rang in the new year with an appropriate level of celebration. Of course if you're like me you clearly overdid it and, while I am blessedly immune to hangovers myself, I imagine there may be some throbbing heads and bleary eyes among you. For those suffering few, let me offer up some suggestions of movies and TV that, while perhaps not curing what ails you, will at least remind you that you're not suffering alone. So grab a bag of frozen peas from the kitchen, mix yourself up a prairie oyster in your toothpaste glass and check out a few of these.

The Lost Weekend

Ray Milland plays Don Birnam, an alcoholic author struggling to overcome his crippling alcohol-induced writer's block. The film follows Don through a four day weekend desperately trying to keep himself supplied with liquor. Along the way he suffers from detox, hallucinates bats and gets read for filth by a nasty gay nurse called Bim. Fun fact, in the original novel Don's alcoholism was not because of writer's block but because of Don's severe daddy issues and latent homosexuality.

Roseanne: "One For the Road"

Remember Last Night?

Directed by the openly gay James Whale in 1935, Remember Last Night? follows socialites Tony and Carlotta Milburn through a riotous celebration of their six-month anniversary. There's drunken debauchery and some really unfortunate racist humor (a blackface musical number) along with a half-assed naval battle (really) that culminates in the discovery the next morning of a corpse. Except everyone at the party was so drunk that none of them can remember a thing. Although distinctly of its time, Remember Last Night? is a fun, if slight, film, largely forgotten along with much of the rest of Whale's filmography outside his four horror classics.

Designing Women: "Payne Grows Up"

Desiging WomenJulia Sugarbaker, depressed that her son Payne is graduating college and getting married, imbibes a few too many at his wedding reception and sings "Sweet Georgia Brown" from atop a table before passing out. The next morning she's horrified at the thought that she may have slept with Payne's hot roommate. It was always a treat when the late great Dixie Carter got the chance to sing on the show, something she negotiated in exchange for delivering Julia's trademark liberal rants.

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Arthur

No list of drunken holiday viewing could be complete without Arthur. Dudley Moore is perfectly cast as rich drunk jackass Arthur Bach, stumbling across the screen slurring one-liners rapid fire. Liza Minnelli is surprisingly convincing as his love interest and Jill Eikenberry turns up in an early role, a few years before her breakout role in L.A. Law. But the star turn comes from the openly gay Sir John Gielgud as Arthur's man Hobson. He's brittle and arch yet surprisingly warm and his delivery of such withering putdowns as "Perhaps you'd like for me to come in there and wash your dick for you, you little shit" made him a personal hero.

I do hope, dear Backlot readers, that some of these suggestions have helped ease your pain. Please offer some of your own, or your favorite hangover cures, in the comments!

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