Barfly

Synopsis: Henry Chinaski never cared for the American dream, the thought of needing to become 'something' and fit into the system disgusts him. He believes that life is free and yours to live like you see fit, and if that in some cases involves copious amounts of whiskey then so be it. Henry spends his days drinking and listening to the radio, and he spends his nights drinking and fighting against Eddy who he thinks personifies shallowness and shameless self promoting. Sometimes in the middle of this he finds the time to jot down a few lines of poetry or a short story. After fighting Eddy and winning for a change Henry is thrown out of his regular bar where Eddy is a bartender. This leads him to seek another watering hole where he happens to find Wanda who is a barfly, in her own words "if another man came along with a fifth of whiskey, I'd go with him". Henry is not fazed by this thou and moves in with her. Of course Wanda immediately goes off and sleeps with Eddy, but after some clothes throwi
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Director(s): Barbet Schroeder
Production: Cannon Releasing
  Nominated for 1 Golden Globe. Another 3 nominations.
 
IMDB:
7.3
Metacritic:
70
Rotten Tomatoes:
74%
R
Year:
1987
100 min
1,883 Views


What you gotta do is beg for little mercy.

Begging you would be like

swallowing penis for eternity!

Come on, give it up!

Got it.

Come on, Eddie!

You're gonna need a priest.

And when your mommy's crying at the funeral

I'm gonna goose her with a turkey neck!

Yeah, baby...

Oh, sh*t!

Oh, hey is that the best you can do?

You better phone for help.

Get him, Eddie!

Come on Eddie, hit him.

Hurt him real bad.

Scumbag, f*ggot.

Stop it Eddie!

Leave something for the garbage man.

I hate that cheap punk. What da f***

he thinks he's coming from?

You ripped him real bad this time, Eddie.

Nothing left of him.

It's the third time. You'd think the son of a b*tch

would have learned by now to stop trying me.

Oh, wow, You're a genuine man.

Come on, Eddie. Lemme buy you a drink!

Come on!

Hey, we ca-can't just leave

him laying out there.

He might be dying out there.

He hates help. Piss on you, if he could.

F*** him.

That guy's been gone for some time.

He was K.O.-ed last night. He might

be a few steps slow. He'll be back.

I am starving.

You want me to close the place?

I say he's ok.

What's ok about him?

He's like a wet rat in the rain.

Rat without any teeth.

Red hell. He refuses to join their outrage.

He drinks and he waits.

I hope he doesn't wait for that

sandwich to deliver itself.

Now look! 20 bucks for that kind

of head is outrageous.

I did you good, old fart.

I did you good.

I picked your champaigne cork off.

I'm giving you 15 bucks.

20 bucks!

Nobody in this neighbourhood can

swallow paste like I can.

Oh, sh*t.

Oh, beautiful. Uhuu.

Look what the cat dragged in...

Good to see ya Henry.

Yeah, good to see you walk in here.

Hey, all of a sudden I'm so popular.

Maybe I gotta run for city council.

Aah, keep the change.

All of it?

Yeah, go ahead have all.

What do you drink?

Almost everything.

Give him a scotch and water.

Who the hell invented the sandwich?

They ought to write a book about him.

Henry, you've got to stop fighting Eddie.

? You have no ? reason, that's

why you lose every fight.

I can whip him without a reason,

because I've got the guts.

Hey, I've got the guts.

But the guts need fuel.

Eeh, what the hell?

Hmm, ham.

It's ham with mustard and radish.

He's a goddamn rat-thief.

That wasn't right

I've oughtta cream you good!

All I need is a litte fuel,

that's all I need to be better.

You're outta line there, Henry! You just

can't swoop down on a man's food like that.

He's like a goddamned seagull!!

Here's for the drinks.

We can't eat in here, it's disgusting.

Have a nice day guys. hahaha.

Henry, you want to go to your room

and lay down for a few hours.

Frankly, I'm sick of looking of your face.

Have a drink Jim.

Come on, on the cuff, one on the house.

I think the last time you've ever

paid for a drink is the first time.

Jim.

- See you tonight, over here?

- See you tonight.

I don't see what you see in that guy.

He's as right as any of us.

I've got to have the money tomorrow morning by 9 o'clock or I'll be thrown

out of my room and you're gonna be in trouble and I'm gonna be in trouble.

And we're both gonna be in trouble.

You understand that?

Fuel.

Some people never go crazy.

What truly horrible lifes they must live.

You're listening to the Southern California

Gas Company afternoon concert.

We've just heard the Poem of Ecstasy

by Alexander Scriabin.

We continue now with the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

His Disuldante Jubilante.

oh, sh*t.

ohh, sh*t.

come on.

Young man like you, drunk every day at noon.

Get yourself a job!

- I have one.

- Oh, Really?

Yeah, killing the cockroaches

in that place of yours.

Son of a b*tch. Kiss my tuck ass.

Hey.

What's new?

Grandma Mo is in the back with Jack.

That's what's new.

Hey boy! Fetch me a draft.

Some guys really know how to get the women.

You don't know how?

Eh, I can get one for ten minutes.

That's my limit.

Hey.

How come you're so f***ed up?

Hey you! You with the filthy apron.

Be back in seconds.

I hear a voice down there,

but sure as hell don't see much.

Seems like that beatin' I gave you last

night must have rattled your bells, huh?

I remember ordering a draft, barkeep. What, are you

outta brew, or is that lobotomy finally takin' hold?

I'm gonna drive your head through that

f***in' wall tonight, you f*ggot.

I pulled my punches on you last night, but no more.

Yeah, it's definitely him, all right.

So what you wanna do?

Well, I'm not sure that you wanna come down here right now.

What the f*** do you want tonight?!

You're lookin' at a new man, my boy.

I've got a full tank of fuel.

You've got to pay for that goddamned beer.

Eddie, come close, I want to tell you something.

- Come here, I want you to hear it good.

- Hear what?

Your mother's c*nt stinks like carpet cleaner.

That's it, f***! Come on!

F*** you!!

I've seen enough of these fights.

My god, there's nothin' left of it.

She's like a vacuum cleaner.

20 bucks, Jack.

All right, I'm giving 3 to 1 odds. I'll have

this fag lickin' my balls inside of 5 minutes.

You want? How about you?

How 'bout you?

- How about you?

- Yeah, I'll take 10 bucks for that.

You're on.

Hey Jim, maybe I can't.

Your life is just a points of can'ts.

You can't work, you can't f*** and you can't fight.

- I'm still putting up ten in taken 3 to 1.

- You're on it.

- You cover for Eddie?

- Absolutely.

I'd like to get ahold of your ten.

I'd hate to be you if I we're me.

What holds you up, motherf***er?

You usually fall by now.

- OK, Eddie.

- What's ok, you f***ing romie. What's ok?

- You've got him?

- Got him.

Oh, man.

Ten, twenty,...

Oh, Eddie. Eddie, what that bastard did you?

F***ing almost killed me.

Hey, man. Give me a draft.

No, no.

I'm sorry man, I can't serve you.

Yo, Henry.

Look Henry, take this. Eddie wailed through

his blood, but he paid up.

Come on, take it. You've earned your

collar, all I did was watch.

Ey, I can't take the money, Jim.

Suppose I'd lost.

You buy alot of drinks for this, slugger.

As you put it that way, I'll take

a couple of scotch and waters.

You should take some more.

Hey, what do you think I am? A bum?

- Thanks Jim. - You've been not eating anything for a while.

It might turn to something dangerous.

Hey. Give me a beer.

- Christ, who's that one?

- Who?

That woman. She looks like a kind

of distressed goddess.

- Oh, Wanda

- Wanda?

Hey tell me man. This Wanda she

looks pretty good.

- How come nobody sits next to her?

- She's crazy.

Crazy? Oh.

I can't stand people.

- I hate them.

- Oh, yeah?

You hate them?

No, but I seem to feel better

when they're not around.

Hey barkeep. Two scotch and waters.

May I ask you the same damn think,

people are always asking me?

Like?

Like what do you do?

I drink.

- That's it.

- That's what?

I'm broke. Can't buy another drink.

You mean, you don't have any money?

No money. No job. No rent.

Hey, I'm back to normal.

Come with me.

No, I'll have a couple of packs

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Charles Bukowski

Henry Charles Bukowski (born Heinrich Karl Bukowski; August 16, 1920 – March 9, 1994) was a German-born American poet, novelist, and short story writer. His writing was influenced by the social, cultural, and economic ambience of his home city of Los Angeles. His work addresses the ordinary lives of poor Americans, the act of writing, alcohol, relationships with women, and the drudgery of work. Bukowski wrote thousands of poems, hundreds of short stories and six novels, eventually publishing over 60 books. The FBI kept a file on him as a result of his column, Notes of a Dirty Old Man, in the LA underground newspaper Open City.Bukowski published extensively in small literary magazines and with small presses beginning in the early 1940s and continuing on through the early 1990s. As noted by one reviewer, "Bukowski continued to be, thanks to his antics and deliberate clownish performances, the king of the underground and the epitome of the littles in the ensuing decades, stressing his loyalty to those small press editors who had first championed his work and consolidating his presence in new ventures such as the New York Quarterly, Chiron Review, or Slipstream." Some of these works include his Poems Written Before Jumping Out of an 8 Story Window, published by his friend and fellow poet Charles Potts, and better known works such as Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame. These poems and stories were later republished by John Martin's Black Sparrow Press (now HarperCollins/Ecco Press) as collected volumes of his work. In 1986 Time called Bukowski a "laureate of American lowlife". Regarding Bukowski's enduring popular appeal, Adam Kirsch of The New Yorker wrote, "the secret of Bukowski's appeal. . . [is that] he combines the confessional poet's promise of intimacy with the larger-than-life aplomb of a pulp-fiction hero."Since his death in 1994, Bukowski has been the subject of a number of critical articles and books about both his life and writings, despite his work having received relatively little attention from academic critics during his lifetime. more…

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    "Barfly" Scripts.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 25 Dec. 2024. <https://www.scripts.com/script/barfly_3619>.

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