The moment is here. I've been running this by our select panel of selectors, gathering clips, crunching the numbers and now it's finally time to unveil the Cokie Awards which salute the portrayals (both good and bad) of cocaine consumption achievement in film, tv and music.
It all started thinking about over-the-top scenes of coke snorting in a couple of particular instances (which are both honored below). Have you ever seen an actor, let's call him Tom Cruise, trying to smoke a cigarette and have no idea how to do it? Our marquee category, "Over The Top Snorting", is the drug version of that.
Meanwhile, once we got started on this, we couldn't stop. But enough of my yakking. Let's boogie with the winners and nominees
BEST COCAINE ACTOR - Winner: Ray Liotta
There were so many deserving candidates here that this category turned into a sort of career achievement category instead of just a performance in one particular movie or show. Which means that Leonardo DiCaprio and Bobby Cannavale were on the outside looking in. A tough omission was Matthew McCaughey who has great on-screen credentials. Sorry, Matthew - J.K.L., man.
Goodfellas, Narc
Jonah Hill
Wolf Of Wall Street, Get Him To The Greek
Sean Penn
Hurlyburly, The Falcon And The Snowman, Carlito’s Way
Mark Wahlberg
Boogie Nights, Ted
James Woods
The Boost, Casino
BEST COCAINE ACTRESS - Winner: (tie) Julianne Moore, Heather Graham
You might have thought it was going to be Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction, right? Well, just review this scene from Boogie Nights and see if you still think so. Some great bridesmaids here for the award, so much so that Penelope Cruz in Blow didn’t even get a nomination.
Boogie Nights
Drea de Matteo
The Sopranos
Sharon Stone
Casino
Uma Thurman
Pulp Fiction
Melora Walters
Magnolia
COKIEST MOVIE: Wolf Of Wall Street
Again, apologies to Blow and also to both Oliver Stone and Qunetin Tarantino. But this is rarified air. Someday the Academy will go to 10 nominations for Cokiest Movie.
Boogie Nights
True Romance
Goodfellas
Scarface
COKIEST TV SHOW - Winner: Vinyl
The Wire really wasn’t dealing with coke or even predominently crack, Breaking Bad was meth and oddly enough, Narcos isn’t what The Cokies are all about. But Vinyl sure as hell is.
Vinyl
Miami Vice
The Sopranos
Twin Peaks
It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia
BEST COKEHEAD CHATTER - Winner: In Bruges
You know what we’re talking about: lots of rapid dialog about how "we should hang out more often", "we should write a screenplay", "we should redecorate this room" or "can we get more coke?" (This Amber/Rollergirl scene already won a Cokie above, so we’re disqualifying it here)
Behind The Candelabra
Kill Bill, Vol. 2
The Sopranos
Superbad
BEST DRUG PURCHASE GONE WRONG - Winner: Boogie Nights
Really close competition but gun to my head �"
Blow
King Of New York
Scarface
True Romance
BEST COP DIPS PINKIE TO TEST IF POWDER IS COKE - Winner: Goodfellas
For a deeper dive into the subject, some great extra reading on this at TV Tropes. I hit a wall gathering video for the awards when I was zipping through A-Team episodes looking for a clip.
Mitchell
Tango & Cash
Trading Places
True Detective
BEST SONG ABOUT COCAINE - Winner: Grandmaster Melle Mel
Feel free to deep dive into more music with the Spotify playlist below the award here.
White Lines (Don’t Don’t Do It)
Jackson Browne
Cocaine
Johnny Cash
Cocaine Blues
Eric Clapton
Cocaine
The Weeknd
Can't Feel My Face
BEST COMEDY SKETCH - Winner: Documentary Now
We apologize for not being able to embed a great one from SNL, "Mitchell’s Fake Cocaine" ad and also "Man vs. Wild vs. Cocaine" from Nick Swardson’s Pretend Time. As for the winning Documentary Now bit here, it could have also won Best Song.
I Did A Little Cocaine Tonight
The Characters
Paul Downs episode
Chappelle Show
Charlie Murphy's True Hollywood Stories: Rick James
Saturday Night Live
Digital Short "Great Day"
Kids In The Hall
Cocaine
BEST COMEDY SCENE (Accidental) - Winner: Annie Hall
If you were playing Password and somebody said "Cocaine, accident, movie" you’ll come up with Woody Allen sneezing. It really stinks that the True Romance scene couldn’t also walk away with this award.
Corky Romano
Horrible Bosses
Modern Times
True Romance
BEST COMEDY SCENE (Intentional) - Winner: Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story
BEST OVER-THE-TOP REACTION TO SNORTING COCAINE - Winner: Vinyl
And finally, the ultimate Cokie award has to go to Richie Finestra (Bobby Cannavale) in Vinyl. Too many great candidates to just list five; these great clips are listed as links here since they require YouTube age proof to watch, so that bumped out these two deserving nominees: American Psycho and Lord Of War
