In the current climate you’ve gotta put the beer and bong down and make like Micheal Jackson with the mirror. If the person staring back at you resembles the former king of pop in any shape or form, you are way off course, but if it is just a scruffy stoner then, well, okay. But maybe, just maybe, it is worth thinking about the future past your next tattoo.

And if there is anything that will inspire you to get up off the sofa and go out and achieve, its someone who starts off down on their luck – a bum – but ends up on top, hopefully with a pot of cash and at least one hot chick. Modern cinema has been very good at boiling this down and can provide some important lessons to help us through modern life, while simultaneously microwaving your heart nice and toasty warm.

 

This was so hard – choosing a short list – but here goes. Some sound lessons from classic movie losers:

 

 

Imagine your a bum, a lowly hand to mouth street hustler, conning suckers out of change. Low. But then, you get arrested and before you realise it your luck changes, bails paid and all of a sudden your a business hot shot. Well that is exactly what happens to Eddie Murphy in Trading Places (1983 – 1983 fuck that is a long time ago). His character, Billy Ray Valentine, does up in the world while investor Lois Winthorpe 3rd (Dan Aykroyd) goes down. After much hilarity caused by the role reversal both realise they have been set-up based on a wager by the two old cronies who run the company, so decide to get even. By the end of the film both guys are wealthy and successful , hot chicks and the cronnies are bankrupt. The bum does good.

 

Moral: Hustlers can cut it in the board room and old men who run large companies are tight and hookers do have hearts of gold and in Jamie Lee Curtis great tits.

 

 

 

 

Sticking with the 80s theme we have Uncle Buck (1989). Buck was a stock John Candy character and seen by everyone as a fat, lazy, inept, useless and slightly stupid to begin with. Due to this his brothers wife, Cindy, doesn’t trust him to look after their three kids while she and her husband go to visit their sick dad.

 

Naturally Buck get off to a particularly bad start with the kids. But his clumsy yet caring nature wins everyone over in the end, and we realise that Uncle Buck is the kind of guy we would want as an uncle rather than a beer swilling, pot smoking, bitch slapping bum. And he kicks Tia’s boyfriends ass.

 

Moral: Even dumb fat guys can be trusted to look after kids if they crack enough jokes.

 

 

 

 

 Of course we can’t talk about rags to riches without mentioning everyones favourite  unintelligent Italian/American meat slugger – Rocky Balboa (1976 – eh! ’76 now that is a long time ago and I feel fucking old now). A man of the people, a fighter with a heart of gold and a determination of steel. Rocky didn’t always win but boy did he stick in there.

 

Fro the tough streets of Philadelphia, maligned by his father and always prro growing up, Rocky was a real workhorse who made a fearsome reputation for himself as a street fighter. He eventually turned this into a proper boxing career and made it as far as heavyweight champion of the world, taking on Lando Calrissian, Mt T, Hulk Hogan and Dolph Lundgren on the way. Rocky also managed to lose his entire fortune at lest once and convert the entire soviet nation to his way of thinking through his, er, boxing.

 

Moral: A training montage goes a long way, but never let your dumb, drunk, cigar chomping uncle look after your finances.

 

 

 

 

At the opposite end of the macho scale is Andy Stitzer (Steve Carell), the 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005), which I only recently watched. As it says on the tin, this guy is pretty much what would happen if Beavis or Butt-Head ever grew up and hasn’t ever, you know, done it.

 

His co-workers at the electronics store therefore take it upon themselves to get Andy to put the Star WArs toys down and get laid. Of course, after hilarious turns of events he ends up falling in love and all that kinda crap, so this is more of a tale of self enrichment, learning about yourself and well, getting a shag.

 

Moral: If even that guy can do it, you can too.

 

 

 

So, it may look like getting on top requires a ‘hilarious turn of events’ and movies are reflecting real life less and less, but there is one movie out there that is about a real group of people who took their futures into their own hands and managed to do something cool with it – Beautiful Losers (2008).

 

Based around a group of New York artists, including Mike Mills, Ed Templeton, Harmony Korine and Chris Johanson. Beautiful Losers, directed by Aaron Rose, lets them tell their own story. How they grew from skateboarding, surfing, punks, graffiti artists and outsiders in the 90s to having a much wider impact on the mainstream society of today. It’s pretty inspirational and has one huge underlying message, that you can do it yourself. Anybody who really believes in what they want to do, and pursues it with enough ferocity can end up making something of their art and skills. Moral: So, while you’re winding down for the summer its easy to get caught up in beer, bongs and doing fuck all – it is still ordinary people who make the most change. We just need to stand up, be counted, dig in and never give up.