Movie Night: The Last Unicorn

Welcome to this week’s edition of Movie Night, where we choose a movie based on any number of variables and feelings, create a themed menu to match, then spend hours eating these foods and watching these movies!

We’re sticking with the unicorn theme tonight, via UNICORN PLAN-IT’s world premiere August 1! UNICORN PLAN-IT, if you’ve been spelunking for the past few weeks, is Autostraddle’s very first and only scripted, original webseries starring Sarah Croce, Ashley Reed and Haviland Stillwell! It’s more or less one of the top five reasons these talented women were put on Earth, probably. UNICORN PLAN-IT is going to be all anyone’s talking about for the next thirty years.

So we were thinking, How can we celebrate the premiere of UNICORN PLAN-IT a day early? And the obvious answer was this post. Happy unicorning!

THE MOVIE
The Last Unicorn

[ buy me ]

Plot Summary, from IMDB.com:

“From a riddle-speaking butterfly, a unicorn learns that she is supposedly the last of her kind, all the others having been herded away by the Red Bull. The unicorn sets out to discover the truth behind the butterfly’s words. She is eventually joined on her quest by Schmendrick, a second-rate magician, and Molly Grue, a now middle-aged woman who dreamed all her life of seeing a unicorn. Their journey leads them far from home, all the way to the castle of King Haggard…”

Rachel:The Last Unicorn is the best movie EVER MADE except possibly for Disney’s Robin Hood, at least according to my eight-year-old self. It’s also really scary? I would like to say I bet that wouldn’t be true if I watched it again right now, but I am not sure I can say that with confidence. It has everything you could ever want! Talking animals! Magic! Butterflies! A hapless wizard! A sass-talking maid! A winsome lass! A douchebag skeleton! A completely unnecessary and sort of annoying male romantic lead, like Prince Charming in Sleeping Beauty (who was only even in like one scene as I recall.)

No matter who you are, or where you come from in life, I refuse to give up my hope that watching a movie about SAVING THE UNICORNS and one unicorn in particular who is also a really pretty girl for some reason from an EVIL RED MONSTER and also a creepy old man will warm your heart and make the world a better place.

“I am no longer like the others, for no unicorn was ever born who could regret, but now I do. I regret.”
– Unicorn

THE MENU
Vegan Ramos Gin Fizz
Girl Scout Mint Cookie
Vodka Vodka Tonic
+

Vegan Ramos Gin Fizz

by Rachel

I fucking loved The Last Unicorn like no one else has ever loved it, no matter what the rest of these assholes say, so I made an awesome drink. It is a veganized version of a Ramos Gin Fizz, and it is fucking delicious. Granted, I was missing key ingredients and am also vegan so items like “cream” and “egg white” were going to be tricky to work out, but you know what? It’s fucking worth it to SAVE THE UNICORNS. Also, the result is white and foamy and creamy, which depending on whether you have watched The Real L Word or The Last Unicorn more recently, will either remind you of sperm or MAGIC.

Based on a bastardization of ‘real’ recipes and the advice of my awesome and cocktail-obsessed housemate Michael, here is the recipe I came up with:

Ingredients
2 oz. gin
1 tbs. confectioner’s sugar
1 oz “cream” (I used soymilk, I think I would have used almond milk instead had I had it)
1/2 oz fresh lemon juice
1/2 oz fresh lime juice
4 dashes Fee’s orange bitters (OKAY so this is supposed to be like 1 tbsp orange blossom water but who has that?)
1 oz soda water

Put all ingredients except soda water inside cocktail shaker, and shake for some insane length of time (based on the various recipes I looked at, this could be anywhere from 38 shakes to TWELVE MINUTES) and then pour out into glass. Pour in the soda water and watch the fizz happen. Garnish with lime if you’re fancy. (I’m fancy, duh.)

“She will remember your heart when men are fairy tales in books written by rabbits. Of all unicorns, she is the only one who knows what regret is – and love.”
– Schmendrick

Girl Scout Mint Cookie

by Sarah Croce

Ingredients
Vanilla vodka
Creme de menthe (green)
Creme de cocoa
Touch of vanilla coffee mate

Shake it in a shaker with ice. Decorate a martini glass with chocolate syrup and pour the drink in.

Nighty nighty. With another lady….

“I’m always dreaming, even when I’m awake; it is never finished.”
– Amalthea

Vodka Vodka Tonic

by Riese

Ingredients
2 parts vodka
1 part tonic

Pour vodka into your glass as if you were pouring tonic into your glass. Pour tonic into your glass as if it were vodka and you have a sensitive stomach. If someone asks why there is so much vodka in your tonic, say “tonic is too sweet.”

Ta-da!

Share any unicorn or animation-related recipes / memories / favorite feelings in the comments!

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Rachel

Originally from Boston, MA, Rachel now lives in the Midwest. Topics dear to her heart include bisexuality, The X-Files and tacos. Her favorite Ciara video is probably "Ride," but if you're only going to watch one, she recommends "Like A Boy." You can follow her on twitter and instagram.

Rachel has written 1142 articles for us.

33 Comments

  1. you know every time I watch the last unicorn, my friend and I always crack up. just try watching it and every time you hear or see the red bull…think about a can of red bull XD

  2. For non-imbibers I recommend watching The Last Unicorn while stoned. Makes a lot more sense that way, really.

    Not that I know this from experience or anything…

  3. Ummm this is my new favorite thing that has ever been on Autostraddle. Put up your dukes Rachel, I’ll fight you for number one Last Unicorn fandom. Well actually I’d rather just drink gin and quote lines like “UUUNICOOORN” and “Your name is a golden bell hung in my heart” and “Why have you come to me now? When I am THIS?!”

    Also I own this wonderful movie and can attest that it is still scary/sad/dark/full of so many layers! The novel is great too! The weird stage version I saw with contortionists and interpretive dances, not so much.

  4. Oh my God. I am nearly in tears. I grew up with this movie and watched it over and over again; no one else I know loves it like I do. I was totally in love with the unicorn, which is NOT weird because she is a woman for like half of the movie. I used to tear up like clockwork at various points in the movie: like when Molly realizes she is finally seeing a unicorn, but is no longer young and innocent; or when Schmendrick changes the unicorn into a human and she realizes she is mortal; or when she starts to forget that she was ever a unicorn and they sing that really cheesy song. Ahhh amazing.

    This totally cements Autostraddle’s unbelievable awesomeness for me, by the way.

  5. i totally thought i was the only one who knew about this movie. I have no idea how i acquired it but remember watching it as a child and being simultaneously frightened and mesmerized…

  6. Riese’s drink is perfect for when you’re already too drunk to remember the other recipes!

  7. I remember watching this when I was younger and being so annoyed with the prince for killing a dragon. I was like, really? You can’t just tell her how you feel? You have to prove your love by murdering something?
    Almalthea would have been better off with Molly than prince charming.

  8. God I love this movie. And I love drinking.
    What I’m trying to say is this might be my favorite Autostraddle post ever. <3

  9. OH MY GOD THIS IS THE BEST MOVIE EVER!!!!!!!
    You have no idea how happy this post made me : )

  10. Oh god, I love this movie, but it is also SO SAD. I watched it again recently, and it still holds up. The bull and skeleton were still pretty scary, imo. Although the narrator butterfly also really gave me the creeps, too.

    Also, I love the entire soundtrack by America! Part of what makes the movie. And does anyone remember how they were going to make a live action version? I’m glad that didn’t happen.

  11. A friend gave me this film when I was 4. After wearing out the VHS tape and growing up, I bought the DVD.

    Did you know that they censor the 2-3 instances of the word “damn” in the pre-25th ed. DVD version? Their mouths are moving, but no one is talking! I feel like the packaging lied to me somehow because it just doesn’t feel authentic without Prince Lír swearing during his bad poem.

  12. This gives me so many feelings!
    I got this movie every. single. time we went to the video store when I was a kid. I wonder in retrospect why my parents didn’t just buy the tape , but thinking about it, they probably knew I’d watch it on repeat until puberty.
    Jokes on you, parents- I bought it on DVD and now no one can stop me watching it!!!
    Still makes me cry. The red bull is still fucking scary.

  13. i remember replaying my VHS of this movie so many times when i was a kid. i had the biggest crush on the unicorn, and i was always a little put out that she settled for prince lir when she clearly deserved better. (five-year-old me was pretty sure that i’d be better for her than anyone else. and so it began…)

  14. Taa daaaaa. I could use a drink to distract me from the riduculous amounts of reading I have to do, darn you law school.

  15. Between Riese’s Vodka Vodka Tonic, and Laneia’s Doritos Casserole, I think you guys could write an Autostraddle Cookbook that would give the My-Drunk-Kitchen girl a run for her money… #iwouldbuyit

  16. one time riese made me a vodka vodka tonic by pouring the tonic first and then “guestimating” the vodka. i think she ended up drinking it too.

  17. up until age 11 (AHEM…..21) this was my fave movie in the world ever ever ever.
    i know one other person who has seen it, i never knew it was actually well known! this makes me very happy =]
    also, ‘vodka vodka tonic’ reminds me of a drink i like, known as ‘tequila with a tequila chaser’, its very good.

  18. is anyone old enough/dorky enough to remember a movie that came out around the same time: Flight of Dragons?

  19. I love this movie to the point that I have been contemplating tattooing the unicorn on my body for 2 years now. As a bisexual girl that doesn’t rock a very alternative lifestyle hair cut, I really identify with the fact that most people can’t see a real unicorn.

  20. So when I was little, my dad was a middle school geography teacher, and because all teachers have a stash of movies for when Life Is Too Damn Hard, I would sit in his office and watch movies all day. I got (get) sick a lot and my parents could never stay home with me, and my dad could kinda justify having a five year old around a school than my mother could having one hanging around an office building in the county courthouse, so I spent a lot of time during my formative years at Congress Middle School.

    ANYWAY NOW THAT YOU KNOW MY LIFE STORY

    I remember watching this movie and being amazed and wanting to be a unicorn and a wizard and magic, and now that I think about it, I still have these feelings. I also still remember the theme song: “The LLLaaAAAAAAaasssst UUUUUUUniCooOoOoRnnn”

  21. I might have the soundtrack on my ipod…aaaannnd my high school yearbook quote might be one from this movie. I’m pretty cool.

  22. your website = gold.

    agree bigtime with someone probs.

    water+grease+more fluid+a run/sport.

    also riese vodka/vodka/tonic=ingenious. love it as a 4th year sporting socialist drinker.

    gin/gin/tonic or whiskey/whiskey/soda/lime also ftw!

  23. OMG favorite childhood movie right here. whoever did the animation was on acid. I mean really, that scene with schmendrick and the tree?

    not queer in the sexual sense but totes queer in the theoretical sense.

  24. O m g Im always on this website and I never comment and even though this was posted a while ago I need to say that the last unicorn IS most defenitly the best movie ever made!!!! I have it on DVD and watch it like once a month, what.

  25. I’m pretty sure I’m the biggest fan. I watch the movie like every night and I seem to the only one here who’s read the book.

    I’m friends with the author/script writer on facebook, I own the graphic novel, the book, the sequel, and I’m getting the perfume soon.

    and don’t ever say Lir is unnecessary. He’s a bamf and adorkable.

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