Wednesday, September 20, 2006
Beerfest
You could say this movie exceeded my expectations. I was expecting it to be bad and it was far worse than I could have imagined.When I worked in professional politics, I used to be amused at the concept of focus groups. Here we were, the people at the core of the democratic process, yet we were so alienated from the way normal people think that we had to go out and hire some normal people to point out the obvious to us.
I know that people in Hollywood are even more disconnected from reality than politicians and that they therefore rely heavily on focus groups. It's hard to understand, then, how a movie like Beerfest could ever have been made.
This movie is bad, bad, bad. It is Ed Wood bad without the irony. The script seems as though it must have been written by a bunch of 14 year old boys, and not even smart 14 year olds, but rather the type of 14 year olds who sit around food courts guffawing at nothing and shouting things at each other like "Hey you f**ker, get me some f**king fries!"
Don't get me wrong. I am not that much of a movie snob. I like a good goofball, no-brainer, gross-out comedy as much as the next feller. But, for heavens sake, can't they at least be creative goofball, no-brainer, gross-out comedies? Have we really sunk so far that we have to feel nostalgia for movies like Porky's or Something About Mary?
Let's get this over with, shall we.... A pair of American slacker brothers must assemble a rag-tag team of beer drinking experts to defend their family honour after being humiliated by a family of aristocratic Germans at Beerfest, a super-secret, extra-decadent off-shoot of Oktoberfest. After the premise is established in the first half hour, what ensues is 90 more minutes of every conceivable beer- or drunkenness-oriented gross-out gag conceivable, none of them funny.
The only scene I laughed at had nothing to do with beer drinking. It involved an argument amongst the Germans, who are on a mission to retrieve an ancient beer recipe from the Americans. It reminded me of the stupidity and navel-gazing of every committee meeting I've ever attended:
German partriarch: It's time to begin Operation Recipe Rescue.If you smiled at the above, then you have received for free the sum total of the entertainment value of this film.
Brother 1: Is that the name we agreed on? I thought we were going to go with Operation Steingrabber.
Brother 2: Actually, I kind of liked Beerblitz 2006.
Brother 3: But what if the mission takes longer and ends up stretching into 2007?
Brother 2: You're right. I'm good with Steingrabber.
German patriarch: This isn't a democracy. We're calling it Operation Recipe Rescue and that's all there is to it.
All Brothers: OK, sure, yeah, I'm liking it now that you say it that way.
There is a great deal of nudity in this movie, which I would normally view as a redeeming quality, but in this case the nudity is so fake and plastic that it is devoid of any erotic quality. It is, once again, the sort of nudity that only an awkward 14 year old would appreciate.
Well, as much as I'm enjoying slagging this movie, it isn't worth my time or yours. Don't see this movie, not even on video. If you want to enjoy an evening of gross-out beer humour, rent Strange Brew. If you come into possession of a copy of Beerfest, burn it.
posted by Mentok @ 8:49 AM,
3 Comments:
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At 10:30 AM,
Bathroom Hippo said...
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Finally. A buddhist and a christian agree on something. This movie sucked. -
At 10:49 PM,
Mentok said...
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I pray that Beerfest may be the start of a great entente between our two great religions.
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At 4:26 PM,
said...
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buddhists suck ass
