Two Cents is an original column akin to a book club for films. The Cinapse team will program films and contribute our best, most insightful, or most creative thoughts on each film using a maximum of 200 words each. Guest writers and fan comments are encouraged, as are suggestions for future entries to the column. Join us as we share our two cents on films we love, films we are curious about, and films we believe merit some discussion.
The Pick
Since their college days, the lads of the Broken Lizard comedy troupe (Jay Chandrasekhar, Kevin Heffernan, Steve Lemme, Paul Soter, and Erik Stolhanske) have made a name for themselves making likable movies that seem to take a while for people to actually like.
Super Troopers, Club Dread, and this week’s pick, Beerfest, are all solidly mainstream comedies, yet they all largely flopped on arrival, only to build sizable cult followings on home media. Maybe people just needed the freedom to imbibe the same chemicals as the characters in the movies in order to appreciate the humor.
With Beerfest, Soter and Stolhanske take the lead, starring as Jan and Todd Wolfhouse. After the passing of their beloved grandfather (Donald Sutherland), the brothers are tasked with bringing his ashes to the family resting place at the secret, underground international drinking contest known as Beerfest. After a humiliating encounter with the German team (including Will Forte, Eric Christian Olsen, and Ralf Moeller, under the leadership of Jürgen Prochnow), the Wolfhouse brothers are determined to build their own team and return in glory. They end up rallying the rest of Broken Lizard, including Heffernan’s champion eater/drinker Landfill, Lemme’s hyper-nebbish Fink, and Chandrasekhar as traumatized man-whore Barry Badrinath.
Beerfest barely broke even at the box office, but in the years since its release the film has entered the cultural lexicon with its puppet-fondlings, seemingly limitless reserve of drinking games, and Das Boots. With Broken Lizard making a triumphant return to theaters this week with the long awaited Super Troopers 2, we figured it was only fitting to pour ourselves a nice tall glass of something cold and gold, and partake in another round. — Brendan
Next Week’s Pick:
Hey True Believers, Marvel’s years-in-the-making convergence mega event Avengers: Infinity War is nearly upon us! We thought it would be fun to pick a Marvel title for Two Cents, but how to even begin to choose? The clearest mainline predecessor in Civil War? The cosmic fun of Guardians of the Galaxy or Thor: Ragnarok? An earlier favorite like Iron Man or Avengers? Left-field with Doctor Strange or Ant-Man?
For the first time in Two Cents history, our pick — is your pick. It’s a BYO2C event and we want to you to send us your two cents on a Marvel Cinematic Universe film of your choosing. Presumably your favorite, but that’s up to you. Excelsior! — Austin
Would you like to be a guest in next week’s Two Cents column? Simply watch and send your under-200-word review on any MCU film to twocents(at)cinapse.co anytime before midnight on Thursday!
The Team
I’m drunk. And I spent some time with the Lizards today, celebrating their release of Super Troopers 2. I began with Club Dread and proceeded to Beerfest. As I drank scotch and beer, and watched the comedic prowess of this crew at work, I was reminded that these are nothing more and nothing less than extremely fun and enjoyable films.
Beerfest was my favorite of their films for some time. While it’s not number one anymore (likely third behind Club Dread and Super Troopers), I can watch it over and over with getting tired of it. There are some legitimately great jokes, a ton of laugh worthy visual gags, and a generally good natured, fun atmosphere throughout.
I don’t have anything profound to say, partially because I’m writing this drunk but mostly because this isn’t a movie that’s meant for profundity. It’s a movie meant for fun… and fun it is.
Prost! (@thepaintedman)
Unlike Justin, I am not drunk while writing about Beerfest. I was drunk while watching Beerfest, certainly, which maybe explains why I had such a good time with such a shaggy and shapeless film.
Beerfest will always have a special place in my heart if only because in college me and my buddies would imitate the bit where Kevin Heffernan plays with the creepy puppet. We did this constantly, for no reason. “The bubble.” “In your face it explodes!” “It’s frustrating. It’s frustrating.” Even though college is long in the past, we still bust that out from time to time and, honest to God, it makes me giggle like a loon every time.
How is Beerfest as a movie, though? It’s fine. Way too long (this shoulda been a 90-minute romp. At just short of two full hours, Beerfest starts to really wear out its welcome) but perfectly charming in its eager-to-please smuttiness. You could argue that Beerfest was the first Broken Lizard movie to be made after they realized the cultish adulation Super Troopers grew in frat houses across America, and certain scenes and bits reek of being reverse-engineered to please that specific audience (most blatantly: the scene where Broken Lizard crashes a frat party and plays drinking games with the kids). It works, to the extent that it does, in large part because Chandrasekhar had by this point grown into a fairly confident comedy filmmaker, and the anything-goes, take-the-piss-out-of-yourself-constantly flavor of Broken Lizard’s comedy works well in the cartoon reality of secret, lethal drinking competitions. I don’t really feel a burning need to revisit Beerfest all that often, but this was a pleasant little watch. (@theTrueBrendanF)
This is the first Broken Lizard movie I’ve ever watched, and it argued a pretty compelling case for being the last.
There’s some fun to be had here, and I loved seeing Jürgen Prochnow and Ralf Möller hamming it up on the German team, even if everything else about the German representation here is indefensible.
But despite being a defender of a lot of trash movies, I just didn’t jive with the juvenile and idiotic humor that permeates this one. There are some good gags — Jay Chandrasekhar’s beer goggles, the deliberate mispronunciation of “Das Boot” (and a fun reference to that film), and the deus ex machina appearance of “Landfill II” — but for the most part the overlong Beerfest only works if you’re as inebriated as its protagonists.
Believe it or not I actually own this Blu-ray (Amazon had it for $1.75 once), so thanks to Brendan for actually getting me to pull it out and give it a watch. (@VforVashaw)
Watch it on Netflix:
https://www.netflix.com/title/70053823
Next week’s pick:
Iron Man (2008)
The Incredible Hulk (2008)
Iron Man 2 (2010)
Thor (2011)
Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)
The Avengers (2012)
Iron Man 3 (2013)
Thor: The Dark World (2013)
Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)
Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)
Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)
Ant-Man (2015)
Captain America: Civil War (2016)
Doctor Strange (2016)
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017)
Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Thor: Ragnarok (2017)
Black Panther (2018)