Beerfest - the new Broken Lizard movie

[grand theft sparrow]

I've been waiting for the one great comedy that comes out every summer.  Beerfest is it.  I can honestly say I haven't laughed this hard in several years.  Any other movie I've said that about (Anchorman, Shaun of the Dead, etc.)... fuck it.  THIS is the funniest movie I've seen since maybe Lebowski.  Ten minutes after we left the theatre, we were still laughing hysterically at it.  It's destined for classic status.  My girlfriend and a friend of mine both called people they knew raving about it as did a couple of other people in our theatre.  So if it tanks in theatres, it's definitely going to do massive business on DVD. 

[grand theft sparrow]

Trust me, this isn't some dumbshit, Rob Schneider, Wayans Brothers, Meet the Fockers, lowest common denominator shit.  I wouldn't be posting on xixax that it's the hardest I've laughed in years if it was.  This has a few of those cliches you're thinking the movie is packed with (sex with a fat chick, testicular trauma, dirty old ladies, Americans doing exaggerated European accents, etc) but it doesn't rely on those things for even a tenth of the movie.  The Broken Lizard guys are funnier than to rely on cheap, reused gags for very long.  I mean you have to really hand it to a comedy that has a Jewish character facing off against Germans and there's NO Nazi jokes to speak of. 

[elpablo]

Everyone go see this.

Not because I saw it and thought it was good. Because I want to hear more about it. Broken Lizard has Super Troopers, which is hilarious, and Club Dread, which is shit. The trailer makes it look like a stupid cliche ridden brofest, so I've been leaning towards the club dread extreme. I'm want to hear more. So everyone go see this and tell me if it's worth my time.

[Brazoliange]

super troopers was dumb =p I see no reason (especially judging by the trailer) that this would be better

[matt35mm]

Super Troopers, which is hilarious, and Club Dread, which is shit.

I feel almost exactly the opposite of what you feel.  Almost, because I don't think that Super Troopers is shit, per se, but I didn't think it was all that funny.  Club Dread is hilarious to me though.  And had better nudity.

[grand theft sparrow]

I feel secure enough now to vocalize my suspicion that Garam and Brazoliange are the same person.  I've suspected this for a while.

Club Dread is hilarious to me though.  And had better nudity.

For what it's worth, there's about as much nudity in Beerfest as in Club Dread.

And I got a trailer for The Fountain before the movie.

Broken Lizard has Super Troopers, which is hilarious, and Club Dread, which is shit...  I'm want to hear more.

I'm sure it's possible but I can't imagine someone liking Super Troopers but not Beerfest.  In fact, someone I was with didn't like Super Troopers and she still enjoyed it.  And neither I nor any of my friends are the frat boy sort.

[MacGuffin]

Broken Lizard on Greek Road
Beerfest creators discuss new comedy project.

A little over a year ago, IGN FilmForce inquired with Jay Chandrasekhar (member of the Broken Lizard comedy troupe and director of The Dukes of Hazard) about the future of Broken Lizard. "I think we're going to make a movie called The Greek Road," he said. "It's set in ancient Greece. Kevin [Heffernan] play Plato, a freshman wrestling recruit at Athens University. He's supposed to wrestle for them in the Olympics but he's failing his philosophy class, Basic Thought. So... they hire Socrates [Steve Lemme] as his tutor. But he ends up cheating and the two take a road trip to Mt. Olympus so that Plato can wrestle. And Zeus, Poseidon and Hades kind of, sort of intervene; betting on whether they'll make it."

As you know, Broken Lizard is currently in theaters, challenging the World's best beer drinkers, in Beerfest. So what happened to The Greek Road? Are they gearing-up to make it their next movie? We put the question to Broken Lizard's Steve Lemme.

Lemme says The Greek Road has always had some uncertainty surrounding it, just as there has been (at times) uncertainty about the future of Broken Lizard. "When Club Dread opened, a lot of things were uncertain," he says. "We opened against Passion of the Christ, that same weekend. We didn't make much money at all and we weren't sure which direction our careers were going to go at that point. You're only as good as your last box office hit. We hadn't established that yet. And there was a period of time, a moment, when we weren't sure what the next movie we were going to do was."

Broken Lizard then shifted into high gear, writing a half dozen scripts in every budget range. "We wrote a script that we could do for 2 to 5-million bucks. We wrote Beefest, which we figured we could do for 8 million. And we did another script called The Greek Road, which is really like a 20 to 25 million dollar movie," says Lemme.

And this is where Adam Sandler and his team at Happy Maddison came through for Broken Lizard, big time. "Adam Sandler had seen Super Troopers and loved it. He was a big fan. He brought us into his office and said, 'If you ever need any help, come let us know, because we make R-rated comedies. And to start in this it might be hard for you for a while.'"

After being pushed back six months from its original release date, Fox Searchlight opened Club Dread on February 27, 2004. "It didn't perform," says Lemme, "and the next week, [Sandler] called us. He said, 'Okay, you guys need our help, so come on in.' We went in and he said, 'Let's do a movie. We're going to do a movie for you guys and let's figure out what it is.'"

They pitched Beerfest. Sandler loved it, and he helped Broken Lizard set up a meeting with Sony. "Sandler was one hundred percent solid across the board, all of his guys were," says Lemme. "We were so excited. We went to Sony with it, but it was clear that Sony didn't totally get [Beerfest]. They missed the point. They said, 'You guys are making a sports movie.' But we said, 'We're making an anti-sports movie.'"

The Broken Lizard guys walked out of their meeting with Sony thinking Beerfest was over. "Literally, we were like, 'We're not making this movie. It's not happening,'" says Lemme. "Then, literally, standing outside of Sony, the phone rang, and it was Warner Brothers. Based on Dukes of Hazzard, which hadn't come out yet, they offered us a production deal. I mean, it was like coming out of one thing, a really bad meeting, probably one of our worst meetings. We were thinking, 'We could be done here. This is the only place that wants to do Beerfest.' Then Warner Brothers just saved us. It was pretty cool. That's happened a lot to us in our careers."

So what's the current status of The Greek Road? Word is, in order for The Greek Road to get the green light, Beerfest needs to at least perform in the 20-million range. Warner Brothers doesn't want to spend 20 million on Broken Lizard's next movie without proof that they can recoup their investment. "Warner Brothers wanted us to do [The Greek Road] originally, but we just couldn't agree on the budget," says Lemme. "We've always had the passion to make The Greek Road, but we've never been able to get by the budget. If we can get Beerfest to make some money, then we can make Greek Road. If Beerfest doesn't do well, then we're probably back to independent films again."

Beerfest's opening weekend tally was around $7 million. That's a fair start toward 20 million. Let's hope they make it.

[clerkguy23]

this movie was great.

[Weak2ndAct]

It's a decent three star comedy, though Lizard's least satisfying IMHO.  It really is an anti-sports movie, and some of the jabs at the structure/genre are high points (the emergence of a character at a third act turning point, best joke ever).  The real problem lies in the characterizations of the two lead brothers-- they're the blandest characters, have no real traits/quirks.  The three guys recruited to the team are all outrageous creations (Badnarath especially), but besides driving the plot, Soter and Stolhanske are essentially the same character and could have been one.  Aside from that though, I laughed a whole lot, and the German team really rocks.  The crowd I saw it with cheered during the 'strikeout.'

My two major gripes:
- No one threw up in this movie.  I mean, the whole movie's about binge drinking!  Give me at least one projectile vomit.
- CGI beer during the final match.  That's a copout.

[Ravi]

I agree, Weak2ndAct, it was a solid comedy.  It's better than the title implies.  There's a lot of silliness, of course, but the characters take the job of winning the contest absolutely seriously.  At the same time it parodies sports films without being an overt parody.  The ridiculous German accents were great, particularly Will Forte's.  Sometimes it felt like they were trying too hard for a laugh, but most of the time its a pretty funny movie.

The projectionist stopped the film when the credits started, so I didn't see the bloopers.  Did I miss anything?

[grand theft sparrow]

Standard bloopers.  Nothing as funny as what was in the movie.