1. Let's start right at the beginning with the reason that roused me from my slumber and made me write about this. Chekhov's Gun is one of the most famous principles of storytelling there is. It's existed formally for over a hundred years and informally for, well, Odin only knows how long. Yet apparently not everyone knows it because at the end of Beerfest, there was an entire NRA club's worth of guns left unused. And it annoyed the hell out of me.
2. This is a shame because it's not a bad movie, particularly given that I was only watching it because my girlfriend made me. It passed part one of the main test given to all films your significant other makes you watch, and that is I didn't keep silently wishing I was watching the Food Network instead. I'd feel pretty bad saying mean things about it if it wasn't for the point above.
3. In fact, the question even arises as to whether, for its genre, it's a really good movie. However, it's genre is American comedy for college students, and what I know about that genre you could tattoo on a mouse's dick. So maybe it's great for that and maybe it's terrible. I wouldn't know. But judging this thing by the standards of Twelve Angry Men would be even more ridiculous than this film.
4. This film is pretty goddamn ridiculous by the way. I mean, sure, a film about a family feud and the secret beer olympics is always going to be ridiculous, but they gave this one a good push off such a lofty start. Giving a character a job where he masturbates frogs? Fine. Accidentally breeding monkey-frogs? Ridiculous. Whether ridiculous is good or bad is up to you, but ridiculous it is. Incidentally, they recoil in horror from the monkey-frogs and whichever idiot came up with that monkey-puppy-baby ad at the Superbowl would have been well advised to remember this movie and the way humanity reacts to hybrids.
5. Camp comedy German accents are really annoying. We can argue all day over how offensive it is to stereotype nationalities in such a way to begin with but in terms of aesthetics it should be an open and shut argument. It's like nails down a chalkboard the size of Everest.
6. Going back to point 3 for a moment, my ability to judge this film is seriously compromised by the fact I'm nearly thirty and was sober when watching it for the first time.
7. This film would be a far better 15 minute highlight clip on YouTube than a film.
8. The most important test of any film your significant other makes you watch is how much you remember it was their choice. The better the movie, the less you remember that fact straight afterwards. When Beerfest ended, I definitely remembered this was my darling girlfriend's pick. But might not have done if they hadn't had such a horrible shitty anticlimatic ending that left me wondering why they spent so long building certain plot elements up. Maybe that's my fault though, not theirs. After all, I was sober at the time.
