Review of Beerfest (2006) by Markbayer — 08 Oct 2006

It's easy to argue that comedy troupe Broken lizard'd latest, dealing with a US-German beer drinking competition is proof positive that beer really does destroy brain cells. If you know the subject matter in advance, and are aware that these are the guys who brought you Super Troopers, Club Dread and last year's Dukes of Hazzard movie, then the Jackass Number Two rule applies: namely, don't say you weren't warned.

Although this is their best, most cohesive effort yet (hey, at least it HAS a plot) and there are enough jokes about bodily fluids and orifices and various combinations thereof to make Porky's look like a Restoration comedy, this movie is actually more energetic than funny.

..but energy can take you a surprisingly long way. BL member and director Jay Chandrasekhar looks like he's having barrels of fun on both sides of the camera; the poster is great, and I want me one of them boot-shaped beer mugs! And let's lift a glass to the great Cloris Leachman, who never lets us down.

As far back as 1955, she was heartbreaking as a torture/ murder victim in Kiss Me Deadly; on The Mary Tyler Moore Show she was far more likable and appealing as the pretentious, perpetually annoying Phyllis Lindstrom than anyone could've expected, and in last year's horrible The Longest Yard the sheer gusto with which she attacked her potentially humiliating and demeaning role as a horny elderly secretary almost redeemed it; here, as the heroes' grandmother, who's gifted with a special flair for handling sausages, she does the same.

I'm still in love.