On a whim, checked back at BaratesandBareta.com today to see if anything new had been posted since I last visited (been a while). I was amply rewarded:
They just keep getting better!
EDIT: Just discovered they have even more videos on YouTube that they didn’t post to their site.
I was browsing through an old hard drive today, and I came across a lot of the old movies. Most of the clips are in pretty bad shape (they were compressed for the internet back in 2001, which means they are almost un-watchable), but this one is actually in pretty decent shape:
It’s like an anthology preview. I might have even posted it here before (can’t remember).
I also found an ISO file for a “Da Guys” anthology DVD that Matt Trent and I compiled a few years back. I might get around to burning it eventually and whoever wants one can have a copy. I think I even have “The Ball” too. We’ll see. If I get some time over the next few days, there might be more where this came from. I know several people have been eager to see some of this stuff…
Enjoy.
So I bought this on iTunes for $4.00 before it was available for free on Hulu. You’d think I’d be mad at them for giving it away one week after I bought it. I’m not. It was worth it. Check it out:
I present to you, Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog:
The first six minutes are a little slow, but it picks up after that.
So… I went to see Beowulf (in 3d) today.
Why?
1) I’ve never read it and it’s a classic and I’ve always wanted to know the story (but people said it was an awful read, so I thought a movie would be the easiest way to go to learn the story)
2) It’s 3d (I’m a huge sucker for 3d. Almost went to see the sharkboy/lavagirl movie just because it was 3d).
3) Even though it has the sluttiest actress in history in it, it only had a pg-13 rating, so how bad could it be, right?
So what did I think?
Basically that it was horrible.
1) Julie says that she doesn’t remember the poem being very much like that.
2) The 3d was OK, but the reason I like 3d is because it makes it more lifelike, and in this movie was barely more lifelike than Shrek 3. The 3d was good because it didn’t call attention to itself (much) and they didn’t “play” to it excessively (like throwing swords and stuff at you). They played to it a little, but just enough to not annoy the crap out of me.
3) Nudity out the wazoo. I am utterly astonished this movie wasn’t rated NC-17… Or R at the very least. Demonina Jolie was completely nude on screen for about a solid five minutes (and then a couple of other times for a short period as well). We are talking completely here. In 3D no less. completely. [Insert your choice of shocked outraged short succinct exclamatory statements here].
Ok, so you could make a weak argument that they “smoothed” over the “important” stuff to make it look like gold or something. But seriously, what’s the difference? Unless you’re 13 there isn’t one.
Not only that, but Beowulf spent a good portion (maybe… 10 minutes?) of the film buck naked as well. It got kind of silly because they were trying to hide his… package… and it just became this Austin Powersish joke. So they never “flashed” his “stuff”, but you saw everything else… a lot. And for half the movie he basically wears a loin cloth. Two other guys butts made cameos as well.
Everyone was debaucherous and horrible. I found myself rooting for Grendel all the beginning, and was sad when he didn’t kill everyone. 
For the love of… well… yourself, don’t go see this movie. Just do yourself a favor and steer clear.
The ONLY redeeming thing in the whole movie (I’ll call this the Father Joseph moment, since he likes to find redeeming things in horrible horrible movies) is when Beowulf realizes he sucks at the end, and (after his 16 y/old lover leaves the room and his 60 y/old wife is talking to him) he says to his wife “I’ve always loved you. I’m so sorry. I want you to remember me not as a hero or a king, but as a man broken and humbled.” or something along those lines. Basically he realizes what a bastard he is and repents. Yay. It doesn’t make the movie worth seeing though, because I just told you, so now you don’t need to see the movie.
Ok, the other thing the Father Joseph quality finding expedition turned up was that this movie was about man’s struggle with himself and his vices (particularly lust). But no one really struggles that hard…
They also openly reject Christ in the film, except the one character they make out to be evil ends up a priest. Oh, but the queen might be the only good person, and she is a Christian.
Yeah, so that’s it. This movie get’s an 11 (hundred) on the B-Ratings scale. Blech.
Oh, and some guy took his four year old child to see this, and another couple had a crying baby in there the whole time. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!
…this movie would have been really good. That’s kind of mean, maybe she just had a crap script to work with. I just didn’t believe her at all. No one ever would have acted like she did in those situations, maybe they would have but not nearly as chipper and stupidly. Just bad acting with a mediocre script I guess.
I don’t really like Robin Williams either, and I really didn’t like his character in this movie at all.
I think if I had written it I would have just made Robin Williams a shrink, and made some random guy be the priest and had him make them take the shrink’s class. I really didn’t like how they portrayed “the church” in this movie. (For instance, at one point you see he has hollowed out a bible to store cheetos in it)
If they had taken out Mandy Moore, and put the girl who played “Pam” from “The Office” in there, it would have been way better. I think she could have pulled off the lines and done a better job portraying the character. It had three other people from the office do cameos though, which were all pretty much hilarious (especially Kevin).
One thing was sort of irritating/refreshing, you hated Mandy’s character in the movie, and really like Jim’s. They really made the girl out to be a bee eye itch, and made the guy out to be cool. Must have been written by a man. Or maybe that’s how I perceived it since I’m a guy, maybe for a girl you would have thought Jim was being an idiot and Mandy was being cool. My wife didn’t really say either way…
So, if I were to rate it on laughs alone (and ignore the horrible dialog/acting in a few places), I’d give it a 7.5. There were some really darn funny parts. It was really clean too. I was expecting the obligatory stripper filled bachelor party, and they even referenced it, but they didn’t ruin the movie by throwing in pointless nudity. You could conceivably watch this one with your teenage kids. If only they hadn’t made the priest into a heathen…
