EIFF 2012: Tim And Eric's Billion Dollar Movie Review

★★☆☆☆

It seems that if a television comedy duo is successful enough that a movie is inevitable. Unfortunately, it is very rare that these movies are actually worth watching - just think Ant & Dec's Alien Autopsy or David Mitchell and Robert Webb's Magicians. Hoping to buck that trend are Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim, the creators and stars of Adult Swim television series, Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!  The duo have presented us with Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie, which will no doubt appeal to fans of the television series. 

Tim and Eric are two filmmakers who are given a $1 billion dollar budget to make a film for the Schlaaang Corporation. However, with the budget squandered and results in only three minutes of usable footage  - the duo have no choice but to go on the run from vicious studio boss Tommy Schlaaang (Robert Loggia). In a harebrained scheme to raise the money, Tim and Eric find themselves trying to restore a derelict shopping mall.

Anyone familiar with the Saturday Night Live film productions like MacGruber will instantly recognise the formula of Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie. It is this predictable narrative arc that immediately works against the production - we know there is an inevitable fall out and eventual reconciliation and that Tim and Eric will successful rebuild the mall. Since the script structure offers nothing particularly original it is up to the comedy duo to add some interest through their gags and performances, and to an extent they do this successfully.

The humour ranges from enjoyably madcap to unpleasantly crude, never finding the right balance. A perfect example of this is where a drugged Eric goes to a 'Shrim' healing centre - we do not know what Shrim is, but are soon given a fun video representation hosted by Ray Wise. The comic talents of Ray Wise would have been enough for the gag, but Heidecker and Wareheim insist on taking the humour too far. How far? Well Eric drowning in a bath of children's faeces. It is just a crude, unpleasant and juvenile punchline.

The bantering exchanges between Tim and Eric spur on a few laughs, but most of the humour comes from the star power involved in Billion Dollar Movie. The film opens with Jeff Goldblum, posing as Schlaaang spokesman Chef Goldblum, offering the viewer tips on how to enhance their movie going experience - which is particularly fun. Will Ferrell's cameo as the mall's Top Gun obsessed former owner proves amusing as well, as does Zach Galifianakis' role of a self-help guru the duo hire. Unfortunately, most of these star turns suffer from incredibly poor writing and character development - notably John C. Reilly's supporting performance, which is just cringe inducing and not worth the actor's talents. 

Robert Loggia's appearance as villain, Tommy Schlaaang is the main scene stealer of the film, with the veteran star bringing his charismatic screen presence to the role. Unfortunately, the material he is given to work with is just as bad as Reilly's.    

Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie is a formulaic and unnecessary venture. Most of the humour's downfall is in its crudeness and lack of consistency. What should have been excellent supporting turns from well-known stars suffer from poor writing and a lack of development.

Andrew McArthur

Stars: Tim Heidecker, Eric Wareheim ,Will Ferrell, Jeff Goldblum
Directors: Tim Heidecker ,Eric Wareheim
Release: 28th June (EIFF)

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The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie DVD Review

★★★★★

Cruelty is fun to watch.

X Factor. Eurovision. TOWIE. Britain’s Got Talent. Come Dine With Me. Take Me Out. All are popular shows built around one of two expectations. Firstly, that people really enjoy mocking idiots (even if said idiocy is completely staged), and, secondly, that people get a kick from watching other people bitch. These shows expect people to both enjoy being mean, and vicariously relish the meanness of others.

Well, going by the popularity of these programmes, it seems that that expectation holds up. Considered objectively, this is a fairly unpleasant state of affairs. Indeed, on occasion I feel I should have a problem with it. But then I remember how much I adore both taking the piss out of people and bitching in general: I can recall many conversations that would be the poorer without them. And being mean about people is not just fun. On occasion it even has value. Case in point: The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie.

This film by writer/director Luis Bunuel is truly venomous, though at first it hides it well. Watching Discreet Charm is an experience akin to having a waking dream. Within the film the lines between reality, fiction and imaginings are blurred and shifting, giving all scenes the weight of reality and a lulling dreamy haze. It is paced like a dream too, flowing inexorably yet smooth as silk, unbroken by the constant shifts from location to location, and from reality to fantasy. This style makes for a gentle rather than angry film. But once you peek beneath the surface, the central antipathy of Discreet Charm shines clear as day.

Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie is a film about slagging off the upper middle classes. And it does so maliciously, gleefully and repeatedly.

The characters of DCB exemplify the film’s hidden venom. On the face of it they don’t seem particularly bad people: a close-knit group of wealthy friends, chatty and companionable. Sure, they dabble in illegal drug trafficking, but drug abuse carries about as much negative stigma on the big screen as killing zombies. On the whole they seem perfectly pleasant.

That is, until they reveal themselves as a band of horrifically snobby hypocrites and poseurs. Thevenot (Paul Frankeur) invites a chauffeur for a drink, just so the group can mock the way he drinks a dry martini. Though they may deal drugs, they declare a hatred for drug addicts and look down their noses at a cavalry commander’s use of marijuana. Don Rafael Acosta (Fernando Rey) claims to have liberal sympathies, in the same breath as stating no amount of education could elevate the lower classes. When the working Bishop, Monseigneur Dufour (Julien Bertheau), appears before Henri and Alice Senechal (Jean-Pierre Cassel & Stephane Audran) in the clothes of a gardener, they refuse to believe he is who he claims to be and roughly eject him from the house. He has to change back into his formal regalia before they show him respect.

Meanwhile, the refined appearance and behaviour of these characters is shown to be merely skin deep. Bunuel looks beneath their crisp, fashionable clothing and boasted culinary knowledge, and brings to light sensual gluttons. These bourgeois pursue physical pleasure compulsively. The Senechals’ inability to restrain their lust causes to the collapse of their dinner party. Acosta, in a room filled with gun-toting revolutionaries desperate to slaughter him, cannot help himself from breaking out of hiding: he just has to finish his lamb chop.

But it is not just the characters that are bedevilled by Bunuel’s nastiness. The whole structure of the film is a statement about how aimless the lives of these people are. The scale of the bourgeoisie’s devotion to physical pleasure is demonstrated by the film’s ‘plot’ concerning their constantly frustrated attempts to have dinner. The goal of their onscreen lives is to eat. The meaninglessness of their lives is further emphasised by a recurring visual metaphor. The bourgeois are walking down a country road, their gait swift and purposeful. Yet there is nothing on the horizon, and nothing but empty fields stretching all around them. The bourgeois, despite appearances, are heading precisely nowhere.

All this makes The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie a comprehensive mockery of the 20th century’s upper classes. It has no interest in balanced assessment, and is ruthless in its attack. It is a cold-bloodedly cruel film. But just because it is cruel, does not mean that its cruelty is gratuitous. The attack is justified because it is an attack on pretentions. Bunuel’s bourgeoisie are thoroughly disrespected, because they expect respect without first earning it. This film attacks that sense of superiority: its barbs aim to tear apart this façade of higher civility. In doing so it aims to keep this new nobility down to earth. In the midst of their social and economic triumph, Discreet Charm is the slave whispering in the bourgeousie’s collective ear:

“Remember: you are arseholes”

Adam Brodie

Rating:PG
UK Re-release Date: 29th June 2012 (Cinema) 16th July 2012 (DVD)
Directed by:Luis Buñuel
Cast: Fernando Rey, Paul Frankeur, Delphine Seyrig, Jean-Pierre Cassel
Buy/Pre-Order: Discreet Charm of Bourgeoisie On DVD or on Blu-ray

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EIFF 2012: Fourth Dimension Review

★★☆☆☆

Three filmmakers, each with the same brief, construct three separate short films on the subject of the fourth dimension (4D). This being that there is a fourth spacial dimension in our world waiting to be accessed. Not that you are likely to pick any of this up from the disjointed and completely tedious, The Fourth Dimension. However, praise should go to The Fourth Dimensions' producers for attempting to create something unique.

The first segment entitled 'The Lotus Community Workshop' directed by Harmony Korine is by far the film's strongest asset. Val Kilmer stars as himself, with the actor now working as an inspirational self-help guru promising his followers the prospect of discovering "awesome secrets". The strength of the segment relies on Kilmers' wonderful screen-presence and outrageous improvisation - his performance lying somewhere between comedy genius and demented lunacy. Set in a red lit skating rink, complete with disco ball, Korine's segment captures the way people look to celebrity in almost a God-like fashion, searching for a way of higher being. This is captured through the audiences obsessive screams at any of Kilmer's statements, regardless of how implausible and ridiculous they are.

As we move on to the second segment, Alexey Fedorchenko’s Chronoeye things take a rather extreme turn for the worst. Despite being the closest thematically to an idea of a fourth dimension, an interesting concept is squandered by a repetitive narrative and dull characterisation. Chronoeye sees Russian scientist, Grigory Mikhailovich (Igor Sergeev) attempt to create a machine that can view the most important moments throughout history through eyewitness accounts. Whilst this concept does sound interesting, Fedorchenko’s segement is carried out in such a drab, repetitive fashion that it just becomes completely unengaging.

The final segment Jan Kwiecinski's Fawns sees four youths roam around an evacuated Polish town, as extreme floods approach. Kwiecinski's segment takes a more human approach to the fourth dimension as these boisterous characters soon find their humanity after saving a bedbound young girl from the floods. This statement about humanity does not really hold out too well though, as prior to saving the girl they shoot her father who was attempting to protect her. These characters are particularly unlikeable throughout and as a viewer it was a challenge to regard them with any compassion.

The Fourth Dimension is simply too disjointed to work thematically as one film. How teenagers roaming around an abandoned town relates to Val Kilmer shouting about candy floss and awesome secrets, is anyone's guess. It may make more sense when you see that The Fourth Dimension is from Grolsch Film Works as surely kegs of the stuff must have been downed in order to think this was ever a clever, feasible idea.

Andrew McArthur

Stars:Val Kilmer
Directors: Harmony Korine, Aleksei Fedorchenko, Jan Kwiecinski

Release: 27th June (EIFF)