Tag Archives: Film

Beerish Birthday: Nathan Fillion

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browncoats
This is not, strictly speaking, a beer birthday, which is why I called it a “beerish” one, but my wife and I are both Browncoats, fans of the criminally short-lived television show Firefly. Like many Browncoats, we’ve continued to follow its cast members, especially the star of Firefly, and its companion film Serenity, Nathan Fillion. Today is Nathan Fillion’s 40th birthday.

Fillion is currently one of the stars of the hit TV show on ABC: Castle, which is now in its third season. He was also Captain Hammer in Dr. Horrible’s Sing-a-Long Blog (in fact a couple of years ago in All About Beer magazine’s “It’s My Round” when I wrote Living In The Silver Age, the photo showed me wearing a Captain Hammer t-shirt). Some of Fillion’s films include Waitress and Slither, and he was the “wrong” Ryan in Saving Private Ryan. Some of his television appearances include Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Lost, Drive and Desperate Housewives, and he got his start on the soap opera One Life To Live.

Before he’d had a hit TV series, my wife attended a Firefly convention in Los Angeles and Fillion not only attended it but was at one of the after parties that she was involved in. Thanks to me, she brought the beer — a collection of whatever I could part with from the cellar at that time. Sarah snapped a photo of Fillion drinking one of those beers, Drake’s IPA, through a curly straw. Join me in wishing Nathan a very happy birthday. And if you aren’t watching Castle or haven’t seen Firefly, you owe it to yourself to right that wrong.

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Brew Minions, A Brew Masters Parody

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The folks at Ska Brewing, from Durango, Colorado, have made a hilarious spoof of Sam Calagione’s Discovery Channel series Brew Masters. In fact, Sam even makes a cameo appearance in the 22-minute video. The plot of the video involves making a special commemorative beer for the 30th anniversary of one of their favorite ska bands, The Toasters, using — you guessed it — toast. Ska co-founder David Thibodeau is great in it, and I especially loved his “there’s Adam Avery.” Don’t worry, it will make sense when you see it. Enjoy.

“Beeradelphia” To Showcase Philly Beer Scene

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Maybe I was on to something when yesterday I suggested that we’re entering the “Golden Age of Beer Films.” Michael Ryan Lawrence, founder of Philly Philms, let me know this morning that there’s at least one more beer film in production. His film, Beeradelphia, is done being filmed and he’s in the editing process. A new website should be up next Monday, and that will feature “clips from the film, production photos, a blog” and more. You can also sign up for a newsletter there where you can follow along as announcements are made.

Here’s how he describes the film:

Beeradelphia is not just about beer. It’s about the home breweries and the home brewers. The local breweries and local brew pubs. The bar owners and the bar patrons. The beer festivals and beer events and all those that make them possible. The beer authors and beer personalities that keep us in “the know.” And of course… A film about Philly and Beer would not be complete without all the madness that is Philly Beer Week.

Beeradelphia is expected to be released early next year.

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“Beer Culture” Film To Showcase Colorado Brewing Scene

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I’m starting to think we’re about to enter a period of time replete with films about beer, the “Golden Age of Beer Films” perhaps? There seem to be an awful lot in production right now, and I keep hearing about another one seemingly every other day. The latest is “Beer Culture,” which will be a film about Colorado’s beer scene. The film is being made by FM Productions who a couple of days ago posted the first trailer for their movie.

Here’s their description of the film:

Beer Culture is a documentary film about the growing trend in Craft Beer set in the epicenter of it all, Colorado. Beer Culture explains the cultural phenomenon behind the growth of craft beer telling it through the stories of struggles and successes of some top brewers in Colorado including, New Belgium, Oskar Blues, Avery Brewing Company, Tommyknocker, Upslope, including much more. This film is set to debut in the Summer of 2011.

Short Pour Film Winner Announced

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“The inaugural Short Pour Film Festival on the subject of beer, which was announced last August, was judged last weekend. The films will debut at the Monterey Beer Festival on June 5th, 2010, from 12:30pm to 5pm.” The Winning Film, along with the entire One Hour & Twenty Minute Program, will be shown in the historic ”King City Room”, a 10,000 square foot building at the Monterey Fairgrounds (home to The Monterey Jazz Festival & The Monterey Blues Festival).

The overall winner is “The Swagger Stagger” in San Francisco by Sayre Piotrkowski, which you can watch below.

The runner-up was by the Beer Nation Show and titled “Legend of Craft Beer Bandit” by Mike Winn & Seth Wright.

The winners will also be screened at this year’s Great American Beer Festival in Denver, September 16-18.

Smokin’ Aces Drink Bell’s Oberon

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bells
We were watching Smokin’ Aces 2: Assassins’ Ball last night — quick review: mildly entertaining action adventure with cartoon violence and not much of a plot. Most of the best bits were in the trailer.

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Anyway, a good portion of the film takes place in a bar. One of the beers served is Bell’s Oberon. There’s a prominent tap handle of it on the bar, where one scene takes place. When the frame part of the scene at one point, the Bell’s logo along with the Oberon label can be seen in the foreground on the left-hand side of the frame. And at several more points, either the Bell’s or Oberon graphics can be seen. I don’t know if Larry Bell paid for product placement or if someone who made the film was a big fan. Either way, that was fun to see.

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Bill Hicks Movie Coming

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Please indulge me for a moment as I go off topic, beery news will follow. Regular Bulletin readers will know I’m a huge fan of the late stand-up comedian Bill Hicks, who died in 1994. Even though he’s been gone 16 years, his comedy is as fresh and relevant as it was then, a testament to how far ahead of his time he was and how universal his message was. I saw his act live at least a dozen times, probably more, and even had the pleasure of meeting him after a show once and chatting briefly. At every one of those shows, at least one person, and sometimes more, would get offended and leave. That was because Hicks challenged his audiences to not just laugh at his jokes, but to think about ideas and consider inequities in the world. In short, he made some people feel uncomfortable who weren’t ready to confront the world’s hypocrisies and their role in them. He was nothing short of a genius in that regard. Since his death, his popularity has continued to grow in the UK, where people “got” Bill. Over here, sadly, he’s been largely forgotten.

But there’s a new documentary film coming out, American: The Bill Hicks Story, and it’s premiering tonight in the U.S. at the SXSW Festival in Austin, Texas. There’s also a Facebook page for the film. No word yet on when or if it will get a wide theater release, but fingers crossed, you’ll be able to see it soon at a theater near you. As the filmmakers have asked people to help them spread the word about the film, below is the trailer for it. If it comes to your town, go see it. I can’t, of course, vouch for the film-making (though the trailer looks good), I can vouch for the subject matter. Bill Hicks deserves to be more widely known, and especially the ideas he espoused during his lifetime.

Big News From Beer Wars

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I confess I knew it was coming, but now that it’s here, I couldn’t be more thrilled for Anat Baron and her film, Beer Wars. Starting tomorrow, February 1, the film’s reach should extend beyond the well-insulated beer community. It will then be available to watch online, on your television or gaming console thanks to a deal Ms. Baron inked with a big-time distributor.

From the press release:

How did this happen? Well this David (me) made a deal with Goliath — Warner Bros. — to distribute the film. You should know that very few independent films, let alone documentaries, ever get this far, especially without a big name like Michael Moore or major festival buzz. I am humbled and elated that this movie will be available to tens of millions of people.

But I still need your help. Just because it’s available doesn’t mean that people know anything about it. Without word-of-mouth it could just sit there without any takers. So please, tell everyone you know by forwarding this email, or posting on Facebook and/or tweeting on Twitter. We even have web banners should you want to display them on your site or blog. You’ll not only be helping this indie filmmaker, but you’ll help convince studios like Warner Bros. to continue supporting these kind of films.

I think this is great news. Whatever you thought of the film, in my experience the people who got the most out of it were the people who knew the least about the beer industry going in. This distribution deal through on-demand and for download will make it available to a wider swath of the population, and many more of the people who I think need to see it. If only a fraction of the mainstream public sees the film and is moved or motivated by it to at least sample craft beer, then it will be a great victory for better beer.

Below is the nuts and bolts of how it can be seen, starting tomorrow. Spread the word to all your non-beer geek pals.

In the U.S., Beer Wars is available to rent on demand through Digital Cable and Satellite providers Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cox, Cablevision, Charter, Insight, Bresnan, Verizon FiOS, AT & T U-Verse, Dish Network and DirecTV. It is also available for download on iTunes, Amazon Video On Demand, Xbox 360 and PS3.

Top Ten Tuesday: Top 10 Fictional Beers

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For my first Top 10 list of 2010, I’ve decided on a decidedly unreal topic, Fictional Beers. By fictional, I mean beers that were created in literature, film, television or other similar media. I drive my wife nuts whenever we watch a TV show or film, trying to identify the beer on the screen to see if it’s a real brand or one the filmmaker’s made up. At least initially, all of the brands here were conceived and created only in the mind of a writer. You’ve seen them in the hands of your favorite characters on the screen or read about them in the pages of comics or novels. Some proved so popular that they made the jump to real products. So for my 21st Top 10 List, I present my favorite fictional beer brands. Let me know your faves. Here’s List #21:

Top 10 Fictional Beer Brands

   Spud Beer from Saturday Night Live
While SNL spoofed many beers over its long television run, being a potato fanatic makes this one my personal favorite. Most people seem to like Schmitts Gay Beer or ColdCock Malt Liquor, but I prefer “the beer that made Boise famous.”

Spud-Beer
   Olde Frothingslosh from the Pittsburgh radio show “Cordic & Company,” with host Rege Cordic
Olde Frothingslosh Pale Stale Ale might have stayed a footnote in radio history, had it not been for Iron City Brewery (then Pittsburgh Brewing) making up actual cans of this beer (with just regular Iron City inside) for collectors. The beer started out out as just another joke on Cordic’s radio show in the 1950s with the beer’s taglines “A whale of an ale for the pale stale male” and “Hi dittom dottom, the foam is on the bottom.” The first cans were done in 1955, but they were revived again in the 1970s, this time featuring plus size go-go dancer Fatima Yechberg (real name: Marsha Phillips) on the label and the popularity of the cans soared even more than in the fifties.

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   Dharma Beer from the TV show “Lost”
This might be higher if I was still a fan of Lost, but I stopped following the show somewhere in the muddled season three. Still, like Repo Man before it, I love it when everything looks the same, as if it was all made by one entity.

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   Heisler Beer from the ISS, featured on countless programs.
Heisler Beer is the most famous beer you’ve never heard of. It was created by Independent Studio Services as a prop to be used in television and films. A partial list of TV and films it’s been used in includes American Pie Presents: Band Camp, Beerfest, Bionic Woman, Bones, Burn Notice, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, CSI: Miami, Desperate Housewives, Dollhouse, Everybody Hates Chris, How I Met Your Mother, The Hulk, Malcom in the Middle, My Name Is Earl, The Pretender, Prison Break, The Rainmaker, Star Trek: Enterprise, Stealing Harvard, Superbad, The Shield, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Training Day, Two and a Half Men, Veronica Mars and Weeds. See Wikipedia for a more complete list.
Heisler-sixpack
   Olde Fortran Malt Liquor from “Futurama”
Also created by Matt Groening, Futurama had several fake beer brands on the animated series, such as Benderbrau Cold-Fusion Steam Beer, Löbrau Beer, Pabst Blue Robot and St. Pauli Exclusion Principle Girl Beer. But Olde Fortran is the one I recall seeing most often, so that’s why it’s number six.
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   Buzz Beer from the “Drew Carey Show”
Years before the FDA stuck their nose into caffeine and beer, Drew Carey was working on Buzz Beer in his garage.
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   Samuel Jackson from “Chappelle’s Show”
I loved Dave Chappelle’s show, and while he had many more poignant and funny moments, as far as beer spoofs go, this one was freaking hilarious.
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   Shotz Beer from the TV show “Laverne & Shirley”
This one may be lost on the young folks, as this Happy Days spin-off has been off the air since 1983, having run for eight seasons beginning in 1976. But all the leads worked at a brewery, Shotz in Milwaukee, so it sticks with me in my memory, at least, and perhaps those who are old curmudgeons like me, too. In retrospect, it’s surprising no brewery stepped up and made a Shotz Beer.
shotz
   Elsinore Beer from the film “Strange Brew”
Given that Strange Brew is the greatest beer movie ever made (though I still hesitate to actually call it a “good” movie), it’s only natural that Elsinore Beer — no longer with rats or drugs in each bottle — should be one of the top fake beers, too.
elsinore
   Duff Beer from the TV show “The Simpsons”
How could it be otherwise? No brand so thoroughly explored all that’s repugnant in big beer advertising and marketing as Duff Beer has done for twenty years.
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It was, as always, really difficult to keep the list to ten, and to put together this list I also compiled a more complete list of Fictional Beer Brands, listing as many as I could remember or research. Take a look and see if there’s any you can think of that I missed. Here’s a few more that nearly made the list:

Butterbeer, from the Harry Potter series, Flager Lager, from “Magnum P.I.,” Newton & Ridley from England’s “Coronation Street” (I have friends who are fanatical about the show), Pawtucket Patriot Ale, from “Family Guy,” Rocketfuel Malt Liquor, from “News Radio,” Romulan Ale, from “Star Trek,” Tenku Beer, from “Kill Bill,” and last, but not least, the generic Beer (like every other product in) the film “Repo Man.”

repo-beer

Let me know your favorites, and if you see any that you think should have made the list, please post a comment.

Also, if you have any ideas for future Top 10 lists you’d like to see, drop me a line.

Star Trek’s Engineering Deck Brewery

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beer-trek
If you’re like me, you love what I call “brewery porn,” which is photos of brewing equipment either installed or by themselves. So when I watched the film reboot of Star Trek, I was convinced that portions of the movie — the engineering deck — were filmed inside a large brewery. Sitting in the darkened theater back in May, I remember thinking it looked a lot like Anheuser-Busch’s brewery in Fort Collins. But I forgot about it until last night, when I re-watched the film on DVD. It turns out I was half-right. It was filmed in a large Anheuser-Busch brewery, but it was the one in Van Nuys, California (which in retrospect makes sense, since it’s closer to Hollywood).

Reading over the Trekkie chatter about the movie, it appears that the decision to use the brewery as stand-in for the engineering deck was one of the least popular things about the new film. But perhaps what was most surprising was that, while to anyone reading the Bulletin or who’s been inside a brewery it was completely obvious, many people didn’t even realize what it was. But if you did know, it was a bit jarring and made it more difficult — as critics charged — to continue the suspension of belief necessary to get lost in the story. One common criticism I didn’t agree with was that while the rest of the ship was all shiny and new looking, the engineering deck (brewery) looked dark and dingy. But remembering the tours of cruise and military ships I’ve been on, that’s the way it often is. The places for the passengers are decorated for comfort and are appealing to the eye while in the places where it’s just for the employees, such niceties are ignored and decorated merely for convenience and functionality. Below are a few screencaps and other photos from the film inside the Anheuser-Busch brewery in Van Nuys. Being a Star Trek fan since I was a kid, I still liked the film and would recommend it on its own merits. Despite certain anomalies and inconsistencies, it was still entertaining and enjoyable to watch. Except, of course, for the brewery.

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Nuclear symbols were painted on the fermenters to make them look more reactor-like.

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A screen cap from the film inside the brewery in Van Nuys.

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Another screen cap, this one after the characters Captain Kirk and Scotty beam back aboard the Enterprise.

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Director JJ Abrams (in the foreground) directing Star Trek inside the A-B brewery.

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In this view, similar to the first one, you can see the flying camera used, and developed by J. Patrick Daily.