HUNDREDS OF BEAVERS (PG-13)
To say you have never seen a film like “Hundreds of Beavers” is a half-truth. While audiences should know well the influences that are baked into the picture; Looney Tunes, Tex Avery, Super Mario Bros., Voltron, Kung Fu films, The Three Stooges, America’s Funniest Home Videos, and the inherent hilarity of a costumed mascot falling over, they undoubtedly have never seen them reflected through a black and white film about beaver trapping told in the style of the early silent cinema classics of Keaton and Chaplin. If those influences feel incongruous, there’s one more thing you need to know about this film.
It’s the funniest movie I have seen in I don’t know how long and is easily one of my favorite films of the year.
Cobbled together on a shoestring budget of $150,000 by about six crew members wearing various production hats as well as those of a beaver, rabbits, and carnivorous raccoons; Director Mike Cheslik weaves a gonzo tale of slapstick buffoonery and wilderness survival in the American Northwest with all the comedic subtlety of Wile E. Coyote running off a cliff. Following the exploits of a 19th-century drunken applejack salesman (Ryland Brickson Cole) who loses his farm and has to start life over as a wilderness man, this fledgling trapper finds himself tormented by a landscape of fully anthropomorphized critters whose fur he needs to survive and whose antics befuddle him at every turn. And while the film ventures into impossible to imagine flights of frenetic fantasy, the foundational story never wavers. The script by Cheslik and Ryland Brickson Cole Tews effortlessly grounds the pandemonium, using the language of cinema for hilarious narrative effect. A film this maddening has no right to be this well-structured.
I laughed more during this film than I have in a long time. So much so that my face hurt for hours. In such, I have become a staunch advocate for this silly little beaver movie. Once you’ve witnessed “Hundreds of Beavers” for yourself I have no doubt you will become one of the converted as well.
“Hundreds of Beavers” is NOW PLAYING at The Broad Theater.
THE LORD OF THE RINGS TRILOGY: EXTENDED EDITIONS (PG-13)
For an entire generation of film fans, it has been an undisputed truth that the Extended Editions of “The Lord of the Rings Trilogy” are superior. While many “Director’s Cuts” are notably bloated, self indulgent prolongings of otherwise taut films; Peter Jackson’s expanded venture into Middle Earth is no such folly. With fully realized effects and scenes needlessly excised from the theatrical version; the Extended Editions, popularized and shared through DVD over the past two decades, are the definitive cuts of these beloved films.
Many a Sunday afternoon across this great world of ours has been spent with friends and family cozied on the couch and settling in for three hours apiece of hobbits, orcs, and preciouses at home. But now, for the first time, we have the chance to experience all of it where it was meant to be seen: at the movies.
Over three days, Fathom Events is hosting screenings of each film; “Fellowship of the Ring” on June 8, “Two Towers” on June 9, and “Return of the King” on June 10; 685 total minutes of one of the greatest achievements in filmmaking on a huge silver screen.
Grab a friend, some second breakfast, and settle in for a cinematic experience unlike any you have ever experienced.
You’ll be glad you did.
“The Lord of The Rings Trilogy: Extended Editions” are playing THIS WEEKEND ONLY at Prytania Theatres at Canal Place.
