Beer Wars: The Movie

[carnevoodoo]

Ben Stein will be moderating a discussion. That's it. It isn't like he is going to start preaching.

 

[GuitarBob]

I don't really know or care how eloquently he writes about economics. Take a look into his documentary filmmaking history. I don't want to hijack this thread with Ben Stein's *********gery but the producers of Beer Wars would have been wise to keep his ignorant arse as far away from this project as possible. IMHO.

I wasn't aware that he made that many documentries. I only seem to see him talking about economics.

 

[GoBrewers]

He made one last year called "Expelled: No intelligence allowed" - attacking the teaching of evolution in our science classes. As a scientist, that really hacks me off. Now, I'll admit that maybe I'm being slightly irrational, but IMO anything that guy touches turns to crap. But that's just me. It actually does look like a fairly entertaining film.

 

[olllllo]

It's common practice to pre-release films to critics so that they have time to write timely reviews. With this being a self-distributed film, perhaps there are specific reasons why this hasn't happened.

It's also common practice to withhold a dog-of-a-movie from pre-release so that the bad reviews don't kill off your opening week. Again, with this being a self-distributed film, there may be other reasons.

 

[yermej]

Just a reminder, this is coming up this Thursday. I'm going to try to make it.

It's expensive because it's a one off, live broadcast of the movie followed by the panel discussion. That should be interesting because, even though the panel members are in the movie, they'll be watching it for the first time along with the rest of us.

The director tried to get the new heads of AB InBev and MillerCoors on the panel, but neither agreed to appear.

The movie distributor - Fathom - is the same company that does live broadcasts to theaters of operas from the Met and will be doing a live broadcast of This American Life next week. The operas and TAL are $20 tickets so this is even sort of a discount. It seems like a good opportunity if only for the unscripted reactions to the film from those involved. I wonder if the panel discussion will make it to the DVD.

 

[Sigafoos]

The explanation for Ben Stein was 'we needed a celebrity moderator, so we went down a list until one said yes.' I'm not sure if that's better or worse.

And olllllo, common practice or not, it seems weird to say 'and they wouldn't give me a copy of the movie!' Even say 'they wouldn't let me see the movie'; that'd sound less whiny...

 

[olllllo]

The explanation for Ben Stein was 'we needed a celebrity moderator, so we went down a list until one said yes.' I'm not sure if that's better or worse.

And olllllo, common practice or not, it seems weird to say 'and they wouldn't give me a copy of the movie!' Even say 'they wouldn't let me see the movie'; that'd sound less whiny...

Oh no doubt, Sigafoos, but isn't most internet blogging whiney?


BTW: More dissent worth considering.... and yes I am going.


The Mad Fermentationist: Beer Wars: Brewed in America (Rant)

 

[the_merlin]

I am going to make my own Beer Wars movie that will be much better than this massed produced, watered down movie.

 

[jezter6]

For me and my roommate to go see this - it will be 4x more expensive than finding this in the $7 bin at Best Buy in 6 months...

 

[jvh261]

I'm in for tomorrow night. Playing at a theater less than a mile down the street. Nice.

 

[GuitarBob]

He made one last year called "Expelled: No intelligence allowed" - attacking the teaching of evolution in our science classes. As a scientist, that really hacks me off. Now, I'll admit that maybe I'm being slightly irrational, but IMO anything that guy touches turns to crap. But that's just me. It actually does look like a fairly entertaining film.

Oh yeah I remember that one. I never seen it but judging by the previews it looked exactly the way you are describing it. Honestly I never understood the controversy against evolution. In fact most people seem to believe it has long as you use words like "adaption" and "survival of the fittest", it's just that "E word" that people seem to have an allergic reaction to.

Still I don't think it matters someone can be a genius on certain subjects and completely ignorant on others, and economics unlike science is one the subjects that Ben Stein understands very well.

 

[aaronbeer]

So here I am sitting alone in a movie theater about to watch beer wars. I feel like a damn fool!!!! I will let you all know how it was.

 

[eschatz]

I'd take my pants off and put my feet up....

 

[jajabee]

Oh man, too funny. I wonder if anyone outside this forum has even heard of it?

 

[red96jeep]

that's what happens when dont promote well and only allow select viewings at theaters few and far between. they should put it ont on dvd if they want to make any real money.

 

[Bobby_M]

It should have went direct to DVD.

 

[aaronbeer]

Well, it ended up being 5 of us total! So lots of room to relax. I enjoyed the movie and the after discussion. I do hate Ben Stein!

 

[danorocks17]

I thought the movie was great. It definetly makes you not want to buy an BMC ever again. great to see Sam from dogfish and the man Charlie P himself

 

[Duckfoot]

There were prolly about 50 people in the theatre I was at...

SWMBO got me tickets as a surprise...

Guess I owe her an above average time of sweet, sweet loving....

(I'll be back in a few minutes....)

 

[aaronbeer]

It was fast food nation for beer! Millions will swear off BUD!

 

[Couevas]

I am at the theater now (typing this on my Iphone). Will reply when it is over.:rockin:

 

[Mattbastard]

I'm one of em'

Great movie. I just got back. My theater was selling micro's.

 

[Mustangfreak]

There was maybe 10 of us here in Abilene, and 6 of those were from the homebrew club.

 

[Dude]

19 in our theater. I snuck in Dale's Pale Ale.

I enjoyed it...not as much propaganda as I expected. Didn't really learn much bit still enjoyed it.

The round table was cool, wish that would have gone longer.

Shoot me, but Alstrom's comments on teh caffeine beer were spot on. It seemed to me Rhonda is just out to make a buck no matter what she says. Caffeine beer is a gimmick no matter how you look at it.

EDIT: Ben Stein seemed uninformed. A couple of his questions were obvious no-brainers. The one about what's stopping the big brewers from stealing craft brewer's ideas is already happening. I could think of 10 better questions.

 

[Smurfe]

I am at the theater now (typing this on my Iphone). Will reply when it is over.:rockin:

Lucky you, they canceled it in Baton Rouge. Got there and was sitting in the theater. After about 15 minute after it was supposed to start they came in and said sorry, shows canceled. They couldn't get a satellite feed and didn't seem too interested in trying to fix it.

 

[Anthony_Lopez]

I agree as far as Alstrom's comment on the gimmick-ness (that a word?), however it did bring to light how hard it is to try and start a business in that market. I thought Greg and Sam were a little too glorified in the movie, and the Michael Moore-ish music kinda bothered me. All in all, it was an excellent movie, and myself and SWMBO talked business almost the whole way home. Charlie and Alstrom didn't get to say as much as I'd like to have heard.

 

[llazy_llama]

I'm just pissed that they took the copyright (or trademark, maybe? Not sure how that works) on the name Beer Wars. That was going to be the title of my autobiography.

 

[WhatNotBrewer]

I was hoping the film would have had a wider variety of brewers' stories to tell, and while it started off like that, it ended up being the Sam and Rhonda show....I still love Sam however.

While I agree with the above poster about how Rhonda's story does bring light to difficulties of starting a new business/brand, it really didn't deserve the length of time it received in the movie, assuming it deserved any time at all. She's not even a brewer and no wonder she can't get anywhere, her line has no diversity, it's just one gimmicky product....duh!

I did find it interesting while clearly making the "Big 3" the bad guys, the film did seem to show a little big of respect to Coors and Miller, while ultimately choosing AB to be the ultimate villain of the film. While I couldn't agree more with the conclusions drawn about AB, it was still interesting how Coors and Miller weren't entirely indited.

Oh, btw, can someone explain to me how landing a job with Mike's Hard Lemonade throws you into the beer world????




PS. 14 people at my theater.
PPS Ben Stein was such a terrible host. I would have taken anyone with the slightest knowledge of beer or what the topics of the film were about. I'm assuming he was the cheapest celebrity the project could afford?

 

[Acumen]

I didn't know this was a one night thing only, or that it was out this soon and I have been to a beer festival in the last month, the LHBS every other week, the beer distributer every week, and this forum almost every day. TERRIBLE promotion!!! I am actually very mad I did not know about it until 4 hours to late.

 

[dzamba]

I almost felt guilted into buying Moon Shot. Almost. That dude from the Beer Advocate slammed her. haha.