Midweek Mention... Hundreds of Beavers

Hundreds of Beavers

Sidey: [00:00:00] Do you wanna do the gag?

Reegs: Yeah,

go on. You do it. Go on

Sidey: Res you've done hundreds of beavers.

Reegs: Yeah. This weekend I did hundreds of beavers. Did you do hundreds of

Sidey: I also did hundreds of beavers.

Cris: I've not done hundreds of beavers.

Sidey: Peter.

Pete: Next to none. Yeah.

Sidey: We were actually asked to review this for real by the filmmakers?

Reegs: Yeah. Yeah. Back in 2022. Yeah, we do get asked to review quite a lot of stuff actually. And it, you're never really sure. I mean, if any of it's gonna be any good, some stuff does turn out to be good and some stuff,

Cris: stuff doesn't

Sidey: Yeah. But we did watch this. It's so it's an independent slapstick comedy film.

'cause Pete and Chris, you have not seen this.

Cris: I have not. No, we

haven't.

Pete: haven't. But slapstick is the worst form of comedy By some distance.

Sidey: We were asked, we, we, well, we went out and asked for some listener recommendations. Darren Lethe said that this was one of his top films of last year.

Reegs: Okay.

Sidey: He's, if you wanna check out his letterbox, it's got five star Yeah. Side splitting. Yeah. It is one of the, [00:01:00] the phrases he uses to describe it. And I knew nothing, nothing at all about this. Yeah. I didn't know what to expect. Okay. I was expecting real beavers. Or, or an approximation of Yeah. You don't get that

in

Reegs: You're certainly not getting that. No. This has a very stylized look.

I had seen the trailer, so I knew what this movie was like. It has a, it's black and white for a start and it's kind of. Digital, it's very digitally it's like a mishmash in combination of so many different aesthetics and influences. Everything from Buster Keaton's, Buster Keaton to Looney Tunes, to even like the physical comedy of Jackass or something like that.

Yeah, just crazy influences all mashed up on screen.

Sidey: Yeah. And how does it start?

Reegs: It starts with Jean Kayak who's one of the co-writers Ryland Chews. He's reaching out for an apple that is Orchard, isn't he? And there's a really catchy, a [00:02:00] surprisingly catchy song I think for Jean Kayak and his Acme Apple Jack.

And he's talking about how he produces all of his stuff and how all of the, you know, local village love it and all this stuff. And then. Some beavers whittle away at the bottom of his apple

Pete: in

Reegs: Yeah. But they, they are in how hundreds.

Pete: Oh,

Sidey: At the start there, there only a

Reegs: There's

only a couple.

Yeah. They're in costumes. They're like,

plushies furries, like mascots

Cris: That's what it says. Yeah. That's

Sidey: most budget looking mascot kind of costume.

Pete: Okay.

Cris: Like that. Sorry, we were not gonna, you're gonna see it, but it's

that

Reegs: was a, a nightmare for me, but who I like to kind of obsessively document.

Things that are happening and there are 10 trillion things happening all at once in this movie. So I just gave up basically in terms of notes. 'cause it was just impossible to write at. There's, there's a thousand gags coming at a [00:03:00] thousand miles an hour, all different. And they pay off in all different ways across the movie.

And they build in all this kind of stuff. There is a basic structure. Which is him losing his job because of the beavers and then wanting to become a fur trapper after, they

Sidey: he makes an a native.

Reegs: Yeah. Well he has a very unsuccessful afterwards, right? There's like a whole is it a snowball or something that demolishes his whole.

Apple jack thing at the beginning. So he's left with nothing. He's in the words he has to kind of fend for himself. It doesn't go very well. Yeah, it's like the Revenant, but if there was like Muppets and like all this other stuff going on. 'cause he's, there's this survival element to it. He has to like,

traps some rabbits, doesn't he?

Sidey: He learns how to make fire.

Pete: Oh, of, sorry. I've got a question. What's, what's an apple like? An apple jack to me is the nice blackjacks, like, so a small appley

Reegs: sweet in this, it seemed to be cider, basically is cider. Cider.

Sidey: or moonshine

Cris: Oh, seed. Oh, oh

Pete: oh. [00:04:00]

Reegs: Yeah. Yeah.

Sidey: Yeah. So he's gotta do various things. He learns how to make fire, but he doesn't know how. He's got no shelter. Sick. Keeps blowing out. That's the bit of comedy

Reegs: Yeah. He has to trap rabbits, so he makes sexually enticing

Sidey: lots of snowman

Reegs: With like big boobs and all that stuff. But he unfortunately happens upon, not unfortunately, unfortunately for him, happens upon a gay couple who aren't interested in it.

And that's like a joke that happens in like. 20 seconds and there's just a trillion of them going a million miles an hour. Yeah. So, right, it, there's like a leveling up aspect isn't there with like the, there's a fur trapper, there's a market, a merchant man.

Sidey: yeah.

Reegs: And his daughter,

Sidey: she's super horny.

Reegs: he can eventually trade up the various animals and shit that he's caught, like fishing and rabbits and yeah, eventually beavers and stuff for various items he can trade in.

Like, what was it? An ax. And yeah, it, it's a tiny shitty pen knife at first. It's quite

Sidey: funny.

It's microscopically small, which he's trying to do stuff with. But he's got the hots for the girl, isn't he? And she seems to be reciprocating that.

Reegs: [00:05:00] she flashes him a bit of ankle and it like sends him absolutely loopy like

Sidey: later on. She does some just

Reegs: just hardcore pole dancing.

Yeah. With like down to her like knickers and stretched out. Yeah.

Sidey: The old man is not gonna let her go off with him. 'cause he does, he does eventually propose to her and he's like, no, you need to bring me. And it's the one bit where you can lip read. And he says Hundreds of

Reegs: Yeah. Yeah. The, we

Sidey: seen the beavers, they start off small, they're just taking logs down the river.

And as the film progresses, there's more and more of them. And they've built this enormous structure. It's this gigantic like wooden factory.

Reegs: I mean, yeah. Well eventually you'll find out there's an entire like beaver society in there with complete with scientists and you know, when, when Jean Kayak is prosecuted for his crimes by a kangaroo court of beavers yeah.

Held up, but we're getting a little bit ahead of ourselves. He, he gets a mentor. A master trapper when he breaks his leg after being, was it running away from the wolves? There's some wolves in a cave and they're really scary. You got these scary eyes.

Cris: Are the wol in [00:06:00] suits as well,

Reegs: Yeah, everybody's in,

Pete: Okay. So all the animals, are people in suit suits?

Reegs: Yes and no. There's a right, he has to use a frog to trap a skunk who is in a suit and the frog is a puppet. And there's like, fish are puppets and stuff as well, like Muppet It's quite funny when he kill, he like brutally kills some of these, like beavers, like slashes them open and stuff.

And they've got like innards made out of like muppets stuff. Felt things and like, those packing

Sidey: He's like, oh, you can see it smells better. It's obviously just like wool, you know, knitters like imitation stuff. Yeah, it's got a good gag.

Reegs: So yeah, he breaks his leg and the master trapper takes him in and teaches him everything he knows.

And then the master trapper is killed off by the wolves, I think. So then he's like on his lonesome again. But he's learnt all these techniques and you see him gradually build up his new like map of where he is and things to do. He gradually gets better and better and better, and all of his things become more and more sophisticated.

Loads of gags. He keeps falling through the floor and this, that, and the other. And eventually does get enough money to buy the ring[00:07:00]

Sidey: Yeah, he does. Yeah. He proposes Joan. That's when he says, no, you need, I'll only let you marry her. Yeah. If if you bring me hundreds of beavers which he does. He just goes out and they, they kind of keep score like a computer game, don't they?

Yeah. And he just creates this enormous like mound of dead beavers,

Reegs: 220 odd, like it's ticking up in the corner. Like,

Sidey: But they're not happy with that.

Reegs: No. The beavers are really unhappy and they've, they've had, these beavers have been on his like. Dr. Holmes Sherlock Holmes and Dr.

Watson. Beavers Have been

on his case the whole time following what he's been doing, and this is when they bring him back after he's caught sneaking inside the dam and they tried to prosecute him. This was absolutely my favorite bit of the movie afterwards, where the brawl that he has when he tries to get loose, he has this like. It's like quite a physical action style brawl with these guys all wearing suits. And then like somebody will it, they'll throw just an empty costume at the wall and then cut and edit and he's like in the costume and gets up and fights. It's so cleverly [00:08:00] done as a million things are in this. And he eventually does get loose and then there's a big snowball thing again in there.

And

Sidey: yeah, 'cause he does, he does eventually like get the hundreds of beavers back to. To mate. He, well, he does, he does. He goes back there,

Reegs: they've launched a rocket ship, which will accidentally, like,

cause

it the green bay to flood basically, won't it? It'll crush into their dam and all that.

Sidey: Yeah. There's one bit where it goes back with the beavers to the, to the guys outpost, and it's just a replica that falls on top of him.

That's quite a good, good one. Yeah.

Reegs: Yeah.

So at the end of it, he's, he's running away from the Beaver Dam. They've constructed a kind of giant mecca beaver out of like hundreds of beavers stuck together as, as the one giant beaver as they're chasing him along the lake, and he brings it all back.

Sidey: He

finds the rocket addict.

Yeah. They swat it away at first. Yeah. And then it goes again, and then destroys it.

Reegs: Yeah.

Cris: Did you say a mecca, beaver or a

Sidey: They just all link [00:09:00] up? Yeah. Like, like transformers into one giant one. It's

Reegs: like Voltron, but out of beavers.

Cris: Yeah.

Reegs: And

Pete: it's like

Cris: Voltron but

Pete: of

Cris: not beavers.

Reegs: And then, whoa, God, what happens?

He rolls them all up. This is when? It's 'cause like bookended by these giant snowballs. 'cause one that destroyed his place at the beginning and at the end he brings it all back. And it stops. Just that he manages to stop it. He remembers, doesn't he? That, he needs to backpedal his ball this time not to crush everything.

So he brings all his beavers back and the merchant is happy and he goes in for a kiss. He's finally allowed to marry the kiss and the merchant gets in instead, don't he? And he spits and there's been a running gag of which there are billions of money running gags. But yeah, he spits into the spittoon right at the end and it turns around and it says the end the end.

Been able to get spit in

Sidey: Yeah. I've missed like a hundred times at the movie.

Reegs: Yeah.

Sidey: Did you enjoy it, Reese?

Reegs: I actually [00:10:00] did. I mean it's like relentlessly, relentlessly silly, and it was a nightmare to kind of talk about because there were so many ideas. It's, you never, it's an hour and 48 minutes, which feels a little bit on the long side of runtime for me.

But there was so many different ideas. It was only made for about 150,000. Dollars. And that includes all of the incredible craziness and all the influences that you see on, on screen. It's quite an experience. I know you didn't really like it did you? So,

Sidey: So anyone else, like you will know within about the first minute or the first 30 seconds whether you're gonna enjoy this or not.

'cause it, and I think, 'cause you would probably have hated this. It's,

Reegs: I felt I went on a journey with it though. 'cause I was like, oh right. Gosh, this is a lot. I mean, it stressed me out, like I say, 'cause wanting to review it, it's just a nightmare because there's so many gags.

Sidey: But it is, you know, like the gag, so the overriding gag of people being in suits and it not being, making any attempt to, you know.

Look real in, you know, [00:11:00] in air quotes. If that doesn't float your bow, then you're not gonna get on with this. 'cause that is like relentlessly like that.

Reegs: Well, yeah, the aesthetic I suppose. But there were just so many jokes. That's what the thing, like there were parts where it becomes like overwhelming. There were parts where you just tune back in and think, God, that's really funny.

Or like, you know.

Sidey: Yeah. I didn't find a lot of the jokes. That funny. Yeah. But it prob doesn't help. No. So, I did like it. I

Cris: a silent, sorry? Is this a silent? All

Sidey: It's like a, it's like a, it's a real throwback kind of look

Cris: right? Oh, you said black and I've seen the, the thing is black and white. Is it kind of like a, like a laurel and Hardy

Reegs: it, has very much a Busta Keaton type vibe to it, but with modern effects, but cheap, modern

Sidey: yeah. So modern techniques that they wouldn't have had, but

Reegs: It's so, so clever. Like he goes on like a log flu ride, but you know it's guy in a green screen. Do you know what I mean? There is some outdoor stuff, intersperse with it. They have an amazing it's like the, the speeder bikes

Sidey: Yeah. they did, it [00:12:00] had the sound effects and

Reegs: Yeah. It's an amazing bit outside with huskies and people pulling them and all that stuff.

Like just one idea of a joke that runs like. They've got some huskies, the master trapper, and they're obviously played by guys in suits and the wolves are killing them off one by, you know, one by one at night and at night they play cards. And then the last guy's just down to doing solitaire and Just,

Cris: right. Okay.

Reegs: They were

Pete: main, like are the sort of protagonists, are they animals as well or are they,

Sidey: No, it's dudes.

Pete: they're just like

Reegs: Yeah. she's quite fit as well. The the furrier

Sidey: was a real highlight. Yeah.

Reegs: Yeah. And he was quite buff. He takes his shirt

Sidey: He is really buff. Yeah, he is very buff.

Pete: I'm just look looking at it here on Wikipedia and it was nominated for and won a good like half of about 20 different awards from like different associations and festivals and stuff like that.

So it was obviously, you know,

Cris: something there.

Pete: there's obviously like held in reasonable regard. Yeah.

Reegs: It's like a real revival of like twenties and thirties [00:13:00] filmmaking, but mixed with all sorts of other modern influences. Like, you've not seen anything like it. I mean, it's not the the 10th fucking bank heist thriller shit that you've seen on, you know, Netflix, some generic shit like that.

It's, it's something different and the guys who made it will go on to do loads of cool stuff, I'm sure.

Pete: I was gonna say, have they done anything else? Is that, is this because what, what, like you said, it was what, a hundred costs?

Reegs: Yeah. I think it made 1.1 or something at the box office. I did look that up

Sidey: That rigs.

Pete: yeah. Which, which is a, a success.

Reegs: Yeah.

Sidey: Yeah. Yeah.

Pete: So you think that that probably. Has given them some, you know, a war

Sidey: it at the time,

Cris: they might do, like Tarantino now I've accomplished everything. I'll just follow my dreams and do what I want.

Reegs: Yeah,

Yeah.

Pete: Yeah,

Reegs: It, it was certainly unique. Absolutely unique. You are gonna live or die by whether you, you know, I think it's gonna polarize you. I don't, I

Sidey: don't think, yeah, definitely. Yeah.

Reegs: who are gonna go,

Sidey: You can't sit on the fence with this one.

Pete: It sounds like you've sat on the fence quite a bit about it though. Side.[00:14:00]

Sidey: No, not really.

Pete: So what, what are you? You love it or hate

Sidey: Strong. Recommend

Reegs: Strong

Cris: all we need to know. Yeah.