Fubar (2002)
Terry and Dean are lifelong friends who have grown-up together: shotgunning their first beers, forming their first garage band, and growing the great Canadian mullet known as "hockey hair". Now the lives of these Alberta everymen are brought to the big screen by documentarian Ferral Mitchener in an exploration of the depths of friendship, the fragility of life, growing up gracefully and the art and science of drinking beer like a man.
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Highly Overrated But Still Good
Absolutely Fantastic
This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.
A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.
Special, heartfelt, wonderful. Couple a boneheads with moments of beautiful human depth and relate-ability. It's what I love about Kevin Smith's films when he really gets it right. Enjoyable.What I love about the Canadianness is that even in conflicts there is an underlying politeness and even niceness that I hope to emulate. It's like when kids fight, they have the humanity to forgive and forget in like a minute.Filmed really well as well. Considering the budget they must have had, it is seamlessly wonderful in that you never really feel like 'oh this is a documentary and I'm supposed to forget the camera is a weird thing to be there', you're just there with them in an effortless looking but very difficult way to achieve.
A fitting final scene for this film. To most, beer represents destruction of families, relationships and life in general. In this context, as in the life of many young persons having made through life so far, it represents bonding and life.I am a Canadian beer drinker who has seen firsthand many of the elements presented in this movie, even the death.While watching (in May 2005), I flashed back to the 1984 funeral of a friend (Audrey D. in Medicine Hat, Alberta) who died in an accident on a similar alcoholic binge that I just happened to miss out on that night. I've had many since. I've also since struggled with the spiritual implications of excessive beer drinking.This portrayal of life on the Canadian prairies was not atypical, I can certainly say. I live in Calgary now and the scenes are all too familiar. I walked through that very cemetery in the closing image not more than three months ago. But hadn't seen the film yet by then.I laughed, but I didn't see it as a comedy, really.The cans shown fell not equidistant from each other, but rather, two were closer together than the third. Whose were they?
Although filmed in Calgary, any Canadian can identify the unique cultural phenomenon of the aging headbanger. This movie is a brilliant little mock-umentary that is funny and quirky enough to become a cult classic, and is definitely worth seeing. We are taken into the world of Dean, a wannabe bass player, and Terry, a swamper in a furniture factory. The two buddies give the audience a candid look at their lives, captured by documentary filmmaker Farrel Mitchner, whose accidental death is captured on film. The actors fool anybody who isn't aware into thinking that this is a genuine documentary, so it's fun to watch with an unsuspecting friend. A Canadian comedy accessible to any open-minded North American viewer.
Recently I got to watch two films that were shot in and around my home town of Calgary.One film was "Open Range" and the other was "Fubar".Both films are focused on the reactions of two close friends to the trials that life can throw at you. Both films involve a lot of walking around, talking and strange interactions with other characters in the film. Both films feature people who basically wrote, directed and starred in the movie. Both feature lots of cool alberta scenery and both are worth watching. However, while one film is a carefully crafted yet somehow lifeless product that is ultimately a chore to watch the other is a throbbing wild thing that wiggles like a fish in your hand.The great flick here is Fubar.I was mesmerized from the start, mostly because I knew all of the locations intimately. Then I realized, I also knew these two guys intimately. I grew up with them. We all played hockey in the living room and busted stuff. We shotgunned pilsners and we all went "camping" and did hideous amounts of damage to ourselves and those around us in the process and we only survived through sheer luck and by keeping the gas pedal floored and not looking back. Man, its bang on right.This film captures certain of the unique qualities of being "Canadian" better than any other film that I have seen. Nothing Second City or Bob and Doug Mackenzie ever did compares to the genius that made this film. Its not the goofiness or the idiocy, its the spirit of these two bozos that wins your heart. Bravo, I'm proud of these guys.Giver!