Drib

Sell with the preposterous. Ok. I'm in.

Well made movie with some interesting, though not fully formed, ideas on how corporations exploit our baser instincts to sell product.

Extra rating star added for Brett Gelman's scene-eating performance as Brady the marketing dick.

It's kind of like one of those movies that jumps between alternate realities, except this one is nonfiction. The ahole marketing guy was well done. You can definitely see some of Andy Kaufman in Amir 's work. Trying to make this movie without getting punked must have been interesting.

So Amir did something amazing and this film is going to tell us all about it. He fooled some brand, you'll see. What did he do, exactly? Not much, I'm left as puzzled as the characters when they ask that same question. What's the point? I'm missing the joke most of the time. Amir spends the film just transporting himself passively from point A to point B. The look into the process is cool, and it's all weirdly entertaining, but there's no story here, this is merely an anecdote. No one was fooled, really. It's all so ambiguous.

It reminded me slightly of Kiarostami's Close Up, but not really, because Amir doesn't seem to want anything, to try anything... he's just amused and bored at the same time. The best thing is the direction, to be honest. Kristoffer Borgli is going to do great things, that guy is talented.

I checked this movie out because it has Annie Hamilton as a co-star and it's one of her biggest film roles thus far. She is an up-and-coming actress who I've found myself completely mystified by through her Instagram posts alone (it's mostly all the trollish emotional breakdowns on top of her being stunningly beautiful that really gets me) - interesting new era we live in where you can be drawn to check out films strictly through Instagram crushes, but, hey, this movie was really unique so I'm happy it's a thing.

I had no idea what to expect with DRIB and that was fun. It's kind of breaks a lot of rules throughout and that adds to its singular charm. The first 10 minutes take on a full-on documentary style to introduce you to a real life, infamous internet figure, Amir Asgharnejad, whom I had never heard of - but they do a great job of making him immediately intriguing. You learn that this film will be a retelling of something he went through in reality, starring him, which provides even more intrigue and subtle LOL's from the start. When the retelling begins, it gets off to a rough start - a lot of the humor doesn't hit well or naturally, and you get a whole lot of Brett Gelman really quick, playing the exact same character he always does in everything, an obnoxious jerk with really bad vibes. I'm not a huge fan of his presence in film & TV, but he is definitely very fitting for this character.

After 20 or 30 minutes, the movie seems to start to find itself and rockets into some pretty unpredictable directions - the movie is pretty all over the place, but in a good way in this case. Everything from the photography styles, to the humor, to where the "story" goes, and also the way the fictional retelling sometimes gets interrupted by the filmmakers to go back into documentary style info out of nowhere (all of a sudden it's like you're watching the movie with director commentary on, except it's part of the actual movie). It's also got the guy with the deformed face from Under The Skin, and his self-exploitive, satirical role is quite memorable as well.

In the end, there were definitely a few scenes that were the standouts. A specific one - a photoshoot with Amir and some body builders really stole the entire show - extremely effective with its tension and awkwardness. Impressive. Then, of course, Annie Hamilton's scenes - her presence is electric, she's an absolute clown and even when she's not saying anything I crack up just looking at her MF facial expressions. By the end, Amir proves to be just as dynamic and mysterious a human being as he is introduced to be in the beginning - you never know what you're gonna get out of that guy, and that's part of what makes this movie and his story worth the time.

This is no masterpiece but it's a really unique, fun experiment that I would say to give a chance if you're into ambitious movies. It's free on Tubi right now.

This is the most fun I've had during a movie in some time. As a mostly reconstructive documentary based on some anonymous people, the film has the freedom to get creative. The characters and situations are very exaggerated and very amusing. Everyone is well acted and well cast and the character of Brady was surprisingly well developed. This is also a very funny movie. There is a healthy mix of visual gags, crude jokes, cringe comedy and surreal humor that keeps the film constantly entertaining. This film also had the freedom of having some interesting directing. The director clearly has a good grasp on how to use film language to enhance a scene and how to build a unique visual and auditory style, even though what's at work is pretty obvious. The film lacks subtlety, with most of what is being offered being on the surface level. The characters, jokes and directing are quite evident throughout. The story is more restrained and does offer some interesting ideas, though I'm not certain those ideas are meant to cohere into a theme. But it's hard to complain when, like the main character's performance artistry stunts, the main motivation is clearly to entertain by any means necessary, and any subtext is secondary to that, and I was definitely entertained.