Tuesday, May 30, 2017

Herbie (2017) Dances With Films 2017

The perfect comedy team
Everybody needs a life coach... that coach is not Herbie... - tag line for HERBIE

Matt Vladimery gives a potentially star making performance in Ralph Bismargi's hysterically funny short film HERBIE.

A mix of found footage and narrative the film charts the efforts of Herbie (Vladimery) as he attempts to put a series of You Tube videos together so that he can be a life coach. Herbie had been a trader in the financial world and coped with the pressure by watching self help videos. Realizing that he could do the same thing, he decides to make what he calls Inspirational Therapy videos.  It all goes horribly wrong.

I was not planning on covering this film. I was planning on not wading through all of the shorts at Dances With Films  and I was instead going to just focus on the features but a perfectly timed email got me to look at the trailer and after laughing so hard I almost knocked my laptop on the floor I knew I needed to see the whole film.

Beautifully acted by a perfect cast HERBIE is a film that is lifted up to the highest levels of film comedy by those in front of the camera. While everyone is spot on Laura Woody as Herbie's producer/director and Matt Vladimery as Herbie manage to put this all over. Woody is the put upon straight man to Herbie's increasingly odd outbursts. She clearly knows this is all going south but her "going with the flow" nature acts as a perfect foil for the insanity of Vladimery. As for Vladimery himself, he is comic perfection, creating a character that transcends the sheer nuttiness of his onscreen persona to become not someone we pity or want to see fail but someone we like. In a way we relate to Herbie

I love this film and laughed from start to finish. An absolute joy and a must see.

For tickets to the screening on June 3 can be found here

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