Mark Hamill to star in movie based on famous story from comedian/party animal Bert Kreischer
Film Features Mark Hamill
As reported by Deadline, Mark Hamill is set to co-star alongside shirtless comedian Bert Kreischer in a movie based on Kreischer’s signature stand-up routine that is being billed as “The Hangover meets Midnight Run.” The stand-up bit revolves around a story in which Kreischer goes to Russia as part of a class trip in college and how—in a moment of panic because he can barely speak the language—he tells a group of mobsters that his name is “the Machine.” They are so tickled by this (and by Kreischer’s talent for drinking a lot) that they go on various alcohol-fueled adventures with him, culminating in a wacky train robbery, and it’s all definitely, totally, true (definitely). Here’s Kreischer telling the story himself:
The movie—called The Machine—will serve as a sequel of sorts, catching up with Kreischer 20 years after robbing the train when he and his father (Hamill, presumably) get kidnapped by Russian mobsters. So it’ll be a drunken party movie crossed with a comedy crime thriller… so yeah, The Hangover meets Midnight Run, sure.
Interestingly this won’t be the first movie loosely based on Bert Kreischer’s life. When he was in college, he was the subject of a Rolling Stone piece about how he was the best partier at the country’s biggest party school, whim him essentially having spent six years getting drunk at Florida State University. Though Kreischer wasn’t involved, that story supposedly served as the basis for National Lampoon’s Van Wilder, meaning we might not have gotten the Ryan Reynolds we all know and love today if not for this guy’s refusal to just calm down and go to class. Hey, maybe Ryan Reynolds could make a cameo in the movie! And maybe he could play Deadpool in the cameo! And make references to the fact that Mark Hamill played Luke Skywalker!
57 Comments
I’m good, thanks
dude thats weak….ive heard this bit a dozen times and it never gets old.why the hate? hes a great story teller
Because for all the different palates for comedy, there’s some person out there that really thinks their distaste for said palate is an endearing quality anybody besides them cares about.ie. they get off on crawling up their own ass.
Can’t a guy just hate pilates?
We’ve really never forgiven him for what he did to Jesus Christ.
It’s just a weird opinion….bert isn’t some me too comic or hateable dane cook carlos mencia type…He’s like a true family man…. 80% of his sets now are all about his wife and girls…and if you ever heard him on podcasts or talked about by rogan or segura…he’s like a super nice guy…And who wouldn’t watch Hamil in anything??
Bert might not be a sexual predator (cool low bar, by the way) or joke thief, but if he hadn’t glommed on to other more famous/successful people he’d still be working tiny clubs or hosting bullshit shows at the expense of his body on Travel Channel. He has one bit that was moderately amusing the first couple times he told it, but at this point he largely exists to be on podcasts as the dumb guy who’s definitely going to say multiple dumb things, recognize he’s saying dumb things, then either whine about being cancelled or attempt to backtrack and say more dumb things in the process.
I don’t think you know what you’re talking about- Kreischer has successful specials, he has his own tv shows up to and including this year, he’s one of the comedians that did a standup circuit for drive-in events last year.He does do all the things you say he does, but you’re conflating those things as if they aren’t the minor aspects of his career and the things I’ve mentioned aren’t the thing he actually succeeds at.
I’m not trying to say that you can’t/shouldn’t find him funny, comedy is such a subjective thing. Any moderately successful comic has a fanbase, and I won’t deny his success. Few comedians become successful on their own, but according to Bert, he’s on the same level as Seinfeld or Kevin Hart and did it by himself.I just bristle a little against him being called “a super nice guy”, because if you watch/listen to him on anything, he’s clearly not. He chases fame and very clearly treats people he views as less famous than him like shit. He even got called out on this, waffled around on an apology to the person he was a dick to, then spent the next 20 minutes of the podcast saying how it’s fine he’s like that because he deserves to act like that.He consistently views himself as the most important and funniest person in whatever room he’s in unless it’s obvious to even him it’s not true, in which case he tries even harder to bulldoze everybody. When he doesn’t get his way, he pouts like a child.His specials are fine, but he’s an obnoxious manchild, so it’s hard for me to appreciate the humor.
I won’t pretend that there’s a good chance that what you say is actually true, but his thick-headedness on what he puts out there in some forms of media shouldn’t change the value of the art that he puts out in others, unless he engages in specifically damaging discourse towards other people. I also don’t think you’re doing anything out of the ordinary on the internet in engaging in weighing everything about a person against the deluge of information they put out in all medias and shows and such, but Kreischer’s worst crime that you point out is that he’s socially immature, and thinks highly of himself- this is the same thing that the VAST majority of comedians are, and is nowhere near as harmful as Jim Carrey’s anti-vax advocacy, or Joe Rogan’s enabling of white supremacy. And none of the faults you outline of Kreischer changes the value of his talent, it just changes how you personally value his talent.
Bert, Bert, Bert. Not everybody’s gonna like you. You just have to live with that, my dude! It’s part of life!
For sure, being obnoxious is certainly not a crime or anything close to it. I find his actions on some other media I do/used to enjoy to be incredibly annoying, so it’s hard for me personally to appreciate his talent, like you said.
I appreciate that- I really find people that can’t stand criticism of something they like as grating as the people who can’t stand allowing people to enjoy things they personally don’t enjoy. I don’t think it looks like you’re doing that, but it was hard to tell that apart from the whiners throughout this comment thread.
I’ve got a broad taste in comedy, and Kreischer’s comedy specials have been pretty fun. He also is pretty obviously a craftsman in standup, when he’s talking about how the sausage is made, he really knows what he’s talking about.I think this griping is just another case of AV Club commenters doing their brandy glass-swishing pissiness- there’s nothing more nerdier than gatekeeping your niche, and making sure all know what they should or shouldn’t like.
Point set match.Moving on.
This. Sounds. AWESOME!!!
Thankful to learn that there’s a shit even Hamill’s name won’t polish.
We knew this already from Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.
And Sushi Girl.
Hey, that movie was hilarious! You leave Jay and Silent Bob alone! 😛
Is he the shirtless yelling guy on Netflix or Crackle? I get them all confused
There’s also the shirtless guy yelling on the deck of the house across the street. The wild thing is I don’t even think he lives there.
Will you stop talking about me on the internet? And I’ve lived there for four years. Just because my “landlord” keeps trying to evict me and fails doesn’t mean I don’t sleep on my couch on the lawn every night because he changed the locks.
I really like Kreischer and the story/bit is hilarious but I do not think it is anything that could possibly be dragged out to movie length, no matter how you try to make a “sequel”.Then again, I guess Mike Birbiglia managed to stretch a bit out to 80 minutes and he won an award at Sundance so what the fuck do I know?
In fairness, Birbiglia also managed to stretch five minutes on This American Life that inspired millions to say, “Hey, that was mildly amusing” into a career, so he might be an outlier.**-Editor’s note: It’s entirely possible that he had a period of mild amusing-ness in a different venue before doing TAL, but if there was any longer than five minutes, I will eat a collection of hats.
I’m not sure when Mike Birbiglia’s bit on TAL happened, but I’ve been aware of him for quite a while, and his older stuff is closer to true stand-up. It helps to view his current act more as a sometimes-funny one man show than a stand up act. He has a knack for storytelling, but joke density is very low.
He first did TAL several years ago (I’m guessing 8-10, but I’m bad at timelines); from what I recall it was his sleepwalking at the La Quinta Inn story, which was a perfectly fine story and amusing in its delivery, but for me (I don’t want to come across as “this is my taste, so therefore it is correct and everyone else is wrong”), his appearances on the show have slipped into the range of “guy you listen to to catch your breath because Garrison Keilor is way too fast-paced and hysterical.”
Yeah, I remember a Comedy Central special or two in the early 2000’s and he wasn’t so reliant on sleepwalking for his set, at least from memory. I remember enjoying him enough to gladly watch new stuff, but then it just became more and more what his current act is like, and lost interest.
I dunno. If you haven’t seen The New One (especially live), it has one of the greatest twist moments I’ve ever seen on stage. In retrospect, everything leading up to it is a sort of stealthy build-up.
I like Birbiglia’s stuff because, low-key as it is, it’s really well-structured. His latest on Netflix (I think – the one about having a kid or not) was very carefully detailed and builds really well to an ending that, while a tad predictable, still made me smile (and laugh).
Two Drink Mike came out in 2006, My Secret Public Journal in 2007. TAL did not make Mike Birbiglia’s career.
Duly noted; that’s what I get for basing my timelines on the idea that “things don’t exist until I become aware of them.”
If you enjoy Bert Kreischer, cool, I’m glad. I’m obviously not going to talk you out of liking him, and I really don’t want to.
I don’t think Kreischer is funny at all, and frankly I think he’s an asshole. Everything about him is ‘I’m so amazing and my shitty frat rat past is so amazing and I’ll just tell you about it and you’ll be entertained because I rule.’ There’s no self-awareness, no attempt to bring the audience in – they’re just expected to get on board. There are great comedians who go on ego trips and just spin their lives on stage, like Todd Glass (who for the record I love). But they put asides or moments in to let the audience know they’re aware of how over-the-top they’re being, which let’s the audience feel like they can relate better. There’s none of that with Kreischer.This really came through in the episode of ‘Doug Loves Movies’ where Kreischer walked off. He kept trying to bring 100 hamburgers out, even though the host told him not to. At every moment, he kept steering the show towards himself and his experience on the show, not even trying to be entertaining for the audience or letting the other comedians get their jokes in. The day after he walked off, he tried to blame another comedian who was there for not letting him get ‘centered’ again, even though it was the host trying to keep him from taking over.Anyways, Mark Hamill rules and I hope he gets paid. His performance in Last Jedi was amazing and got overlooked because of all the, let’s say disagreements, about the film.
I get it. I’m a fan, but I’m honestly more of a fan of him from podcasts. He can be more genuine on podcasts, and even lets the facade down occasionally to reveal the normal human. Having said that, I’m fully aware that it’s an acquired taste.
I don’t know this guy but yes, this “machine” story is a bit funny, but still, it seems to assume that we empathize with him, and that we define as “awesome” the exact same things that a russian mobster (or, more generally, a fascist) would. Might-is-right and the liberating lack of empathy for others. “Fuck the world, I’m the king, gimme your lunchbox”.Let’s just say, I’m not sure one can applaud his story, cheer, and then complain about someone else ditching a plastic bottle in the sea. But people seldom connect the dots like that.
Yeah, he has a serious issue ceding attention to anybody. I used to watch/listen to 2 Bears, 1 Cave with him and Tom Segura because I like Tom Segura, and eventually stopped because every hour episode had roughly 5 minutes of Tom talking throughout while Bert just spins his wheels for the other 55 minutes.He’s one of the many personifications of Mediocre White Male, ascending to fame and fortune on the backs of more talented people, getting excessively high on his own supply the whole time.The Machine is an alright bit, but he’s been coasting on that and proximity to better comedians/other famous people ever since.
Oh yah, Tom Segura is hilarious. And I know him, and a lot of other great comedians, are friends with Kreischer. But the “mediocre white male” thing, exactly. Exactly.
Bert is a perfectly decent comedian, but his amount of apparent fame and influence far outstrips his talent as a comic. Maybe it’s just that he’s a relentless self-promoter or always good for being on a podcast and saying some stupid shit, but he seems to be everywhere and it’s very weird to me, given the number of better (in my opinion) comedians out there.
Hamill is utterly fantastic in The Last Jedi. Should have been at least nominated for best supporting actor. He’s so good, he caused a lot of fanboys to become frightened of their own mortality and…lash out. At least that’s my theory. Fun (or not) fact about Mark Hamill. He owned the role of Mozart in the play Amadeus. He didn’t originate it, I believe, but he was the playwright’s favorite actor in the role. The film’s director refused to cast him in the film because he didn’t want people to see Luke Skywalker. It’s a huge bummer and there’s little to no footage of Hamill in the part of Mozart, which is a darn shame. So, in sum, I hope he has a good time in this film whether it is good or not.
Thanks for making me pine for a play I can never see. I’m dreaming of a version with him and Brian Bedford as Salieri. I need someone to invent a holodeck so I can create these things!
Wow, I had no idea. Cool story.
I mean, Tom Hulce was pretty great, but I would love to have seen a version with Hamill.(Fun fact: When Tom Hulce was preparing for his role in the movie Fearless, as a lawyer, he shadowed my dad (a lawyer) as research for a few days. There’s a moment in the film where he does a particular little vocal thing that is a dead ringer for my dad, and when we saw the movie my mom and I collapsed in laughter.)
I have a number of issues with TLJ but Hamill’s Luke is not one of them. Luke always fucks up his students, having him give up teaching was the right move.
I remember that episode of DLM. The other comedian was Geoff Tate.
Yah, and (just looked it up) Jeremy Essig. Though Kreischer didn’t blame Essig on his own podcast (with Doug) the next day, just Tate. And I think he did it because he was making up with Doug, but still couldn’t take responsibility for his own actions, and Tate wasn’t there to defend himself. But whatever, Doug still loves him, other people enjoy him, good for them. Genuinely. Just not me.
I gave this guy a chance, but I can’t fucking stand him. He reminds me of so many obnoxious idiots I grew up with, but he’s somehow less funny.
“They are so tickled by this (and by Kreischer’s talent for drinking a
lot) that they go on various alcohol-fueled adventures with him,
culminating in a wacky train robbery, and it’s all definitely, totally,
true (definitely).”I mean it is true. One of his former classmates has verified the story and even provided photographic evidence.
I have to admit Bert’s really makes me laugh sometimes but there is only one machine and he’s a Russian machine and he never breaks baby he NEVER BREAKS. And yes I am aware this is a hockey reference on a pop culture site but I am DOING IT ANYWAYS. 🐐🏒🐐🏒🐐
As a Canadian I see no issue with you bringing the glorious religion across to the apostastes.
I am here for this, comrade Caps fan.
RMNB is best hockey blog on da interweb, Comrade. #ALLCAPS
Everything I know about hockey I learned from Letterkenny. Which, I realize, is FUCKING EMBARESSING! FERDA.
Obligatory. https://russianmachineneverbreaks.com/2019/12/29/theres-an-alex-ovechkin-shirtless-celly-homage-in-the-new-season-of-letterkenny/
If form SF closer Brian Wilson doesn’t make an appearance pulling a leather-bound muzzled gimp on a whip-leash, I will be extremely disappointed.
This sounds wrong. Kreischer’s telling of “The Machine” is pretty much a perfect tale. It does not need a lick of beefing up or updating. It is perfect and it is hilarious. Kreischer is a bit old to play himself as a college bro, so I guess this is why they are doing this. But he’s probably old enough to play his own father and keep the tale intact with someone younger in the “Young Bert Kriescher” role.
The RS article, the AVClub interview, and the Russian story are hilarious. The Will Smith story almost made me cry laughing. The General is in.
Will Mark Hamil play Igor, Igor, or Igor?