GamerTab That was an excellent one.

Fluentiama Perfect cast and a good story

Crwthod A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.

Glimmerubro It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.

Cody Cromarty If there was a way to vote 0 on a movie here, I wouldn't give it a 0. I'm not entirely sure if I could give it a negative score. This is a movie that seems to transcend a scale made for professional entertainment, mostly because it is NOT a professional film. It's a home movie stretched out to 85 minutes. 85 gay, gay minutes.Sam Mraovich is a hairdresser and real estate salesman, but his big dream is to be a Hollywood star (living in the area will do that to you). In order to accomplish this dream, Mraovich has made Ben & Arthur his magnum opus. Not simply content to direct or act in his star-making role, he has chosen to be the director, producer, executive producer (don't ask how that works), writer, music director, editor, cinematographer, casting director, and lead actor in his film.Mraovich is not the first man to make a film this way: El Mariachi by Robert Rodriguez was famously made without a crew, the actors and Rodriguez himself taking over the various duties in their effort to make a low budget film. But while El Mariachi was made by a man who had been making movies since childhood and had dedicated himself to the technical crafts that augmented his natural creativity (and thus became a brilliant success and turned him into a big name Hollywood player), Ben & Arthur is made out of ego. Sam Mraovich wanted fame. So he made.....this.Ben & Arthur is the story of two gay men who want to get married, only to be stymied by Ben's marriage to a woman to hide his true sexual orientation and Arthur's psychotic Christian fundamentalist brother. The basics behind the plot are not awful, and could be made into a dramatic film. Ben & Arthur does not do this.The Sony VX2000 video camera this was filmed on is not a bad camera, certainly not a bad camera for the home video market in 2002. But this was intended to be a direct-to-DVD film, not a home movie. Sam Mraovich was badly overextending himself in this choice of camera, as it doesn't even come close to reaching the level of the cheap cameras used for typical low budget films (mostly in that it's a camcorder, not film). It doesn't help that he uses what appears to be entirely ambient lighting (that there isn't even a section for the electrical department in the credits lends credence to this suggestion) and fails to properly focus his camera or adjust for lighting. It's not uncommon for a scene to have lighting of a completely different color and brightness every time it switches angles. One shot of Ben in bed as the film comes to its horrifying climax demonstrates why "Hollywood darkness" is meant to be used: the room is almost pitch black, and the full Youtube copy of the film (among many snarky annotations) makes sure to note what the scene is showing because it's otherwise nothing but a mess of various shades of gray.The cinematography would be bad....if it was there. Many of the scenes seem as if Mraovich literally put the camera on the tripod and jumped in front of it to act. The actors who played Victor and the PI are both listed as cinematographers, which suggests that they simply handled the camera in place of Mraovich whenever they weren't in the shot and/or he didn't feel like doing it himself. The scenes are not set up with any respect to the camera, and it doesn't seem like Mraovich ever bothered to do more than one or two takes, let alone get masters and close-ups of the same scene to have plenty of footage to work with. At least one scene is shot with Ben & Arthur talking as the cameraman wanders around and between them with the camera on his shoulder. They had nothing but a tripod to steady the camera, so any shots that couldn't be done with it are shaky and nasty.So that covers the look of the movie, and what drops it firmly into home movie category. Sound? Forget it. Everything was shot with the camera microphone (indeed, there likely wasn't any equipment used in the filming other than the Sony and the tripod), so while the dialogue and sound effects are understandable it all sounds terrible. The film opens with a cheery rendition of "The Entertainer" as Mraovich's name flashes almost a dozen times through the opening credits, which are placed in front of a background that resembles one of the acid trips that plays on Windows Media Player in time to the music. The music that plays in the actual movie (the few times any plays) is a generic keyboard tune out of a bad 80s action film.The acting is handled woodenly and sloppily, with messed up takes being left in and actors obviously reading from off-screen (or in the case of the lawyer, on-screen) scripts. The plot is even worse; gays and Christians alike respond to their problems with murder and property damage, and the film is written from an extremely biased viewpoint that turns the religious into evil, bigoted monsters while inadvertently stereotyping gays as flouncy, sex-crazed psychos. Plot holes, continuity errors, and nonsensical events and plans abound (like making a plot to use holy water to cure Arthur of his gayness, and then just taping the bottle to his door and expecting something to happen). Other reviews mention the palm trees of Vermont and the FedEx plane, but they don't mention how the gun that Ben takes from his ex-wife turns into Victor's gun (a very obvious water pistol) while Victor still has it, the gun changing hands with each shot in the finale.Speaking of the finale, it's horrible. Your mind will not make it out alive.Watch this movie with friends. And carefully.

Jason Evans Finally, a film that isn't afraid to confront the real problems facing homosexual men in the 21st century. Every year, thousands of gays are forced to resort to murder, arson and incest in order to thwart their hyper-religious homicidal family's members' evil schemes, and Ben & Arthur tackles this issue head-on.The word "genius" doesn't quite do justice to writer/producer/assistant producer/director/actor Sam Mraovich's filmmaking talents. As an innovator and risk-taker, Mraovich bravely chose to eschew conventional methods, and filmed his masterpiece using a Nokia 3200 (the same mobile phone was also used to create the film's musical score), thus giving the film a delightful shaky feel - as if it were being recorded by a drunken Parkinson's sufferer.The quality of acting is magnificent - so few actors these days are brave enough to stare directly into the camera, or have the skills to recite their lines as if they hadn't even read the script. Each character is beautifully written: Arthur (played by Mraovich himself) is the hero of the piece, a simple man who washes paper cups for a living and is struggling with a terrible mental illness that causes irrational outbursts, murderous tendencies, and an inability to run like a normal human. His lover, Ben, is a master of deceit - he has managed to be in a cohabiting relationship with Arthur for the last five years whilst being secretly married to woman who was completely in the dark about his other life. How Ben pulled off this elaborate deception is never elaborated upon, as master-director Mraovich really knows how to create a sense of intrigue. Arthur's brother, Victor, is the main antagonist - a fanatical Christian who attends a papièr-maché church. He is portrayed brilliantly by Michael Harboush, famous for his role as "Hospital Intern learning from Michael Mancini" in Melrose place.Sam Mraovich's commitment to equal-opportunities is demonstrated by the casting of a recently-lobotomised stoner as Ben and Arthur's lawyer - a brave move that could have easily backfired, the actress managed to overcome her limitations and deliver an astounding verbatim performance - you can hardly tell that she had had her frontal lobe removed just 3 hours prior to filming!I don't understand the criticism that this film has received - I imagine that those negative posters must either be embittered homophobes, or just too limited to fully comprehend Mraovich's genius.

TheLittleSongbird I love movies, but I have also seen some bad ones as well as bottom of the barrel worthy ones. Ben & Arthur was a movie I stumbled on by chance, and unaware of its dubious reputation I went ahead and watched it. And I regret it, while something MIGHT find some novelty value in it, it is really bottom of the barrel stuff.The story is thinner than a needle thread, and is little more than a series of disconnected scenes, and I probably have got "cringetitis" from the countless number of times I cringed at the terrible dialogue here.Ben & Arthur is also rather badly made, the editing is slapdash and if I was paid £10 for each continuity error and goof I spotted I'd probably be one of the richest women in England by now. The characters are annoying and unlikeable, and the acting is horrendous, of all the acting I've seen in a movie the past month or so only The Room comes close to the atrociousness of the acting here.In conclusion, a terrible film with no redeeming qualities. 0/10 Bethany Cox

radiodiffusion Just watched this after hearing about how bad it was and wanted to see for myself. Seriously, even if you read all the negative comments on here you will be nowhere near able to comprehend how awful this film actually is, although it has to be one of the most hilarious things I have ever seen! Never bothered to post a comment on here before, but this piece of crap really warrants it. Firstly the entire plot is ridiculous and nonsensical. Brother of the lead character (either Ben or Arthur, I forget which is which, and frankly it's never very clear) wants to stop some kind of gay marriage by killing everyone in sight - because homosexuality is abhorrent to Christians, but apparently mass murder isn't. Then there's some other crap thrown in about one of the gay couple's ex-wife trying to force him to remarry her at gunpoint. This leads to nothing, but provides us with one of the funniest lines of dialogue in the whole "film" - "I don't make sense? You don't make sense! That's who makes sense!". Brilliant.Then there's the acting, which is just atrocious. It must be seen to be believed. My personal favourite is the apparently stoned civil rights lawyer woman, who is clearly reading her lines off of something, yet still managing to mess them up. Enough said. The gay couple couldn't be less convincing. There's the vaguely attractive and completely gormless guy, and his boyfriend who looks like that little cartoon dough man of the bisto adverts. Only fatter. And less talented. The "film" has also been filmed by someone who is incapable of holding a camera even remotely still, and the number of mistakes throughout is amazing. The whole thing kicks off with the fat main guy in bed with a pair of boots on. Yep.But anyways, we all know how terrible this thing is, so I'd like to highlight some of the most priceless comedy moments that the "film" provides. When the fat guy sets the church on fire and then prances like a six year old girl across the car park to make his escape. Hilarious.Mildread! No idea what relation she is to the main characters - sometimes they know her, sometimes they don't, but she pops up in a couple of scenes nonetheless. Hilarious.The stoned lawyer. Already mentioned her, but she's so funny she's worth another mention.The evil brothers dinner of crackers that he lays on for his guests.The evil brother's anti-gay potion.The evil brother's cats.The ending, which I won't give away because it MUST be seen to be believed. I warn you though, make sure you're not eating at the time!!!! The tub of lard main character/director/producer gets naked. It's foul. Basically, Ben and Arthur is indescribably bad, but unintentionally the most comical thing you'll see for a long time. Literally, nothing is good about this excuse for a film, the goon of a director even manages to make the opening credits into a joke by writing his own name about 15 times.