Brandon Hardesty

October 10, 2007 11:38 PM

Brandon Hardesty [wiki, previously] is a comic actor who is best known for his movie re-enactments and his appearance on a Geico commercial (for which he was well compensated). He asked his thousands of YouTube fans for scene requests. He has now (despite a recent bout with mono) completed performances of the top five five winners: 5: Clerks, 4: Fight Club, 3: Full Metal Jacket, 2: Reservoir Dogs and 1: Pulp Fiction. [YouTube unless otherwise noted]

Hardesty's other re-enactments include The Shining, Harvey, As Good as it Gets, Jurassic Park and Planes Trains and Automobiles. In addition, his performances include a couple original characters, strange faces, impressive piano and some fun with friends. My personal favorite remains his re-enactment of Goodfellas.

posted by McLir (20 comments total)

Kid actually looks a bit like Chris Penn.
posted by Brittanie at 12:19 AM on October 11, 2007

The best ones are the clips where he's not focusing on timing and blocking, and just nailing the dialog. Specifically Reservoir Dogs and Clerks. The Clerks clip is great because he perfectly mimics the terrible acting that made clerks so great.
posted by billyfleetwood at 12:35 AM on October 11, 2007

He nails these. Talented man, that one.
posted by spiderskull at 12:38 AM on October 11, 2007

His Lee Emery is terrifying. As is his Steve Buscemi.
posted by Astro Zombie at 2:00 AM on October 11, 2007

me likey
posted by Dillonlikescookies at 4:19 AM on October 11, 2007

Cute but (sorry), the editing/camera/eyelines keeps distracting me.

He won't look himself in the eye! The angles are often odd to make it so we see only one person/character at a time. And there are times where he jumps across the 180 deg line (a filmschool thing where you feel disoriented because the camera has jumped somewhere too far away, reversing where you'd expect objects to be.)
posted by filmgeek at 5:21 AM on October 11, 2007

I liked the Fight Club one best, his Raymond K. Hessel is good. The Pulp Fiction one just didn't click for me, maybe it was the beard. The bits after the scenes, where he's getting snacks, are funny too: Well I take my bag of grapes, and I go downstairs, and I eat the whole bag...where is my mind.
posted by Who_Am_I at 5:38 AM on October 11, 2007

I really liked his Ocean's Eleven because he somehow manages to capture the very tiny differences in character and style between Clooney and Pitts without even saying anything. He actually looks like Brad Pitt at one point--how does he do that??
posted by DU at 5:46 AM on October 11, 2007

This guy is great. My personal fave is his Star Trek: First Contact.

"THE LINE MUST BE DRAWN HE-ARH!!!!"
posted by The Card Cheat at 6:42 AM on October 11, 2007

This is awesome. Oddly enough, I liked the Unconventional Dance Moves more than the spoofs.
posted by spec80 at 6:47 AM on October 11, 2007

which you linked... heh
posted by spec80 at 7:05 AM on October 11, 2007

I love this guy. He's got a real knack for what he does.
posted by Pope Guilty at 7:59 AM on October 11, 2007

Very good, very nice.
posted by Divine_Wino at 9:33 AM on October 11, 2007

Awesome...

"THE LINE MUST BE DRAWN HE-ARH!!!!"

He completely nailed that line....
posted by Debaser626 at 10:11 AM on October 11, 2007

Man, his Jack Nicholson impression is way better than Christian Slater's.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 11:32 AM on October 11, 2007

Ya beat me to it! I was going to post about Brandon's stuff some time ago, but I was going to wait until the Pulp Fiction bit was up. Oh well, I'm glad he's getting some attention.

This is the kind of thing that really makes me love YouTube, or at least the potential it can have. Bravo, Brandon!
posted by birdhaus at 11:36 AM on October 11, 2007

Pretty impressive, but he couldn't shoot in a parking lot for FIght Club?
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 12:13 PM on October 11, 2007

Outdoor lighting is much harder than indoor lighting.

Nice job, those are fun to watch.
posted by warcode at 4:32 PM on October 11, 2007

Holy fuck the Pan's Labyrinth one is fucking awesome. Fucking Awesome.
posted by chunking express at 6:17 PM on October 11, 2007

I especially enjoy reading the director's notes on his older videos, like this one from The Shining:

I used two halves of a peanut to represent the chaos that is Shelly Duvall's mouth.
posted by shannonm at 9:09 AM on October 12, 2007