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This movie had seemingly no understanding of how anything in politics works. One correction for June, I'm not sure about every state, but in California lieutenant governors are elected, not appointed. Cali's current governor Gavin Newson ran and was elected twice in 2010 and 2014. I remember voting for him, and Wikipedia confirms he had to run. For further credibility, I have taught AP Government. Some of my favorite stuff in the movie was that the Balse was the lieutenant governor, but the dipshits he hung out with named Brown and Jo were congresspersons. Why were they there? They're federal government officials. State representatives are not referred to as "congressman" and "congresswoman," they are assembly members. I'm not saying they have no interest in state politics, but they woudn't be hanging out in Sacramento EVERY DAY. That's insane. Sacramento county does have the 6th and 7th districts, but even in that case one of them would live in the other district which is not super close to the actual city of Sacramento. Also the man who seems to be their boss is named Senator Mack. In that case at least, maybe he's a state senator and his presence makes sense, but he wouldn't be bossing around the lieutenant governor and two congresspeople. And somehow he feels he can fire the lieutenant governor of California! That's not how it works. Not even the governor can fire the lieutenant governor. He has to either resign, lose a recall election, or we have to wait until the next election. I guess if he was arrested at the end, that would work too, but he's still can't be fired by a Senator. Nor can Gabbi/Gabby choose her replacement. The lieutenant governor would take over. If Balse were in jail, she'd be replaced by the President pro tempore of California's Senate. Also, another connection to The Room that I feel like no one stated specifically. Real life Gabbi's IMDB says she is a native of Sacramento. I believe that about as much as I believe Tommy Wiseau is born in the USA. I promise I'm not trying to come off anti-Immigrant, but come on! The only time Gabbi sounded confident in her lines was when she was speaking German. She must have been born and raised in Germany or Austria. She just lives in Sacramento now, right? Finally, I was fascinated by Gabbi's black friend's adr. I suppose she could also have been a German immigrant, but was I the only one who thought that actress got busy with something else and Gabbi just did her voiceover in like a silly voice?

I created my EarWolf account to share a little bit of info I have about this movie. I happen to know how this movie ended up on Amazon. I worked for the company that put it on Amazon. The filmmakers used a company called Distribber to help them self-distribute. Distribber and its parent company sadly went bankrupt and no longer exist but I was still working with the company when this movie was released on Amazon. Distribber ended up getting way behind on paying the residuals out to the filmmakers' who did business with them and incurred a lot of debt. This sadly led to a lot of independent filmmakers losing out on thousands of dollars that was owed to them when the company went bankrupt. The philosophy behind Distribber was to help independent filmmakers have a way to release their movies without going through the traditional distribution model. Distribber could release movies on Apple TV, Amazon Prime, Google Play, Netflix, Hulu, etc., without having to go through a major distribution company. On top of that, the filmmakers took 100% of the profits. They had to pay an upfront fee to cover services that ensured the movie and all its assets (feature, trailer, captions, etc) met the specs of each platform. It all gets very technical and boring as to what all goes into getting a movie into a file that is able to stream on Netflix or Amazon. But every streaming service has different levels of quality that they'll accept and as you all saw with Governor Gabbi, Amazon allows just about anything to be uploaded. Also, Amazon allows anyone to upload a movie. You need to have a specific deal with Netflix or Apple to release on their platforms (Distribber had these deals) but Amazon will take anything from anyone. If you have a home movie of your child taking her first steps, you can upload it to Amazon for people to rent or buy in HD or SD. You do need captions and they have to be in the right format. You also need to come up with some artwork in Photoshop for the thumbnail that the customer sees. But these are the kind of things Distribber could help with. So June was right when she saw this as just an intimate family film project. Those are the kinds of movies Distribber attracted. If you had enough money to throw around upfront, you could put your movie on a wide variety of streaming services in many different countries around the world. But Distribber did not offer any marketing services. So most of the movies released on Distribber didn't make any kind of profit, because no one knew these movies existed. It's quite possible that the HDTGM audience made this one of the top 10 most successful Distribber released movies. I only hope Gabbi got to benefit from that and the residuals aren't still tied up in court.

Just to be a nerd. Sorry. ADR doesn't stand for Additional Dialogue Recording (although I definitely thought it was too for years and I work in film/tv) It actually stands for Automated Dialog Replacement. And for a super running ADR gag check out Matt Berry in Garth Marenghi's Darkplace. His character's lines are ADRed by himself just to mimic a cheap shitty 80's style. You lot have all seen Garth Marenghi, right?

I am convinced Gabbi wrote this after watching Welcome Mr. President (wiki), a genuinely funny Italian film from 2013. Welcome Mr. President is about a kind librarian from the country who gets elected to president of Italy as the result of an mistake by corrupt party leaders. Just from that summary you can see the similarities, but the shared plot points go way further: The establishment immediately picks up the protagonist and drives them to a resignation speech... But at the last minute they change their mind and decide to use their power to change the status quo. The modest leader gives away their new wealth to the needy. The carefree leader falls in love with their straight-edge assistant. The low-class leader annoys their Italian chef by wanting pizza instead of fancy food. A mishap leads to a bunch of officials eating pot, which happens to make everyone like the leader more. (In WMP this is a real mistake instead of an intentional poisoning, and at least the weed is cooked instead of sprinkled on raw.) The corrupt politicians tap the leader's phone and misinterpret a conversation as blackmail material. When that doesn't work, the antagonists go after the leader's best friends, which finally makes the leader step down. After the leader steps down at the end of the movie they get a "what comes next" call from an even bigger authority asking for help. (VP in Gabbi, Pope in WMP). Of course, every one of these plot points is executed better in the full-fledged film, from writing to acting to production. I almost find it impressive that with so much of the plot already accounted for, Governor Gabbi isn't able to insert a single intentionally funny element into its runtime.

A moonbat is a derogatory term for liberals (according to Wikipedia). Does this make Gabby a Republican? All her policies were very liberal (public transport, teaching salaries) but she kept calling Balse and Co. moonbats.

Attention all HDTGM fans, if you are down with your circa 2018 memes you will no doubt remember VoiceoverPete aka Pete Accetturo. He was a corporate spokesman that became a spokesman on Fiverr. For as low as $25 you could hire Pete to film himself saying whatever you wanted in front of a greenscreen. He quickly became a meme superstar particularly in the gaming/Fortnite communities. What does this have to do with Govern Gabbi? Well he's in it! He is one of the many news anchors seen throughout the movie. This is interesting to me for two main reasons. One, it was commented on the international flavor of the news anchors. This is probably because they were all hired from the website Fiverr. Many of the spokespeople on Fiverr are based all around the world and accept jobs from anywhere. And while we are not sure how much he was paid, the fact they were hiring Fiverr people instead of local actors means they were going for as cheap as possible. This is also interesting to me because not one of the news anchors is credited in the movie. So not only were these people hired on Fiverr on the cheap but then they are even not credited in the movie either in case somebody else wants to hire them. For shame Niebauers, for shame.

I personally pay for Netflix, Amazon, and HBO. I have access to a ton of free ones, Crackle and Popcornflix and the like. Don't use me in the decision though, I'm able and willing to pay if needed (or even sometimes I'll find a torrent for free, I'll admit).

This was extremely common for Italian movies at the time. Fellini famously had actors say whatever they wanted on set and would finish writing dialogue in post production, to dub in later. I think it was a cost saving thing since cameras and sets were loud. So, it was easier to simply dub audio later than to trying to remove sound during filming. There's a Hitchcock movie, Blackmail, that used live dubbing with a person off screen speaking while the actress mouthed the words on screen. Talkies were just becoming a thing and the refilmed parts of the movie to cash in on the craze of talking pictures. The actress had a really thick, non-English accent which wouldn't make sense for the character. Audio post production was still in its infancy. So, the solution was have an English woman say her lines off screen.

This movie made me physically ill. (Not joking.)

For an 85 minute movie, the older ladies spend a good 5 minutes in the garage (with the door mostly closed) talking about going back to the same presumably horrible repair shop. the entire payoff to this is when Gabbi asks Aunt Mechanic where her car is at the party and the aunt says, "It's a long story." Gabbi is shown the governor's mansion. They stop and she asks, "Do I live here?" Balse says no, smirks and they drive out to a perfectly nice house and says, "You live here." Of course Gabbi is thrilled much to his chagrin. It's not like he drove her to the bad part of town and kicked her out of the car. The 'Governor's Seal' was a piece of paper the said something like "The Office of the Governor". During the blanket scene she is taken down by a green blanket, which then turns orange and in the very next scene two people watching the press conference are under the same orange blanket. I think they used every room in the Niebauer house including shooting the kitchen from either end to make an extra room. Did anyone else think that she was dating either the assistant Mark or the shiny foreheaded Josh? They were at varying times both giving her the lovey dovey eyes.

She wasn't a write-in. Shiny Mark (her other admirer?) who counted the bake sale votes was also in charge of creating the STATE BALLOT. His boss yelled at him so his 'revenge' was to put Gabbi's name on the ballot instead of the actual candidate. In reality, they would have had to reprint all the ballots when this is discovered. Elections in my part of the country send out a ballot with all the candidates and initiatives on it well in advance of the vote. Someone would have noticed before election day that her name was there instead of the actual candidate.

Her page seems to be gone now, but at one point on Gabbi's instagram there was "test footage" for another project that contained the line "I just feel like my emotions are insane, and now you want me to become a werewolf , and I'm kind of freaking out, OK?" This made me want to renounce all possessions and follow the Niebauer's teachings.

Seconding Kanopy and Hoopla. If your local library (or your a college student for kanopy), they are worth getting. Once you get your library card setup on the site, you never need to go to the library again to use them. I've found some of the harder to find HDTGM movies on Hoopla. There are also free streaming services like Pluto TV or Tubi (free with ads) that are checking out. They aren't great, but you can find some good stuff on them.

Amazon has some good shows and has produced some good movies, but as a former Borders employee and independent book store lover, I hate their business model. Plus, not a Bezos fan. Above comments said, I am quar’ing with my parents who do have Prime, so I’m not immune to piggybacking on their account. I have access to Netflix the same way, but have Hulu and HBO Max subscriptions. Also, my library is connected to Hoopla and Kanopy (both awesome free services).

I only have Netflix. Spending a few bucks is no big deal to rent it is no big deal.

Netflix, Hulu, Prime, HBO. But I don't mind renting a movie for a couple of bucks as long as Dan Stevens isn't in it (I kid, I kid).

Curious about who E.L. Bachem/Elee Bachem is. They're listed as the writer of at least four Gabrielle Niebauer movies: "Governor Gabbi" and "Band of Keepers" (as E.L. Bachem), as well as "Cold Kate" and "Heart KPop" (as Elee Bachem). Anyone else think it's just Gabrielle Niebauer under a pseudonym?

Hey all! It's been brought to my attention that it's my pick next week. I was just wondering, for future reference, what streaming/premium services do you all have? I know things still aren't great for a lot of people, and I'm trying not to pick anything that would put people out of pocket. I have a few picks, but if for instance I know most people have Amazon Video rather than, say, HBO or something, I'll pick something from there. Thanks!

So I was there at this live show I had to watch this movie, my god is this one of the worst movies I ever had to watch, So my one correction is the at the beginning the women getting robbed is Gabbi's grandma. So Gabbi and her friends just watch as someone tries to rob her own grandmother and she beats him up.

Whichever family member did Gabby's make up should be shot. She looked like a sweaty uncooked chicken breast half the time and a Time Square Elsa the rest. It was Rough.

I also hated this motion picture

So technically it would be legal for Gabby ( Gabbi?) To run for governor as California is one of the few states with an age requirement of only 18. HOWEVER in 2010 Proposition 14 passed which prohibits write in candidates in the general election. According to the Wikipedia " It was a constitutional amendment that effectively transformed California's non-Presidential elections from first-past-the-post to a nonpartisan blanket primary (similar to a two-round system). This had the unforeseen consequence of effectively eliminating third party candidates from the final ballots. " Therefore its my understanding that it would have been impossible for Gabby to have been elected as she was never a part of the primary and had no party. She would be seen as a write in candidate. Regardless wouldn't it just be seen as a typo? Why couldn't they have another emergency election ? I'm sure that could have happened as soon as she was decided the winning candidate.

This is one of the most prescient movies ever! Although filmed in 2017, it very accurately predicts the state of America today. Not only does the plot hinge on election ballot tampering, it also takes place during a global pandemic! At least I assume there is a pandemic as there are no campaign rallies, acceptance speeches, or press conferences (Gabbi only makes public addresses “virtually”). The streets and beaches of California are completely empty, and Gabbi interacts only with a small number of people in her designated pod (although she does have to double-her-bubble when she is quarantined in the Governors “mansion” with the Lt. Governor and the other two “Moon-Bats”). Gabbi is an apt allegory for Trump's covid response as, in spite of some social distancing, there is an alarming lack of masks being worn. Of special concern is the “State Dessert Honoring Mayor Turner” which has the potential of becoming a super-spreader event. This movie gets more right than Minority Report!

My god it's hypnotizing!

One amusing thing to note is that of all the movies that were mentioned from the lead actress, only this one has a poor rating on imdb. Probably because it's the only one that was reviewed by more than about a dozen people.