My "Dinner For Schmucks" Review

So, last night I went to see a pre-release screening of the new movie Dinner For Schmucks. It stars Steve Carell and Paul Rudd and it's about a man (Rudd) who is invited by his boss to a secret monthly dinner where everyone is required to bring the biggest idiot they can find. If Rudd finds the biggest idiot he gets a promotion. He meets a man (Carell) who fits just that description and hilarity ensues. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. I found it to be very well-written and a lot smarter than I thought it was going to be. Obviously I'm not claiming this was Shakespeare. It was a lot of silly, but it never went for the easy fart/toilet humor I was expecting. There were a lot of good jokes, so that made the movie (which, at almost two hours, was a lot longer than I expected) to move along at a fairly good pace. The other thing that struck me was that there were very few small-time actors in this thing. Every role was played by a comedian that has had some level of success. Perfect example: in one scene you see the woman who is supposed to be Carell's ex-wife from a distance of about 100 feet. She gets out of a car, says two lines, gets back into the car and is never seen again. They could have gotten an extra to play this part, but instead got Family Guy's Alex Borstein. I assume she'll have more scenes on the DVD.

Another couple of great performances of note here: Flight of the Concords Jermaine Clement and Zach Galifianakis are scene-stealers every time they are on screen. Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I'd be lying if I didn't mention my positive reviews could be skewed by the fact that the screening was free. Afterall, I've mentioned before that how enjoyable an activity is will be directly connected to how much you paid for it. Camping is fun as long as the campsite costs you $40 for the weekend, but when it's suddenly $130 for two nights you start to notice everything that is wrong with the place. And it's not like this movie was perfect: personally I felt that Rudd was kind of wasted being the straight man. He's a great comedic talent and he's trying to reign Carell in instead of bouncing off of him. They could have used a more straight-laced guy to play Rudd's role. That's what made Luke Wilson the perfect straight man in Old School. Also, it takes a while to get to the actual dinner scene, which I thought they could have expanded to take up some more of the movie. Still, those are a couple minor things and even if it wasn't free I still think I would have enjoyed this film immensely. If you are a fan of Carell or silly, then I really think you would enjoy it.

-I'd like to take a moment to talk about the seating at a movie theatre. Now, I remember going to a movie opening night and nearly having a fight break out because people were saving seats. Fortunately there was nothing as dramatic this time around, but there was still something that bugged me repeatedly. As this was a free screening we got there very early because we didn't know how many tickets had been given out. The movie was showing in one of those new "Cinema-Delux" theatres, with the back few rows being made up of double-wide seats that featured in-seat service. Only they didn't offer those as free tickets, so that section was empty the entire time. We settled into our seats in the very last row a good half-hour before the movie started and then spent the rest of the time watching as people came all the way up the stairs, only to realise that they wouldn't be allowed into the luxury seating that took up the last three rows. And they always seemed shocked. I'm serious. Every... single... group. Didn't it dawn on them that if people had been allowed to sit in those seats they would have been the first ones taken? Also, there was a family in front of us made up of a father, mother and young son (too young for this movie, but when you have people who brought a newborn, these two were in contention for "parents of the year" by comparison). Fifteen minutes before the movie started the son had to go to the bathroom and the father took him. The entire time they were gone people came up and started to move into the row, only to be told the seats were taken. These people also always seemed shocked. So, here's a free tip for those of you out there: if you go into a movie on either its opening night or the night of a special screening and you get there right before movie starts and find the entire stadium section of seating is so full that people have pretty much filled in the regular rows of seats in the front of the theatre and you happen to see two open seats near the middle of the theatre, it's a good bet those seats are taken. Don't you think all those people in the front would rather sit in those seats? Think it through and save yourself the walk.