Carell and Clement Are Endearingly Odd in Dinner for Schmucks

I’ve been seeing a lot of promotion lately for Dinner for Schmucks, the Jay Roach-directed comedy that opens this weekend, but all those ads didn’t manage to give me a very clear idea of what the movie was about. All that really stuck with me was the fact that one of the stars was a distinctly odd-looking Steve Carell and that based on the quick clips shown in the previews, it looked pretty stupid. I was much more interested in Carell’s other movie, Despicable Me, but when my friend suggested we go see the schmucks, I was game. It turned out to be one of those movies I’m glad someone else suggested; I wouldn’t have gone on my own, but I ended up really liking it.

While it is Carell’s performance that really drives the action of the movie, Paul Rudd is the main character here, which I found interesting, since I last saw him in I Love You, Man, in which he plays a man on the verge of marriage whose engagement and life in general become overhauled when he meets the strange man who will quickly become his best friend. In this movie, he’s in a solid relationship, but he and artistic Frenchwoman Julie (Stephanie Szostak) are not yet engaged, much to his dismay. Tim is a clever, resourceful guy who is willing to do his homework in order to get ahead at the office. When a promotion pops up, his initiative and extensive research place him in an ideal opportunity to advance. But then complication arise...

Those complications come mostly courtesy of Carell’s Barry, a sweetly eccentric IRS agent who spends all of his free time building dioramas and scouting out tiny, already-deceased residents to fill them. Like most of Carell’s characters, Barry is endearingly naive, with character quirks that cause him to appear quite moronic. He has spectacles, an absurd set of teeth that cause him to talk strangely and an absolute inability to pick up on most basic social cues. And once Tim dramatically enters his life - in a manner that serves as a blatant warning about the dangers of driving while using a cell phone - he’s stuck with Barry, who is desperate to do all he can to assist his new (and only) friend.

Tim immediately sees in Barry his ticket to that bigger office, since he seems the perfect candidate for the top-secret dinner upon which his promotion largely hinges. The tradition? Each person from the office brings someone with a strange ability to dinner, and by the end of the night, one of them will be awarded a trophy. What the winner will be too clueless to realize is the fact that he and his fellow guests have only been invited so these executives can have a laugh at their expense. As soon as Julie learns of the dinner, she is horrified, and this is the cause of the initial friction between her and Tim. Barry sets off a series of mishaps exacerbating their problems, but it all boils down to the fact that this job has turned Tim into someone who does despicable things.

I was surprised at how much I came to like Julie so quickly. In these types of movies, there’s usually at least some question as to whether the main character might be better off without his current girlfriend. Usually there is a grating side to her personality, but Julie is utterly charming in one of the few straightman roles in the movie. I’d never seen Szostak in a movie before, but I’ll keep an eye out for her name; her radiant performance as the vulnerable but fiercely moral Julie won me over completely.

Also reeling me in was Flight of the Conchords‘ Jemaine Clement as Kieran, the artist whose show Julie is in the midst of curating. Though I’ve found Clement hilarious ever since his run of ads for Outback Steakhouse several years ago, I failed to recognize him in the previews. That’s not so surprising, however, since he plays a completely different character than the painfully awkward version of himself I grew used to seeing on his short-lived HBO sit-com. This long-haired incarnation of Clement bristles with brazen intensity. Julie and Barry both refer to his appeal as “animal magnetism,” and he’s certainly tapped into something visceral by surrounding himself with exotic wildlife at his ranch.

Unflappable and virile, he initially comes across as narcissistic since he is the focal point of every one of his carefully composed photographs, which depict him in animalistic costumes against provocative backdrops, but there’s something very Zen about his approach to the world. He’s an oddball, to be sure, but he’s also refreshingly honest and attuned to the emotions of others, and although he’s a rival for Julie’s affections, I found it impossible not to like him.

Although fellow FotC alum Kristen Schaal never shares the screen with Clement, it’s fun to see them both appear in the same movie. Her role is much smaller than his; she plays Tim’s personal assistant, who desperately wants Tim to make a play for power so she can move up to the seventh floor with him. Carell isn’t the only familiar face from The Office, either; Larry Wilmore, who plays a drab fellow from corporate trying to clean up Michael Scott’s messes in several episodes, portrays an officemate who would horrify that uber-politically correct character. Among the many other minor players, the one who caught my eye most was Patrick Fischler. Here, he’s Vincenzo, a bandaged vulture handler whose control over his bird is less than complete, while I know him as beady-eyed Dharma drone Phil on LOST.

Exuding a sort of smarmy executive charm is Bruce Greenwood as Tim’s boss Lance Fender, who tries to dismiss this young go-getter but finds himself increasingly impressed. While this is a man who seems to delight in the misfortunes of others, his charisma makes Lance’s crass nature harder to see. Same goes for Mueller (David Walliams), the Swiss businessman whose support is so crucial to the future success of the company. Mueller comes across as very sophisticated, and he’s pleased with Tim’s smooth attempts to court his favor, but before the movie is over, we get to see just how undignified he can be.

In many ways, this movie reminded me of the comedy What About Bob?, in which a psychiatrist played by Richard Dreyfuss has his perfect weekend obliterated by the affable patient who crashes his family getaway. This uptight professional on the cusp of the greatest triumph of his career watches in horror as his wife and children become attached to disaster-prone Bob, whose presence poses a grave threat to his big break. Barry is an incredibly sympathetic character, but some of his actions truly are idiotic, and when Tim’s mouth twitches in suppressed rage, it’s easy to understand why.

It’s a comedy of extravagant errors, and the resulting wanton destruction is my least favorite element of the movie. That sort of thing always makes me cringe a bit, whether it’s in Mouse Hunt or Bean. Both of those movies aim at a younger audience; Dinner for Schmucks is clearly for adults, with no characters under the age of 20 and a fair amount of sensuality. There’s also a smattering of profanity, though that’s kept to a minimum; more potentially offensive is a scene involving Barry’s artistic representation of The Last Supper, but everything Barry does is so earnest that while Tim’s reactions bugged me, the initial artwork seems almost reverent.

Barry, for all his eccentricities, is an exceptionally talented artisan. His attention to detail is astounding, as we see in the whimsical opening sequence set to the Beatles’ Fool on the Hill. It may sound a bit morbid to turn taxidermied mice into works of art, but his intricate displays pop with a candy-coated joy that reminds me of Pushing Daisies. This is a lonely man who has not had much success in life, but his ability to see the best in every situation clearly comes across in his artwork.

While I’ve become a pretty solid fan of Carell in recent years, I had serious doubts about Dinner for Schmucks. It’s a gentler film than I expected, and while it does have its crude and painfully disastrous moments, I spent a majority of the movie with a smile on my face. My conclusion? This bunch of schmucks did all right.

Osmosis Jones Can't Decide What Its Audience Is

Over the past few decades, Bill Murray has played a lot of schlubby fellas, but never have I seen him less attractive than in Osmosis Jones, the 2001 Farrelly Brothers movie about the quest of a white blood cell and a cold pill to defeat the virus ravaging Frank, the grungy guy in whom they reside.

Murray portrays Frank, a zookeeper and widower with astonishingly poor eating habits and hygiene. His young daughter Shane (Elena Franklin) is alarmed about both, but her concerns fall upon deaf ears, and after an especially disgusting scene involving an ill-advised implementation of the 10-second rule, he pays the price for his lack of standards as to what he puts into his mouth. A malevolent virus makes its way into his system, and the micro-organisms inside of him must work overtime to counteract the damage.

This is an odd movie because it seems geared toward two different audiences. The live-action portion is stilted and absurdly over-the-top, with all the finesse of a film created for the express purpose of encouraging elementary school students to eat their veggies and wash their hands before dinner. Pouty Shane tries not to condescend too much, but she still comes across as an insufferable know-it-all; she may be just a tween, but she seems to spend her life lecturing her father. Then again, his immaturity level is off the charts. His gross-out antics may amuse a certain subset of youngsters, but most adults are likely to find these scenes tedious and B-movie-ish.

While the live-action portion is clearly aimed at a young audience, the animated part is slick-looking, filled with familiar voice talent and hip commentary on contemporary culture. Health lessons abound here as well, but they are much more technical, and the writing in general is far more sophisticated. There’s also some innuendo, and several moments involving uber-villain The Red Death (Laurence Fishburne) are quite terrifying, so not only will a lot of the animated stuff go over the heads of kids, some of it is pretty inappropriate.

The most enjoyable elements of the film are the maneuvers of the campy mayor of Frank’s body, voiced by William Shatner, and the friendship that develops between loose cannon cop Osmosis (Chris Rock) and distinguished but heroic cold pill Drix (David Hyde Pierce). These two characters initially clash, but they bond as they become two of the only organisms in the body who understand what they are truly up against with this virus. Frasier turned me into an ardent fan of Pierce, and as always, his voice work is fantastic here. Rock is almost a little too spastic for my tastes, but he’s likable nonetheless.

Osmosis Jones is a mixed bag of a movie that is worth a watch, but most people will probably find at least one part of the movie frustrating. Parents of kids under twelve should be aware of the adult themes in the animated portion, while adults in general should know that the live segments are very juvenile indeed. Still, the movie’s message about the importance of a healthy diet and proper cleanliness, heavy-handed as it may be, is a worthwhile one, and Drix and Osmosis make an entertaining and visually appealing team.

The Mini Chicken N' Egg Keychain Does Not Represent Hugo or LOST Well

Last week, I received an e-mail from ABC’s LOST store informing me that anyone who purchased an item would, while supplies last, receive a free Mr. Cluck’s keychain. For those who haven’t watched LOST, this is the name of the fried chicken franchise owned by Hugo, otherwise known as Hurley, the show’s lovable, unassuming millionaire. As Hugo is probably my favorite character on the show and I’d already been planning to buy his bobblehead anyway, I decided to go ahead and bite. I put in my order, and then I put it out of my mind, since the bobbleheads don’t actually come out for another month or so.

But a few days later, I received a box in the mail. It was a box of a fairly decent size, nearly as big as a shoebox, but it contained one tiny keychain of about three inches in length, two inches from wingtip to wingtip. After I’d rolled my eyes over the excessive packaging, I examined my acquisition. I must not have been paying proper attention, since I was under the impression that this keychain would feature the Mr. Cluck’s logo of a smiling yellow chicken head, probably on a flat metal keychain. After all, the store sells Mr. Cluck’s t-shirts, and this is the design they use. If there was a picture of what the actual keychain looked like, I missed it.

So I was surprised when I realized that my chicken keychain had no specific connection to LOST. Instead, it came with a generic tag that reads “Mini Chicken n’ Egg Backpack Clip”. What’s more, aside from yellow coloring, this chicken bears no resemblance to the Mr. Cluck’s chicken.

This little bird is a three-dimensional, rubbery creature suspended from a metal chain with a clip on the end. It has a small red comb and wattle; I would take it to be a rooster, except that it has a strange mechanism whereby you squeeze the middle and a vaguely egg-like bubble pushes through a hole between the chicken’s legs. Depending on the angle at which it is pushed, this egg appears either yellow or milky white. I didn’t discover this feature immediately, and I initially found it rather novel, but upon further thought, it struck me as gross.

The chicken also features gangly, bright red feet that stick straight out, and there’s a reddish line going down the front, along with reddish coloring on the puny wings and tail. On its head is a pair of bright blue eyes with black dots for pupils. For the most part, though, this chicken is yellow, and it is covered in tiny bumps. It’s clammy to the touch; there are no feathers in sight, so this is evidently a dead chicken that has retained the skill of egg-laying. A zombie chicken, I suspect, which I suppose is appropriate for the final season of LOST, which has often been jokingly referred to as The Zombie Season. But I sure hope this stringy, undead, thoroughly hideous chicken is not indicative of what goes into Hugo’s chicken buckets. Gotta tell you, dude, that’s pretty poor advertising.

To top it all off, I noticed the other day that a two-dollar charge for this “free LOST keychain” had turned up on my card. I didn’t even request the chicken; I would imagine that some people would have gotten to check-out without realizing that this was a part of their order. Had I known that I would be charged an extra two dollars so they could unnecessarily ship it early, and had I realized that this keychain was so ugly that I would almost pay someone to take it off my hands, I certainly would have bought my bobble from Entertainment Earth instead. That’s what I get for being seduced by “freebies”. But that’s a complaint with the ABC store, not the manufacturer of this tiny terror.

If you know someone who has an irrational fear of chickens, perhaps this would make a morbid gag gift. Otherwise, I can’t recommend it, and certainly not for the going rate of nearly $4.50. If you hope to have a “cluckity-cluck day,” I suggest you seek out the company of more sophisticated fowl.

Baseball Is In the Background in Field of Beans

Somebody at Big Idea must have had beans on the brain in 2005. The Christian company most famous for its DVDs and books involving computer-animated veggies and fruits delighted geeks like me with the release of the video Lord of the Beans, a spoof of Lord of the Rings. Around the same time came Field of Beans, a VeggieTown Values book that uses Field of Dreams as a springboard for a message about faith.

In this book, written by Doug Peterson and illustrated by Michael Moore, Junior Asparagus is getting frustrated. That’s because all of his Little League teammates are razzing him for striking out, costing them the game. Junior begins to think they might be right when they berate him for not carrying a lucky charm. Could a rabbit’s foot or a pair of dice turn Junior into a baseball star?

As in the rest of the stories in this series, Junior finds the solution to his problem in a book suggested to him by the proprietor of the Treasure Trove Bookstore. In this case, he begins to read and finds himself in the middle of a crowded baseball stadium. He’s about to witness a showdown between the Mount Carmel Dodgers and the Baal City Relics, but it doesn’t involve any bats or balls. Instead, the main event seems more like half-time fare, with a competition involving two enormous grills that don’t seem to want to light.

Some of the books in this series include several plot elements from the movies whose titles they spoof, but in this case, the connections are pretty general. It’s about baseball, and it’s about sticking to your guns even though your convictions may seem silly to other people. It does strike me as a little odd that the main story, despite occurring at a ballpark, doesn’t actually include any baseball-playing, but Peterson was trying to create a modern-day version of Elijah’s showdown with the followers of Baal in 1 Kings, and it translates reasonably well.

Appealing elements of this story include the excitement of the ballpark atmosphere and the transformation of certain characters like Pa Grape, the only player on the Dodgers, and Bob and Larry, who are a pair of commentators. References to Casey at the Bat and Take Me Out to the Ball Game are fun as well.

While I do think the book is a little heavy-handed and that the idea of having a team with only one player on it doesn’t make much sense, I think Peterson gets his message across, and children who like baseball should enjoy the setting, along with a couple of amusing new characters. A solid story that might encourage the reading of even more Veggie tales in the future.

Nancy Meyers Mixes Scandal and Sweetness in It's Complicated

My friend Libbie decided last week that the time was ripe for another girls’ movie night with my mom. The consensus was that we wanted something light, but preferably not too juvenile, so we decided to give It’s Complicated, a romantic comedy focused on characters in their fifties and sixties, a try.

My first thought as we began to watch the movie was that it reminded me of Something’s Gotta Give, the 2003 comedy starring Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton as very different people brought together under unusual circumstances. I wasn’t that surprised, then, when I learned that both movies were written and directed by Nancy Meyers, who also helmed 2006’s The Holiday.

The premise of It’s Complicated involves a divorced couple who, ten years after infidelity separated them, rekindle their passion for each other on a trip to see their son’s college graduation. Alec Baldwin is Jake Adler, a rogue who is no longer so thrilled with his youthful wife Agness (Lake Bells), who has become an insufferable nag and whose son from another relationship runs him ragged. He has no moral qualms about cheating on his second wife with his first; indeed, it seems that a part of him wants to pretend that the last ten years never happened.

Meanwhile, although Jane (Meryl Streep) resents Agness, she feels guilty about the adultery. What’s more, she can tell that even as Jake rediscovers his old affection for her, the narcissistic characteristics that caused such a problem in their marriage are still very much in force. She has spent the past decade building a life for herself, becoming truly independent and successful as a pastry chef, so Jane is uneasy from a moral perspective and because she fears getting hurt again.

Jane and Jake have three children, all of whom remain unaware of their parents’ dalliances throughout the majority of the film. I was familiar with none of those youthful actors, who didn’t have to stretch themselves much as their roles were fairly minor. However, I found the closeness of the characters sweet; it was refreshing to see a movie in which young adult siblings all get along so well.

By far the most interesting member of the younger generation is Harley, who is engaged to the older Adler daughter. The unassuming, affable charm that makes him so lovable on The Office is very apparent here as subtly comedic John Krasinski portrays this man who feels like one of the family and who has been burdened with the accidental knowledge of what the Adler parents are up to. Equally likable is Steve Martin in the uncharacteristically mellow role of Adam, a gentle architect who begins to fall for Jane as he works on an addition to her house.

The slowly developing romantic storyline between Jane and Adam is very tender and easy to root for, though Meyer left me guessing for most of the movie as to which suitor, if any, Jane would ultimately choose. While Streep and Martin both bring a mature sweetness to their roles, Baldwin is just bumbling enough that it’s possible to sympathize with him when he’s being outrageously inappropriate. There’s a bit of lurid language, mostly among the women in Jane’s circle of longtime friends, but the movie never gets graphic, and nudity only figures into one scene, where it is used to great comic effect. Indeed, this particular scene had my mom in stitches, as did an extended sequence involving the main characters sharing a joint at a party and acting extremely loopy as a result.

After the movie was over, Mom said that she didn’t think Libbie and I appreciated the movie quite as much as she did. I do think that It’s Complicated is probably funniest and most poignant for those who are closer to the ages of Streep, Baldwin and Martin, but I found it funny and surprisingly sweet overall and was glad to see at least some acknowledgment of the negative consequences an affair can bring about, even if it is between two people who were once married to each other.