Dinner For Schmucks (2010)

★ ★ 1/2






Dinner for Schmucks is the type of movie I usually despise. A hackneyed American version of a foreign arthouse film is about the last thing I'm likely to enjoy. I went in with that expectation, and I was pleasantly surprised. While the plot was as cliched as I'd imagined, they threw so much at the audience, that some was bound to stick. Putting Steve Carell, Jemaine Clement, and Zach Galifianakis together is likely to lead to some laughs. Add Ron Livingston, and laughs are assured.

The irony of Dinner for Schmucks is that while it was marketed as a Steve Carell movie, Carell wasn't the driving force behind the comedy. He delivered a lot of laughs, but had his fair share of misfires. The real star was Jemaine Clement. If you look close enough, you may recognize Jemaine (Kieran) from Flight of the Conchords. His character is an 'artist', specializing in grotesque portraits of himself. In short, it's the type of 'art' that an impartial observer would laugh at, but regularly appears at modern art galleries. It's a not so subtle jab at modern 'art', and Jemaine absolutely nails it.





On top of Clement's character, we also get entertaining performances from Hollywood's two leading pseudo-cameo artists: Ron Livingston, and Zach Galifianakis. Livingston (otherwise known as Peter from Office Space) doesn't have to do much to make me laugh. In fact, I burst out laughing any time I see him. Played by anyone else, his role would not have been funny--and wouldn't have intended to be. He's Peter from Office Space. He doesn't need to do anything to be funny. Galifianakis plays a 'mind controlling' IRS agent, who is Barry's (Carell) nemesis. Galifianakis makes Carell's role work. Most of the time.

I haven't mentioned Paul Rudd yet, and frankly, there isn't much reason to. He's the cliched leading man in a comedy, and we'll leave it at that. Dinner for Schmucks doesn't stand on it's own as a movie. It's more like skit comedy superimposed on a boring movie, and that's just fine with me.

Youth in Revolt (2009)

★ ★ ★ ☆






The downside of subversive movies is that they are often mistaken for crass appeals to drug addled teenagers. Such is the case with Youth in Revolt. Needless to say, I didn't see it during it's theatrical run. After re-watching Juno a few days ago, I figured I'd give it a shot. I'm glad I did. Youth in Revolt is entertaining, and insightful. It examines contemporary culture through the lens of an imaginative young man, who's grounding in art house culture has ill prepared him for his place in the lower depths of the post-internet world.

Few films have honestly dealt with the realities of modern teenage life as Youth in Revolt has. We now live in a world where many parents are little more than peons, totally disconnected from the realities of the information society. Like the first generation of universally literate children, teenagers today have greater access to the world than most parents. This asymmetry makes the parent/child relationship awkward, and often counterproductive. This is Nick Twisp's reality.

Nick (Michael Cera) lives with his mother (Jean Smart), and her latest boyfriend (Zach Galifianakis). After the boyfriend is caught for selling a defective car, the family is forced to flee to a trailer park. There, Nick meets Sheeni Saunders (Portia Doubleday). Sheeni is an escapist, stuck in a trailer park with her zealous parents. She too is enthralled with art house culture, and dreams of travelling to France. Though she claims to have a boyfriend, they do become romantically involved. Through a series of unfortunate occurrences, Nick needs to leave the trailer park. Sheeni promises that if he can find a way to come back, she will date him. In order to make this happen, Nick invents an alter ego, whom he turns to for advice on how to con his way back into her life. He is a projection of what Nick believes Sheeni wants in a man. Micheal Cera with a mustache, a cigarette, and a bad attitude. Needless to say, things get out of hand.







During his quest to re-unite with Sheeni, Nick realizes that the adults who have ruled his life thus far are not so clever. Even the police have nowhere near as much control over his life as he'd thought. While he breaks the law on more than one occasion, the irony is that he is still less base than all of the adults in the movie. The police are corrupt; his mother is a tramp; Sheeni's parents are authoritarians. In short, his 'revolt' isn't entirely unjustifiable. Forces external (and unreasonable) are shaping his life, and he merely seeks to manipulate them to fulfill his normal teenage goals. Like John Hughes movies, it seeks to show that ungrateful teenagers actually are sometimes justified in their anger. A shady police officer is the bad guy, while his mother and father (Steve Buscemi) are Blase. The only moral guidance he has in life is from film, music, his peers, and his instincts.

Despite its moral complexity, Youth in Revolt is extremely accessible, and funny. Unlike most teen movies, it is very self aware. Yes, there are clicheed moments. However, they're balanced out by self mocking irony. It is a Michael Cera movie, after all. Miguel Arteta has proven that he's quite capable of fusing crude sexual humor, and teen angst. It's harder than it sounds.

Like Juno before it, Youth in Revolt is a serious attempt to examine traditional morality from the standpoint of a young person in today's world (in all of its vulgarity). While it didn't cut quite as deep as Juno, it is one of the most thoughtful teenage films of the last two decades (granted, the bar is low). Though its theatrical run has long passed, I strongly recommend picking up the DVD. You'll watch it more than once.