Movie Review: Cedar Rapids

Cedar Rapids (2011) 

Directed by Miguel Arteta 

Written by Phil Johnson

Starring Ed Helms, John C. Reilly, Anne Heche, Isiah Whitlock, Sigourney Weaver

Release Date February 11th, 2011

Published February 11th, 2011

It's “The 40 Year Old Virgin” minus the Virgin part. That's a pretty solid description of “Cedar Rapids” which stars a former Daily Show correspondent turned star of The Office, Ed Helms, and tells the story of an innocent man-child slowly drawn toward debauchery by a coterie of bad influences who happen to make great friends.

Directed by Miguel Arteta (“Chuck & Buck,” “Youth in Revolt”), “Cedar Rapids” is the story of Tim Lippe (Ed Helms) a Wisconsin insurance salesman who gets the opportunity of a lifetime after the unfortunate passing of a co-worker (a delightfully awful cameo by Reno 911's Thomas Lennon as a top salesman who dies, off-screen, from auto-erotic asphyxiation.)

Tim is headed to Cedar Rapids for an annual conference of Insurance Company salespeople where the head of the industry, midwest division, Orrin Helgeson (Kurtwood Smith) will hand out the coveted Two Diamond Award, something Tim's late co-worker had walked away with each of the past two years.

While in Cedar Rapids Tim is instructed by his boss, go to character actor Stephen Root, to stay out of trouble as Orrin is a pious man and expects the same of all Two Diamond Award winners. Unfortunately for Tim staying out of trouble will be hard while rooming with his new best friend, the ingratiating Dean Ziegler (John C. Reilly) who has no designs on the Two Diamond Award, only on having a real good time.

Also caught up with Tim and Dean is convention regular Ronald Wilkes (Isiah Whitlock) and mom turned Cedar Rapids party girl Joan Ostrowski Fox (Anne Heche); each of whom will help Tim come out of his shell in ways the naive Wisconsinite could never have imagined.

Miguel Arteta has a particular talent for characters like Tim Lippe. The innocent cast into a fast paced new world has been an area of expertise for Arteta in movies like “Youth in Revolt,” where Michael Cera created a French alter-ego to deal with the quick witted girl of his dreams leading to drug trips and a crime spree as well as in “The Good Girl” where a teenage Jake Gyllenhaal experienced love for the first time with a sad housewife played by Jennifer Aniston.

Arteta brings an immigrants eye view to these characters. Born in Puerto Rico, Arteta came to the US is the 80's where he fostered his love of movies at Wesleyan University in Connecticut. Like Arteta at Wesleyan, his characters seem to be learning a whole new language and culture in their new environments and like Arteta they are quick on the uptake even as the experience is a mind-blowing change.

Ed Helms captures the eager to please Wisconsinite with just the right mix of man-child and upstanding citizenship. We meet Tim for the first time as he accepts a booty call from, of all people, his former grade school teacher played with voracious cougar-ness by Sigourney Weaver. Naturally, Tim thinks this relationship is going somewhere while we in the audience and the teacher quickly feel sorry for him.

Helms has the ability to earn sympathy and laughs in equal measure and it makes him an ideal innocent in the debauched, snowy airs of the big city, Cedar Rapids. John C. Reilly, Anne Heche and Isiah Whitlock make the perfect crew for Tim; Reilly the obnoxious, drunken ‘ladies man,’ Heche as the Cedar Rapids style 'femme fatale,' and Whitlock the stalwart good guy who we know has Tim's back with an assist from Omar from the HBO series 'The Wire.'

”Cedar Rapids” is a glorious satire of supposed big fish in small ponds everywhere. The overblown importance of the “Two Diamond Award,” Cedar Rapids as the Las Vegas of the Insurance sales game, and Tim's general awe at his surroundings set flame to the overstuffed egos of anyone who can't understand why the movie is so funny.

One of the major buys of the Sundance Film Festival, “Cedar Rapids” is poised to be one of the breakout comedies of 2011. Will Ed Helms become the next Steve Carell? Only the box office can decide that. For now bask in the glory of Tim Lippe and his wild weekend in “Cedar Rapids.”

Movie Review The Good Girl

The Good Girl (2002) 

Directed by Miguel Arteta

Written by Mike White 

Starring Jennifer Aniston, Jake Gyllenhaal, John C. Reilly, Tim Blake Nelson

Release Date August 7th, 2002 

Published August 7th, 2002 

I sometimes wonder why I watch Friends. Was it the marketing hype? Was it the fact that seemingly everyone else watches it? Or. is the show actually pretty good. Honestly I'm not sure but I think that I like it because of the potential in the cast. Each member of the Friends cast has the talent to do something great. None has so far achieved that greatness.

Until now.

In The Good Girl, Jennifer Aniston is Justine Last, a bored to death cosmetics clerk at the Retail Rodeo. Justine hates her job and her coworkers, only tolerating their existence to make the job bearable. On top of that Justine is trapped in a loveless marriage to a lazy, shiftless pothead named Phil, expertly played by John C. Reilly. Phil and his pal Bubba (Tim Blake Nelson) paint houses together and spend most of their off hours on Justine's couch smoking weed.

Into all this comes Holden (Jake Gyllenhaal) a new hire at the Retail Rodeo. Holden is quiet and sad, always keeps to himself and Justine admires and envies his solitude. The two strike up a friendship that quickly moves to the bedroom. Of course things are never that easy. While Holden falls madly for Justine, she is unable to overcome her fears and leave her husband. After the excitement of leading the double life of wife and adulterer wears off, Justine begins to see Holden for who he truly is, an emotionally disturbed 22 year old child. The solitude and freedom she loved and coveted were products of cold indifferent parents and not her romantic notion of the tortured artist.

Aniston is superb. Her performance is raw and real. The decisions her character makes are at times shocking and dumb but the mistakes are made poignant by the desire for freedom that caused them and by Aniston's sympathetic eyes that seem constantly on the verge of tears. Aniston's supporting cast is equally strong, especially John C. Reilly who makes the husband's cluelessness endearing and sympathetic. In a great scene near the end, we find out why Phil smokes pot so much, a scene that is funny, touching and cathartic.

Gyllenhaal continues his odd streak of films from Bubble Boy to Donnie Darko and now this. In this film we see almost a repeat of his Darko role but with more sadness and rage. Writer Mike White and director Miguel Arteta teamed previously on the much buzzed about pic Chuck & Buck. After seeing The Good Girl, I desperately want to see Chuck & Buck. If it's as good as The Good Girl, we could have the next hot indie team on our hands.

The Good Girl is an art film with a pop sensibility provided by the casting of Aniston shedding her Friends role and becoming a great actress. This film could actually go down in history as the movie that killed Friends. With Aniston getting such terrific reviews and Oscar buzz it won't be long before she leaves the small screen for good.

Movie Review: Youth in Revolt

Youth in Revolt (2010) 

Directed by Miguel Arteta

Written by Gustin Nash

Starring Michael Cera, Portia Doubleday, Jean Smart, Ray Liotta, Steve Buscemi, Fred Willard

Release Date January 8th, 2010

Published January 8th, 2010 

Michael Cera is not everyone's cup of tea. His fey, nonchalant nebbish-ness is a put off for some but not for me. From “Arrested Development” to “Superbad” to now “Youth in Revolt” and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World,” Cera's persona has become a wonderful comic tool that he wields with precision. It's fair to say that “Youth in Revolt” takes the Michael Cera persona to an extreme but it worked for me and will work for anyone who counts them a Cera fan.

Michael Cera stars in Youth in Revolt as Nick Twisp a shy young man living with his slatternly mother (Jean Smart) and her loser boyfriend of the moment, Jerry (Zach Galifianakis). When Jerry gets in trouble with some local tough the 'family' has to go on the run. They take refuge in a trailer park where Nick spies the girl of his dreams, Sheeni Saunders (Portia Doubleday).

Sheeni initially has no interest in Nick but his persistence is flattering and eventually she gives him a break but only after he becomes the bad boy of her dreams. Nick is no bad boy but when he manages to tick off Sheeni's parents it begins an unintended reputation that Nick must foster in order to keep Sheeni's attention.

After Jerry disappears Nick is forced to return home. Once there and torn from his beloved Sheeni, Nick must hatch a plan, a plan that will allow him to move back. This elaborate fiasco involves getting his dad (Steve Buscemi) a job and a place to live near the trailer park. Then, he has to convince his mom to kick him out and force him to live with dad. The ways in which Nick goes about this are part of a tricky, gloriously odd series of events that make up the plot of Youth in Revolt.

Director Miguel Arteta brings wonderfully subtle rhythm to some rather outlandish scenes and the conflict between the tone and the happenings in Youth in Revolt somehow emerges charming and very funny. The ways in which the direction is passive and the action is not clash so perfectly that if pushed in a more or less active direction the movie would tumble over.

Strangely, while the role of Nick Twisp seems custom built for the Michael Cera persona; “Youth in Revolt” is actually based on a series of novels from the early 1990's from writer C.D Payne. I have never read the novels but according to those who have it is as if Nick Twisp predicted Michael Cera and waited for his arrival before he could be brought to the big screen.

There is no other actor who could bring Nick Twisp to life other than Michael Cera. The changes of persona, the ways in which Nick imagines a more confident version of himself named Francois Dillinger, these are seemingly natural shifts for Michael Cera that would seem like comic extensions for other actors. Cera makes the move organic as if creating Francois came from his own mind.

People tend to see the Michael Cera persona as an example of limited range. I however, feel that what Michael Cera does on screen is quite challenging. He's like a modern day Chaplin carrying The Tramp persona from film to film, giving him different dimensions and playing him against different backgrounds and characters to a new and wonderful comic effect.  

Watch Michael Cera in interviews and then watch Michael Cera in movies and on TV and you get the full picture of the Michael Cera character. It is as if his entire career was a performance art piece that he keeps spinning out further in role after role with different names but always the same character in a new and fascinating comic context. It's rather genius if you like what Michael Cera does.

If you aren't a fan then you will call it limited range and dismiss Cera as some one note performer. I happen to be a huge fan and I love his work more and more each time out and I feel like I am in on a wonderful running gag that never stops and grows more and more fascinating with each role. One of these days the Michael Cera persona is going to hit upon a role that will cross over from just funny to poignant and even moving and more people will begin to get it. “Youth in Revolt” likely isn't that movie but for fans it's enough for now.