Breakfast of Champions

I was pretty excited to see Dinner For Schmuks. Not only has the world found room in its heart for Zack Galifianakis, but I am always excited to see Jermaine Clement in movie-films. It all started with a movie called Eagle VS Shark, followed by Flight of the Conchords, and then finishing with Gentlemen Broncos…until now.

Dinner for Schmuks is a tale of Tim Conrad, (Paul Rudd) who finds an unlikely friend when he meets Barry (Steve Carrell). Tim is trying to get a promotion so that he can…I don’t know…have a promotion. His life is pretty good but he wants to make it just that much better, though it comes at a price (Lord, am I cheesy). The people he would get promoted with are morally unsound and competitive. Hence, the Dinner for Winners held every month to award the most hilarious idiot and somehow relate all of it to job performance. The rest of the movie is a whirlwind of insanity. Barry seems desperate to please Tim, though he has absolutely no regard for personal belongings or…anything really.

I liked this movie. It’s not the next big belly laughs movie, but I found myself chuckling more than once. I loved every moment Jermaine Clement was on the screen. I also enjoyed the tiny part Ron Livingston showed up for. He plays the one-upper who gets competitive when Paul Rudd starts stealing his thunder.

If you saw the full length trailer, then you saw Barry’s “mousterpieces”. He’s a taxidermist who turns dead mice into…art? Well, they really milk all the humor out of that senario. By the end of the movie, I sort of wished that I never would have to see a mouse again. Also, there were moments when you just felt TOO bad for Tim. I hate when movies don’t know when to bring the mood up again. Of course, conflict has to exist and a character’s life is going to suck for a while, but that doesn’t mean I have to feel like shit for watching a downer of a movie.

Short reviews this week…cause lack of time and excess of movies.

I gave Dinner for Schmuks 7 out of 10 basses to slap, mon.