Fox Searchlight just released the first trailer for The Descendants, starring George Clooney, in the kind of quirky-but-heartfelt, non-traditional family dramedy you’re probably f*cking sick of seeing Fox Searchlight make.  But don’t let me put words in your mouth.  One reason not to dismiss this one as easily is that it’s from director Alexander Payne, of Election, Sideways, About Schmidt and producer of this year’s criminally-underseen Cedar Rapids.  You may recognize his patented “center-framed protagonist running” shot from Broderick in Election, Giamatti (and the naked guy) in Sideways, and probably someone I can’t remember in About Schmidt.  Dear N’Dugu: Do you think this will be any good? Or just good but kind of boring like Win-Win? Write soon. I’ve enclosed some rice.

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Alexander Payne’s Election came out in 1999 and I don’t think it’s too hyperbolic to call it one of the best comedies of all time (people were still talking about it in 2008, when it provided a pretty dead-on metaphor for the Hillary Clinton-Barack Obama primary race).  But apparently the film, which was based on a novel by Tom Perrotta, originally had a different ending (based on the ending in the novel) which wasn’t included with any version of the DVD or referenced in the commentary.  Thanks to a reader tip, SlashFilm was able to find a VHS transfer of it online, which you can watch after the jump.

/Film reader John G sent me a link to the six-minute original ending sequence, which had been recently uploaded to YouTube. This footage was reportedly discovered on an unlabeled VHS tape containing an early work print of the film, sold at a local flea market.  Apparently they screened the film with this ending and the conclusion tested horribly. I heard that they sat on this ending for almost a year, before deciding to reshoot the ending as a more cynical epilogue. [SlashFilm]

In final version of the film (SPOILER ALERT, BUT HONESTLY IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN ELECTION YOU SHOULDN’T COME CRYING TO ME ABOUT SPOILERS), Mr. McAllister moves to New York, where he works at the museum of Natural History, and hucks a milk shake at a limousine after he sees Tracy Flick getting in it with a Senator (“Who. The. F*ck does she think she is?”).  In the version below, Mr. McAllister is still in Nebraska working at a car dealership, where Tracy Flick comes to buy a car before heading off to college at Northwestern (WHITE AND PURPLE REPRESENT).  It’s actually pretty mushy-gushy (and wrong for a whole host of reasons, not the least of which being that it’s hard to imagine a high school social studies teacher selling cars) and it’s easy to see why they dumped this in favor of the eventual ending. The nicest thing I can say about it is that because the quality is so bad, at first I thought Mr. M was wearing a piano-key necktie.

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I’m reposting the review of Cedar Rapids I originally wrote at Sundance, now that it’s in theaters (at least in these cities). When I wrote it, I worried all the festival spectacle would keep me from being able to write a fair review. But my girlfriend dragged me to it again over the weekend, and if anything, it was better than I remembered. John C. Reilly is a God.

Cedar Rapids: Another Miguel Arteta comedy stupid people won’t get

Before I start my review of Cedar Rapids, I thought, in the interests of diversity, I’d share the review I overheard from the two old guys standing next to me on the bus coming back from the theater.

OLD GUY 1: That black guy was hysterical!  When he was doing those jokes about The Wire?

OLD GUY 2:  The black guy was in The Wire?

OLD GUY 1:  Yeah!  He was like the second biggest cop on The Wire!

OLD GUY 2: Oh yeah, he was great.  And you know Anne Hetch’s character, she reminded me of that Vera Fegamo, when she played the traveling salesman in that one movie?  Aw Christ, what was it called…

(No one says anything.  “…Up in the Air?” I offer.)

OLD GUY 2:  Yeah! Up in the Air!  She reminded me of Vera Fegamo in that.

Long story short, they liked it.

And so did I.  Despite direction by Miguel Arteta, whose last film, Youth In Revolt made my 2010 top 10 list, I didn’t know if I would.  The trailer makes it look like a sort of slapsticky, desperately quirky romp in the vein of Dinner for Schmucks, with Ed Helms playing the Steve Carell role of schmucky rube.  It isn’t that. Quirky, sure, but it takes pains to make the characters real people and not retarded cartoons. Yes, Cedar Rapids is a mainstream comedy.  But it’s a mainstream comedy in the original sense of the description, before “mainstream comedy” meant “pandering drivel for idiots,” when having a sweet message and a character who says “buttf*ck” weren’t mutually exclusive.
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Well this sounds like it might be cool.  Ed Helms is attached to star in Cedar Rapids, a spec script (read: an entire script, not a pitch based on some exec’s derivative, half-baked idea) written by Phil Johnston. To be produced by Sideways writers Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor.

The story centers on a wholesome and naive small-town Wisconsin man (Helms), who, when his role model dies, must represent his company at a regional insurance conference in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where his mind is blown by the big-town experience.

Phil Johnston wrote the script on spec. He was a broadcast journalist in the Midwest who moved to New York to attend film school at Columbia. [THR]

Other facts about Cedar Rapids I learned from Wikipedia: Ashton Kutcher, Elijah Wood, and Ron Livingston all once called Cedar Rapids home.  Cedar Rapids’ nickname is “the City of Five Seasons,” for the traditional four seasons, and a fifth season which is a time to enjoy the other four. Cedar Rapids was the setting for a musical, “The Pajama Game.”  Also, I think I heard this somewhere, Cedar Rapids’ most popular postcard is a dog wearing a baseball cap.  Here is a picture of some people enjoying Cedar Rapids: