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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FROTCASTARDS: So here’s the deal: I’ve got a bunch of audio from Sundance and I don’t 100% know what to do with it.  For this week’s Frotcast, I put the audio from Ed Helms at the Cedar Rapids roundtable at the end. (It starts at 01:16:00). If you want me to keep including this, let me know.

THIS WEEK ON THE FROTCAST: We try out our new intro music, we read user emails, I play a few clips from Sundance (Rutger Hauer tells me to shut up, etc.), our Oscar correspondent, Brendan’s mom, weighs in on Inception, and we play our new game, Paul Blart Presents, where we throw out a category and come up with Paul Blart remakes.  This week’s category was baseball movies, and I think our best Paul Blart Presents baseball movie was The Flatural. We play the Kevin Smith “and sh*t” video and it almost kills Brendan (31 minutes).

CONTEST: Next week’s Paul Blart Presents category is sci-fi (explained at 01:12:00).  Send us your best Paul Blarts Presents sci-fi title and brief synopsis, and I’ll award our favorite a FilmDrunk shirt. (And if you don’t want a shirt, I can offer free Riley Steele porn).

DOWNLOAD IT HERE. SUBSCRIBE ON ITUNES. NOW AVAILABLE ON ZUNE MARKETPLACE.

Miguel Arteta’s black list script movie starring Ed Helms and John C. Reilly, Cedar Rapids, has a trailer. Using Senator Clay Davis to make a lame, throwaway reference to The Wire made me sad.

- Check out Burnsy and Pauly’s Best Worst Advice for celebrities. |FunnyOrDie|

FILMDRUNK STUFF

- The 12 Most Insane News Stories of 2010 (inluding “eat my p*ssy or I’ll cut your throat.” |FD|

- “I took a year off to raise guinea pigs and do cocaine.” |FD|

- We discuss Tron Legacy, introduce “Junior College Armond White,” get Lindy West drunk and do bad accents in honor of The Fightah. |Frotcast 28|

– Little Fockers recreated with review quotes, plus, a gif of Deniro getting stabbed in the boner. |FD|

AROUND THE WEB

- Has the world gone spy crazy? |Uproxx|

- The best TV moments of 2010. |WarmingGlow|

- A few minutes with Herschel Walker. |WithLeather|

- The only thing to fear is a Marvel event. |GammaSquad|

- How Many Rappers Can Jail Hold? |SmokingSection|

- Photo proof that people in congress are overgrown children. |BroBible|

- The 50 most viral posts of 2010 (*points to crotch*) |Buzzfeed|

- 50 WTF Christmas traditions from around the globe. |UGO|

- Here’s a cockatoo rocking the dub step.  I love dancing birds. |TheDailyWhat|

- Nigerian doctor jailed for making guys’ d*cks disappear. What a jerk. |BarstoolSports|

- Casting 13 roles in the Warcraft movie.  |HolyTaco|

- Danny Trejo talks Machete 2, racist humor. |ScreenJunkies|

- Naked body painting with Alex Sim Wise. |G4|

- The 8 stupidest beverages of 2010. |Clutch|

- The 10 best Netflix gems of 2010. Ew, Date Night, really? Dustin’s high again. |Pajiba|

Picture via AfternoonSnoozeButton

FOR THE PEOPLE WHO’VE ASKED: Yes, I will be doing a best of 2010 list. But I have a little catching up to do first.

Hollywood Execs don’t really know sh*t about comedy, which is why they originally wouldn’t finance The Hangover, which starred Zach Galifianakis and Ed Helms, who were famous only to people who watch comedy.  So Todd Phillips let his nuts swing, traded his upfront fee for 15% of revenue, and the main stars (Cooper, Galifianakis, and Helms) made less than $1 mil between the three of them.  Now that it’s sequel time, the chickens have come home to roost, and those chickens are money.  Reports Deadline:

I’m told Galifianakis, Cooper and Helms will each be paid in the vicinity of $5 million against 4% of first dollar gross. Director/producer Todd Phillips will be paid around $10 million against 10%. For Phillips, there are also escalators and bonuses that insure if the sequel does anywhere close to the original’s $467 million worldwide gross, Phillips will not make less than his income on the original. That meter is still running, and it has passed the $50 million mark.

Those stars did not have options locking them into a sequel. What they did have were teams of managers, agents and attorneys who negotiated together. [...] Reps of the thesps were dug in for a long battle when the studio initially came to the table offering each actor $3 million against 1% of the gross,  with a deadline attached. That deadline passed, and I heard that twice during the talks, Warner Bros chief Jeff Robinov walked away from the table and pronounced that the sequel was off.

The sequel will be considerably more expensive than the first film—upfront salary alone for the trio and Phillips is around $25 million, and the original costs $34 million all in, and Warners is paying over 20% of first dollar gross.

I believe the script is currently being worked on by Todd Phillips and Scot Armstrong, but there might be others contributing.

Armstrong previously collaborated with Phillips on Road Trip, Old School, Starsky & Hutch, and School for Scoundrels.  I’d be glad if they had him and not the screenwriters for the original back, because *whispers* the script wasn’t that good. So the cast had double leverage — the studio needed them, and they didn’t really care if a sequel got made.  I’d kill for that kind of power in business negotiations.  My usual intimidation method is to slowly eat my Lunchables with a huge buck knife.

TMZ took time out of their busy schedule of posting pictures of celebrities looking confused recently and posted 18 new pictures from The Hangover that didn’t make the credit sequence.  You can see them over at TMZ, or after the jump, because F TMZ.  Anyway, I’ll never understand how the MPAA allowed The Hangover to keep that picture of Zach Galifianakis getting a BJ in an elevator in the movie without giving them an NC-17 rating.  “It was a fake penis.”  Really, that’s a valid excuse now?  Get my lawyer on the phone.

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