Cedar Rapids, the new comedy directed by Miguel Arteta, turns out to be a touching and humorous fish-out-of-water story. With a limited theatrical release, this film is an under appreciated gem of wit, friendship and laugh-out-loud antics.
Player Affinity writes: In recent years, there's been a big increase in the number of quality art-house films hitting theaters during the first half of the year. Last year, Winter's Bone and The Kids Are All Right carried their goodwill and relative box office success to Best Picture and Best Actress nominations. The year before, The Hurt Locker carried the same goodwill to a Best Picture win. And countless other films--Moon, Two Lovers, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, A Prophet--earned distinctions on year-end best lists despite an early release date. In other words, December is no longer the only time an independent movie can succeed. Art-house cinema is a year-round enterprise, and in 2011, business has been booming. Here are some of the most respected indies of the year thus far, and their chances for Oscar recognition in 2012.
Anthony of The Daily Rotation wrote, "Cedar Rapids stars Ed Helms who plays Tim Lippe. Tim is a very average yet boring person who sells insurance for an insurance company in a small town. He really isn’t going anywhere in his life and he is happy doing what he does. He gets picked to represent his company at an insurance conference in Cedar Rapids. Lippe is very nervous about going to Cedar Rapids because his boss is making such a big deal out of an award that is being presented at the conference. His company has won it for the last 3 years running, and he is counting on Lippe to make it year number four. His boss, who is played by Stephen Root, pretty much has only one instruction for Lippe. That one instruction is to stay clear of Dean Ziegler, who is played by John C. Reilly. Lippe is suppose to be rooming with Ronald Wilkes throughout the entire conference. However, the hotel overbooked their rooms so Wilkes decided to take on another roommate. Who might that be? You guessed it, Ziegler. You watch as Ziegler tries to become friends with Lippe even though Lippe tries to keep his distance. If you have seen the trailer, you can obviously see that it’s easier said than done. Once all this starts to roll, a lot of crazy stuff starts happening. It is quite the interesting ride that each of these characters take."
CPC:
Cedar Rapids debuted this year at the Sundance Film Festival. Since then, the comedy has gone on to receive mostly positive reviews. The movie went on to get a limited release in theaters. Now, however, those that didn’t have it in theaters near them will get a chance to watch the comedy as it hits DVD and Blu-ray.
This movie sucked. I saw it and realized how low budget it was. 8 million dollars, and yet only made over a million dollars.