‘Schmucks’ is chock full of screwball characters masquerading as normal and an oddly unhealthy love of dead mice.  Still it has to be one of the funniest films I’ve seen this summer.  Steve Carell, Paul Rudd and the rest of the cast deliver!  I needed a good laugh and this film delivered in a gut-busting way.  Be prepared for some unique ranglings amongst a severely ‘off’ group of individuals and that’s just the supposed normal ones.

‘Schmucks’ follows Tim (Paul Rudd – The Shape Of Things), a young executive looking to move up in his big corporate stock brokerage (actually it’s nothing like a stock brokerage).  When the opportunity to rise presents itself, Tim seizes it with a pitch to the big boss on how to snag a new client.  With his move to a higher floor, supposedly better co-workers, and a pat life practically assured, Tim finds out that the catalyst for his eventual promotion is tied to his ability to produce the best guest at a dinner for idiots hosted by the company President.  Whoever can bring the strangest, most perverse friend wins the competition. Through happenstance (witness the dangers of texting and driving), Tim meets Barry (Steve Carell – Bruce Almighty), a recently divorced social pariah who spends his days and nights recovering dead mice and turning them into magnificent frozen works of art.  Barry becomes human fly paper to Tim who wants nothing more than to use him as a means to get his promotion.   A human wrecking ball of spills and calamities, Barry proceeds to reunite Tim with a one-night stand he had years ago with a psychotic  pain loving freak, wreck the delicate relationship Tim has with his current girlfriend, demolish his house and all of this happens before the dinner even takes place.  The dinner itself is a cavalcade of oddities and personalities (none of which I will spoil for you here), that culminates in Tim’s realization of true friendship, what you really want out of life, and just how detailed you can get when creating masterpieces of art…using dead mice.

I got the feeling the cast had a great deal of fun making this film.  Their cohesive nature and sharp timing made for some really great laughs.  As you’d expect, Zach Galifianakis (The Hangover) is in great form.  He seems to be relegated to playing oddball characters but in ‘Schmucks’ it fits with the script and he shines as Therman, the mind controlling IRS agent.  Jemaine Clement (TV’s Flight Of The Conchords) is his HBO character ‘Jemaine’ personified into the form of an artistic neophyte.  With his self indulgent needs of creativity, and self-centered art, it almost seemed a graduation of the character he plays so well in the HBO series.  Another ‘Conchords’ alum, Kristen Schaal (Norbit)  joins the cast as Susana, Tim’s able bodied and pushy assistant.

The film is far from superb, and at times eerie, witness the Swedish couple in the promo’s icy blue eyes.  They almost seemed like ‘pod’ people, and I questioned if anyone from Sweden has eyes of such distinction (I Google’d it…and they do).  Still, it couldn’t ruin a steady stream of laughter throughout the film.  Director Jay Roach (Meet The Parents) notches another great comedy, and box office willing a follow up which will regale us with even more idiot dinners filled with characters just as entertaining and zany.

Rating: ★★★★☆ 

Atomic Popcorn is proud to present to you, the Baltimorons, a sneak peak at Paramount’s upcoming comedy, DINNER FOR SCHMUCKS, starring Paul Rudd and Steve Carell. We are having a screening on Thursday, July 29th all lined up for and ready to make you pee your pants.

If you have been living under a rock lately and have been avoiding the internet or television like the plague, well you deserve to miss out on this comedy. Make sure you get tickets to this one, this is sure to make your side hurt.

Synopsis:

The comedy, “Dinner for Schmucks,” tells the story of Tim (Paul Rudd), an up-and-coming executive who has just received his first invitation to the “dinner for idiots” – a monthly event hosted by his boss, which promises bragging rights (and maybe more) to the exec who shows up with the biggest buffoon. Tim’s girlfriend, Julie (Stephanie Szostak), finds it distasteful and Tim agrees to skip the dinner, until he bumps into Barry (Steve Carell) an IRS employee who devotes his spare time to building elaborate taxidermy mouse dioramas – and quickly realizes he’s struck idiot gold.  Tim can’t resist, and invites Barry, whose blundering good intentions soon send Tim’s life into a frenzied downward spiral and a series of comic misadventures, threatening a major business deal, bringing a crazy stalker ex-girlfriend, Darla (Lucy Punch), back into Tim’s life and driving Julie (or so Tim thinks) into the arms of another man.

Trailer:

Check out the film’s official trailer at http://www.dinnerforschmucks.com/.

DINNER FOR SCHMUCKS opens in theaters nationwide Friday, July 30!

CLICK HERE FOR YOUR PASS: and enter

ATOMICYMX3 for the RSVP code!

Instructions for the winners:

1. If you haven’t already, you will need to register on Gofobo.com in order to download your passes.
2. Utilizing your Gofobo Code (see above), you can then download your screening pass from the website.

Make sure you check out our other free screenings in the Baltimore and DC Area.

The Hangover is easily the biggest surprise hit of 2009. The R-rated comedy, with a 35-million-dollar budget, was loved by audiences and, all-told, raked in almost $500 million at the box office, as well as over $150 million on home video. The film also won a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture: Musical or Comedy. After such a success, a sequel is guaranteed, right? It’s not that easy.

Although Warner Bros. had already commissioned a script for a sequel before the first was released, getting the cast to come back was not easy. After being paid roughly $300,000 each for the original, stars Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, and Zach Galifianakis made sure they were going to be well compensated for the next movie. Warner Bros. originally offered $3 million each, plus 1% of the gross, but the actors stood firm.

After six months of negotiations, Deadline reports that all three stars, as well as director Todd Phillips have signed on for the sequel. The actors will get around $5 million each, in addition to 4% of the gross, while the director will receive $10 million plus 10%, as well as a guarantee that he will earn at least as much as he did for the first – $50 million and still counting.

Principal photography is set to start November 1st, although it must work around both Helms’ “Office” and Cooper’s films’ schedules.

Right now, details are scarce, but, in an interview with Collider, Phillips denied rumors that the sequel would take place in Mexico or Thailand. He also said about the sequel that:

Sometimes movies do well but it’s just this huge flood of people go see them and then you know… this movie just kept going because people kept going back. That tells me that they love those characters and that tells me, not that the movie’s going to financially do better, but just that there’s love out there for these four guys. We can now put them through a whole new set of paces and people will want to see it. So for me, it’s really exciting.

Do you think The Hangover 2 can have the success of its predecessor? I’m sure many will go simply because they loved the first, but can the sequel really compare with the original? Most of The Hangover‘s success was people spreading the word, and going back to the theater with their friends. It will be successful, of course, but I don’t think that it can come to meet such a high precedent.

Our friends over at Gordon and the Whale spotted some outstanding news yesterday. The Hangover broke the record of the highest grossing rated R movie of all time. With that said, they broke yet another record and only a few weeks after the DVD and Blu-Ray hit the markets.  The Hangover DVD has become the number one selling comedy DVD of all time, with 8.6 million discs sold, including 1.5 million Blu-rays! That is huge news, for something that came absolutely out of left field, this movie is nothing short of a sleeper hit.

As Rusty points out:

How did this happen? I have a well-thought out, and of course, well-researched theory: because THE HANGOVER is awesome.

This movie made it onto my top 10 of 2009 and I wanted it to be number 1 on my list for many reasons. The main reason would be – it’s freaking hilarious! This movie is a sure laugh, unless you are dead. The re-watch of this film is great also, it doesn’t get worse but better on a second and third watch.

Stay tuned for info on the sequel to The Hangover here on Atomic Popcorn. Let us know in the comments below how you feel about this news, or even if you have seen this film.

If you’re a fan of the Shrek movies, then you already know that a fourth film, Shrek Forever After, is set to hit theaters in May of next year. What you may not know is that the Shrek franchise has its first spin-off film in the works.

The new film, Puss in Boots, wil focus on–you guessed it–Puss in Boots, the would-be assassin turned sidekick introduced in Shrek II. The movie about the little orange cat will follow Puss’s adventures prior to his meeting Shrek and Donkey.

Antonio Banderas will reprise his role as Puss in Boots, with Salma Hayek starring alongside him as the voice of “Kitty.” As the film moves forward, negotiations are taking place for the casting of other characters in the film.

Currently, Zach Galifianakis, who played the lovable but slightly-off Alan in this summer’s The Hangover, is in talks to voice the role of Humpty Dumpty.

Puss in Boots is being written by Tom Wheeler, with Shrek the Third co-writer/co-director Chris Miller at the helm.

Zach Galifianakis and Amy Adams are two comedic actors that have long bubbled under the surface of mainstream appeal. In the past two years, however, they’ve exploded into the limelight with films such as The Hangover and Julie & Julia. Now, both actors are slated to appear in Fox 2000′s new comedic drama Town House.

Directed by Once‘s John Carney, the film is just now pushing toward production after long delays due to the recent writers’ strike, with producing credits going to Tony and Ridley Scott (who once again, I argue, is slowly encompassing every film under the sun).

According to Variety, Town House is loosely based on author Tish Cohen’s novel of the same name, which centers around “an agoraphobic man, who lives with his teenage son in a historic Boston townhouse that he inherited from his rock star father. With royalties from his father’s work dwindling, the man is forced to come to terms with his life. A call girl strikes up a friendship with the man.”

Not the most creative premise in the world, but it’ll definitely be good to see Adams and Galifianakis in particular stretching their acting chops.

Town House will start shooting next summer, based on a script by Carney alongside Doug Wright (Bunny Lake is Missing).

Ron Livingston is the beating heart of Mike Judge’s Office Space, a movie that has transcended cult status and is pretty much one of the finest comedies to be released in the 1990s. He’s also pretty notable for the role of Captain Lewis Nixon in Band of Brothers on HBO.

Now, he’ll be joining director Jay Roach (Austin Powers, Meet the Parents) for his new film Dinner for Schmucks.

According to Variety, the film “is an adaptation of the Francis Veber-helmed French film Le dinner de cons, in which a group of bourgeois friends regularly invite the biggest schmucks to dinner to ridicule them.”

The cast that’s shaping up for this film is phenomenal. It’ll be headed up by I Love You, Man‘s Paul Rudd and The Office‘s Steve Carell, who of course acted together in The 40-Year-Old-Virgin. They’ll be joined by Zach Galifianakis and Star Trek‘s Bruce Greenwood.

The script is being worked on by a handful of folks, including Andy Borowitz, who did uncredited work on the original French comedy, as well as Ken Daurio and The Simpsons alum Jon Vitti.

Roach is also gearing up to produce a second sequel to Meet the Parents, entitled Little Fockers, as well as possibly directing Austin Powers 4.

I recently talked about the addition of Catherine Keener and Clive Owen to the cast of David Schwimmer’s Trust, two casting decisions that I couldn’t be happier about. Now Schwimmer has added another cast member to his domestic drama: Viola Davis.

Though not a household name, Davis has been seen everywhere lately, from State of Play to Law Abiding Citizen to Madea Goes to Jail and the upcoming (horrendously titled) Knight & Day. According to Variety, Trust centers around “a family who must deal with the ramifications after their 14-year-old daughter is victimized by an adult who gained her trust posing as a teenager on a chat room. Davis will play the counselor assigned to the girl’s case.”

She has also joined the cast of the Zach Galifianakis film It’s Kind of a Funny Story, which sounds like an interesting turn for the comedic actor, as the plot description sounds a little morose:

“Funny Story centers on a clinically depressed 15-year-old who checks himself into an adult psychiatric ward where he gains a new lease on life. Davis will play the psychiatrist who helps him understand his anxieties and provides him with the help he needs.”

More details on both It’s Kind of a Funny Story and Trust here on AtomicPopcorn.net!