Dinner for Schmucks In Steve Carell's first few episodes of the American version of The Office, the series hewed closely to the template created by the series' British mastermind, Ricky Gervais. But in the United States, audiences didn't take to so bleak a comic vision, and soon, the tone of the series evolved from harsh satire to affectionate, gentle comedy. Ratings success ensued. That's a lesson well learned by the filmmakers behind Carell's new movie, Dinner for Schmucks, an American reworking of the 1998 French comedy Le Dîner de Cons. Francis Veber's original was fundamentally on the side of the idiots. Not so Dinner for Schmucks, directed by Jay Roach, which takes the snobbish, cruel editor of the original and turns him into Paul Rudd, the nicest young man you're ever likely to meet. Meanwhile, bowl-cut, windbreaker-wearing Barry (Carell) is not just an unctuous bumbler, but is, in fact, borderline mentally disabled. That is the only conclusion I can reach after watching credulous Barry gleefully smash bottles of wine against the walls of Tim's apartment. Dinner for Schmucks is funny, sure. How can it not be, with good comic actors like Carell and Rudd -- plus Zach Galifianakis, Jemaine Clement, Kristen Schaal, and Ron Livingston? And rest assured, no American comedy is going to call itself Dinner for Schmucks without showing us the actual dinner for schmucks, which is, naturally, this movie's comic apogee. There's a blind fencer, and a ventriloquist who's married to a slutty dummy, and a guy who French-kisses his vulture. They're all idiots, or possibly mentally ill. Paramount Pictures and director Jay Roach would like to invite you to a dinner they're hosting, at which you are welcome to laugh at them. (D.K.)
114 minutes Rated PG-13
Howl As suggested by its title, Allen Ginsberg's game-changing poem "Howl," is essentially performative--and so is Howl, the Sundance-opening quasi-biographical movie by Oscar-winning documentarians Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman. Howl the movie--which, in addition to touching on Ginsberg's early life (and successful coming out), dramatizes the poem's obscenity trial, the talk of San Francisco in late 1957--is broadly played by a number of name actors: David Strathairn (baffled prosecuting attorney), Jon Hamm (cool defense attorney), Bob Balaban (solomonic judge), Jeff Daniels (laughable expert witness for the prosecution), Mary-Louise Parker (ditto), and Treat Williams (professorial defense witness Mark Schorer). Most compelling by far is James Franco as Ginsberg, successfully nailing the poet's incantatory style, even while providing that voice with a movie star's glamorous vessel. Splendid as Franco's literal characterization and overheated line readings can be, art director Eric Drooker's literal-minded animated interpretation of "Howl" (haunted vortex of lonely crowd alienation, "what now little man?" monochromatic fascist madness) are as sodden as a cold latke--as well as a distraction. (I kept wondering how a neo-beatnik like R. Crumb would have illustrated Ginsberg's epochal spritz.) Basically, Epstein and Friedman are feel-good filmmakers--their Ginsberg has one of the shortest, most successful bouts of psychotherapy in history. But is it really necessary to affirm the poem's ecstatic footnote ("Holy! Holy! Holy!") with a montage of smiling reaction shots? (J.H.)
86 minutes Rated R