Movies For Schmucks...

I am often constrained to believe what the movie critics say...too much. Some of the ones they have panned lately, my wife and I have liked. But do you think I can think of one right now? Maybe later.

But I do get very peeved when one is given a fairly high rating, and is promoted high and low, on talk shows, on national radio, in the newspapers - and it turns out to be a bomb...for me at least. One such lately was "Dinner For Schmucks". I had enjoyed Steve Carrel in "Evan Almighty" and "Dan In Real Life". "Date Night" was going pretty well until he deteriorated into inane sexual humor at the end, as if looking desperately for an ending. What I saw of "The 40-Year Old Virgin" was also disgusting in its appeal to the lowest common denominator - raunchy sex references throughout, while trying to make us feel sorry for him that he had retained his virginity.

But when we out to see "Dinner For Schmucks" recently, we went with some high hopes of a repeat of Carell's better not his seamier side, having read a review that gave it a B. As we watched, and I waited for something funny I could at least muster up a chuckle for,  having told my wife that the review I read said it would be a little slow going until the funny dinner part.  I was sorely disappointed.

The dinner was a disaster, a total reduction into silliness and blatant sexual references that were just not funny. And as I thought about how the movie got there, it seemed to me to an utter self-indulgence on Steve's part, a poor attempt to try to make us laugh just because it was him. And he must think he's so funny now that any little sad story line or facial expression is going to get us to laugh and find him appealing.  Big mistake.

And I thought then about the promos I had seen him do on Lettermen and other shows, actually trying to make us believe that he was trying to make this a believable character, someone worthy of our compassion and pathos, as well as our laughter. What a joke! The joke is really on him in this one, sorry, but I found nothing redeemable about this mousey little guy who collects dead mice to stuff them into little characters we're also supposed to find adorable or tragic or something totally unemotional. And then he ruins the other guy's life as if he's not really trying to but is too cogent to be unaccountable.

I felt like a schmuck for going to it and sitting all the way through, waiting patiently for something real I could say was enjoyable and worth my time and money. Don't waste yours!