Cedar Rapids Review

So, I was conceived in a trailer park in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. I am also in love with Ed Helms. Well, maybe not love, love, as we've been through no tough times together and grown stronger as a couple, but at least in serious like. The man can act in a sitcom, act in a blockbuster movie, act in a Sondheim musical in service of his role in the sitcom, sing like a bird, play the banjo like a dream, and apparently, rollerskate like an extra in Xanadu as well. So sue me that I find that impressive. Plus, you know, I like to work blue and I enjoy seeing frank depictions of drug use, alcohol abuse, and sex after the age of 40 on the big screen. So I go into this review knowing that I am the absolute target audience for this flick.

That being said, it's wonderful, and you should drop whatever you're doing right now, and if not rush right out and see it, at least get out your cute little i-phone or blackberry or whatever the kids are using nowadays and coordinate your plans to go see it in the next week or so. If you're in St. Louis, these coordination efforts should take on a tone of some urgency, considering it is currently at the Moolah, and will probably not be after this week. So, go do that now. I'll wait.

OK, did you scare up a friend to go see it with you at the Tuesday rush hour showing? Good. You'll be glad you did.

Because what you'll get is a truly funny movie that gets the details right. If they didn't film this in the hotel where my now 32-year-old brother got drunk for the first time at our family friend's wedding, I'll be damned if they didn't find its doppelganger. And no, I'm not stupid enough to imagine it was actually the same motel, just that it looked like it could be, so win for the art direction, but on the other hand if you've gotten drunk for the first time in some second-rate midwestern motel with an indoor swimming pool, you've gotten drunk in them all, truly. And I loved that the "wacky, cutting loose" arc of the movie moved beyond SPOILER ALERT doing shots and sleeping with Anne Heche, and came boomeranging back at smoking crystal and narrowly escaping a beat-down by some sinister-looking country boys. Y'know, as you do in Iowa.

Did you want more? Didn't I already mention Ed Helms, Cedar Rapids, frank depictions of drug use, sex, and alcohol abuse? If you actually need another reason, allow me to add...it's as if the movies Sideways and the Hangover had a baby. And John C. Reilly rocks the party that rocked the party, so there's another one. And stay for the ending credits, particularly if you're a connoisseur of jokes about anorexics and yeast infections.