Sometimes the quality of a disk can really determine how much you enjoy a movie. This would be my case for Cedar Rapids. About 50 minutes into it (out of 86) it was fine, but I might have missed about 5 minutes of material in the last half hour, which is a lot. Lot of skipping, so stuff gets all jumbled. This isn’t really the fault of Ed Helms or John C. Reilly, just my own disk. Onwards!
And sally faawwwr…sally farrtas….grr. sallyforth.
Anyways, Cedar Rapids isn’t a stoner comedy, doesn’t use “offensive” jokes to make laughs, or much slapstick, but just goes a more natural route. I liked that. It was definitely a great change of comedy. I heard someone refer to it as a “midwest people” comedy, a stereotype we don’t get to explore at all enough. We pretty much have Fargo, as a northern midwest comedy, and that is about it. So a lot less funny accents here, and a lot more, “break out of your shell, you square!” comedy. The name also comes from the insurance convention in the region, which takes place in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
I also really didn’t hate any character in the movie, which was good (except you know, the “evil people”). Also, Maebe from Arrested Development as Bree the Prostitute was enjoyable. What?