The first film I watched was Dinner for Schmucks (2010) where Rudd is Tim who works for a financial investment firm and is striving to move up the ladder. After he proposes an idea to land a wealthy client, he is invited by his boss to a dinner where each guest is required to bring an unusual companion. Basically a dog fight where instead of the ugliest girl is your companion, here you have to bring the most bizarre or idiotic guest. Tim is conflicted, because public humiliation isn't the type of thing he would normally do, but then fate intervenes and he runs over Barry (Steve Carrell) in his car. Lo and behold, Barry appears to be the perfect idiot as his main hobby is building dioramas with exquisitely dressed dead mice.
One side note, though, was that the mice were created by the Chiodo Brothers who are most famous for their film Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988). Their work on the dioramas was amazing and truly one of the highlights of the film. If Barry was doing a crappy job of posing dead mice, that would have been beyond creepy.
Along the way we get to meet a lot of other great idiots and losers which are played by the some of the cream of the crop of modern comedy. A veritable ladle full. A soupcon of comedy such as Zach Galifianakis (The Hangover, Bored to Death) who plays Therman, Barry's arch nemesis and boss at the IRS. Then there is Jermaine Clement (Flight of the Conchords) as Kieran, a narcissistic artist who specializes in highly sexualized environmental art. Additional characters are played by David Walliams (Little Britain), Kristen Schaal (Flight of the Conchords), Chris O'Dowd (The I.T. Crowd) and stand-up comedian Jeff Dunham.
The other Paul Rudd movie which I recently watched was I Love You, Man (2009). Peter Klaven (Paul Rudd) has just proposed marriage to his girlfriend of 8 months and suddenly realizes that he has no male friends to stand up with him at the wedding. So, he goes in search of male friendship. He finally meets Sydney (Jason Segel - Freaks and Geeks) and they hit it off, but his fiancee starts to become uneasy about the new friendship.
This is a slightly ridiculous bromance that I can vaguely relate to in that being married does change the focus of your other relationships. You tend to concentrate on that which is most important in your life and unless you take the time to nurture other aspects, they will wither and die. :( Peter is married to his work as a real estate agent, so outside of his fiancee, there hasn't been a lot of time for other pursuits. The moral of the story is balance.
As comedies go, this one is very character situational with just a wee bit of gross out. Generally nothing too outrageous happens which makes the laughs more genuine and heartfelt. A good movie.
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