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Cedar Rapids likes ‘Cedar Rapids’

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CEDAR RAPIDS – “Cedar Rapids” the movie won more than just two diamonds with the full house gathered for a sneak preview Thursday night (2/17/2011).

The 253-seat theater at the Galaxy 16 Cine was packed with laughter from beginning to end, from Sigourney Weaver’s hilarious turn as a cougar to John C. Reilly’s sophomoric high jinks as the credits rolled 86 minutes later.

The event drew a mix of ages, with everyone clutching the golden tickets they’d won through local media giveaways this week.

Amanda Griffith, 25, of North Liberty, entered every contest she could find online and got the call Thursday at work, saying she had won. Her friends had seen the movie’s trailer. “Other than that, all I know is that it’s about Cedar Rapids,” she said while standing in the line that formed more than an hour before the 7:30 p.m. show time.

Demetrios Hadjis, 59, of Cedar Rapids, a veteran of Theatre Cedar Rapids performances, said he was “excited to see what they’ve done with the movie.”

He purposely wanted to walk into the movie with no preconceived notions.

“I’m trying to keep my eyes closed” to the hype beforehand, he said, “so I can have my first impressions without the reviews and trailers.”

He couldn’t help but hear, however, that shooting moved to Ann Arbor, Mich., after the collapse of the Iowa film tax credit nearly forced the movie to be scrapped entirely.

“With the potential acting opportunities for the local people lost, it’s sad,” he said, “not to mention the restaurants and hotels” that would have profited from having the movie made in Iowa. “It’s a big loss to the community.”

Having a scattering of local icons onscreen helped buffer that disappointment for Josh Willia, 30, of Cedar Rapids.

“The Cedar Rapids shots made it real,” he said, “and the humor was very original. Cedar Rapids was very well portrayed.”

His wife, Lizette, 27, agreed. She especially liked the shots of Quaker Oats and the talk about the floods of 2008.

The plot follows naïve Tim Lippe (played by Ed Helms) as he steps out of his small-town world into a big city of opportunities during a regional insurance convention in Cedar Rapids. Compounding his angst, he’s trying to bring home the coveted Two Diamond award for his company, which his smooth-talking late co-worker managed to snag three years in a row. That’s more pressure than Lippe has ever faced.

Helms’ dumbfounded blank looks drew as many laughs as the raunchy humor hopping out of his hotel roommate’s mouth (Riley). Some lines and antics even drew applause, especially when Lippe attempted to scale a rock climbing wall during a team-building scavenger hunt at Westdale Mall.

Among those laughing on the way out was Sheryl Bequeaith, 65, of Cedar Rapids.

“It was funny – it really was,” she said as she exited the theater. “It made Wisconsin look worse than us. Who knows what’s hiding in Cedar Rapids.”

– DIANA NOLLEN

‘Cedar Rapids’ kind to namesake city

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CEDAR RAPIDS — The rave reviews are coming form all corners — the Sundance Film Festival, Roger Ebert, People magazine and writers at major metropolitan newspapers.

Most are even farther away from Cedar Rapids than Ann Arbor, Mich., where the movie was filmed in November 2009, after the collapse of the Iowa film tax credit program.

For those of us who call Cedar Rapids home, however, the movie that bears our city’s name strikes us in our heartland. It’s hard not to watch it while saying a little prayer: “Please don’t make us look like hicks.”

The good news? We don’t. Our neighbors in Wisconsin do, but that’s OK.

The marvelously understated Ed Helms plays Tim Lippe (pronounced “lippy”) who sells insurance for the Brown Star company in Brown Valley, Wis. When the company’s shining star dies in a most unsavory fashion, Lippe is tapped to board an airplane for the first time, rent a car for the first time, stay in a hotel for the first time and head to a regional insurance convention in “the big city” of Cedar Rapids. Once there, he does lots of other things for the first time, like hard liquor shots, drugs, a one-night stand and a rock-climbing wall.

It’s hard to imagine any businessman in his mid-30s being so socially awkward, but that’s what Helms, 37, plays best (“The Office,” “The Hangover”), so we find ourselves rooting for his successes and shuddering during his slippery slopes.

His boss orders him to stay away from the foul-mouthed loudmouth Dean “Deanzie” Ziegler (the always hilarious John C. Reilly), so of course they end up sharing a room. Their other roomie is “an Afro-American man,” Ronald Wilkes, played with sweet charm by Isiah Whitlock Jr. (“The Wire”). In the hotel lobby they all hook up with convention veteran hottie, the aptly named Joan Ostrowski-Fox (Anne Heche) and the adventures begin.

The foursome exudes comic chemistry that buoys this smallish film by indie director Miguel Arteta. He provides the guiding force but uses a light enough touch to let the humor unfold naturally from these naturally funny actors and characters.

The climbing wall scene is a laugh riot, but the violent drug scene is almost the film’s undoing. It’s hard to watch, because we like Lippe so much and don’t want him walking down that dead-end dirt road.

It will be interesting to see how Cedar Rapidians react to this film, which does have seriously funny scenes and enough local references to keep us satisfied: Lippe making a downtown map to take to Cedar Rapids; a heartfelt speech about the Floods of 2008; downtown scenic shots; and Helms and Heche trying to find Westdale Mall during a scavenger hunt, debating how “north is north and south is south.” Anyone who has ever tried to find a true north, south, east or west in Cedar Rapids will especially love that line.

Just be sure to check your Cedar Rapids baggage at the door, then get ready to laugh, smile, groan and gasp.

— Diana Nollen

Cedar Rapids: The Movie

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Director, star hope hometown audiences find humor and hopefulness in namesake film.

CHICAGO — Director Miguel Arteta hopes “Cedar Rapids,” the movie, will be kinder to Cedar Rapids, the city, than the chilling “Fargo” was to its North Dakota namesake.

“The idea was from the start to have affection toward the people we were making the movie with,” he says during a recent media blitz at the Elysian Hotel in downtown Chicago. “I hope that this doesn’t have the hard edge that ‘Fargo’ has over that city and that movie. I hope this has more of a warm glow when people watch this.”

Star Ed Helms hopes local audiences have a more raucous reaction.

“I just hope that they laugh their asses off,” he says during the same media junket.

Then he turns kinder and gentler, like his character, Tim Lippe.

“I hope they see this as a celebration,” says Helms, 37, of Los Angeles, who stars as a naive insurance salesman in the comedy opening Friday at the Galaxy 16 Cine and Wynnsong 12 in Cedar Rapids. “I want them to love the movie and not to see it as any kind of joke or exploitation, but something that is poignant and heartfelt and comes from a place of affection for these characters and for this place.”

Cedar Rapids has several cameos in the 86-minute feature film shot in Ann Arbor, Mich., in November 2009. Original plans were to shoot in Des Moines, which had the kind of sites the production team was looking for. But when Iowa’s film tax credit program collapsed, production quickly moved to Michigan, which offers a 42 percent film tax credit for movies shot in Ann Arbor and other select cities.

“We desperately wanted to shoot in Iowa for lots of reasons, not the least of which was just to have the experience as a crew and as performers of being in Iowa and having that inform the movie,” Helms says. “(The film tax scandal) shut us down and almost shut down the whole movie. We were heartbroken and trying to figure out what to do, and our crew rallied and found all the locations we needed in Ann Arbor and off we went and got it done.”

A film crew did spend a day in Cedar Rapids one day over the 2009 Thanksgiving weekend, shooting such place-setters as an aerial overview of the downtown, the Quaker Oats complex and the Second Street and First Avenue intersection by The Roosevelt.

Set at a regional insurance convention in a downtown Cedar Rapids hotel, the movie is a coming-of-age story revolving around Lippe, who has never flown in an airplane, never stayed in a hotel and never been to a big city.

He gets a more worldly, eye-opening experience when he’s befriended by several colorful convention delegates: loudmouth Dean Ziegler (John C. Reilly), reserved Ronald Wilkes (Isiah Whitlock Jr.) and come-hither Joan Ostrowski-Fox (Anne Heche). They embark on all kinds of wild escapades, dragging Lippe along for a very bumpy ride.

The film actually has more heart than its R rating might indicate.

“We’ve made a very tender comedy, which is something you don’t see often,” says Arteta, 46, a Puerto Rican filmmaker now living in Los Angeles. “Really it’s a tender comedy about unexpected friendships. And nowadays most comedies are super-hip and sarcastic and mean-spirited. In spite of all the foul language and the sex and the drugs that you see in this movie, it’s a sweet film.”

That’s what made him so nervous before its unveiling at the Sundance Film Festival in January.

“The affection toward the characters was the thing that attracted me to making it. It made me nervous, wondering if audiences are jaded and want this hard edge instead.”

But so far, Sundance audiences in Utah and Ann Arbor have embraced this film, which Arteta says cost “more than ‘El Mariachi’ and less than ‘Avatar’ to make.” (The first is reported to have cost $7,000, the latter estimated at $500 million.)

Helms, who is making his mark playing sweet, nerdy guys in such hits as “The Office” on TV and “The Hangover” on the big screen, admits seeing a little bit of Lippe in himself. He’d like to see even more.

“I wish there was a lot of Tim Lippe in me,” he says. “I sort of love the hopefulness and intrinsic goodness of a character like Tim Lippe. At his core he’s an idealist, not just for himself, but for everyone around him. He sort of sees everyone as the ideal versions of themselves. I actually think that’s a wonderful trait.”

— Diana Nollen

Read Roger Ebert’s review.

Read Diana’s review.

Read what audiences thought.

GET OUT

  • What: “Cedar Rapids” (Comedy, 87 minutes)
  • Rating: R
  • Summary: A sweet comedy with a dirty mind. The innocent and naive Tim Lippe (Ed Helms), who has never left his hometown of Brown Valley, Wis., finds himself at an insurance convention in that sinkhole of depravity, Cedar Rapids, where a motel with a pool strikes him as more thrilling than Las Vegas. With John C. Reilly and Isiah Whitlock as his motel roommates, Anne Heche as a temptress, and Sigourney Weaver as Tim’s former grade school teacher and current lover.
  • Review: Three stars
  • Where: Galaxy 12 and Wehrenberg 16 in Cedar Rapids

Ebert gives ‘Cedar Rapids’ three stars

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Fox Searchlight

You are making the mistake of thinking of Cedar Rapids as a small town. In “Cedar Rapids,” a sweet comedy with a dirty mind, it is the metropolis, a sinkhole of sex, sin and high living at an annual insurance industry convention. Into this pit of depravity descends the innocent and naive Tim Lippe (Ed Helms), who never before in his life has left his hometown of Brown Valley, Wis.

Helms, from “The Office,” is assigned to take the big trip after his boss dies in embarrassing circumstances. His character is a bachelor who still lives in his childhood home, although excitement has recently entered his life with his first affair. Yes, he’s sleeping with his grade school teacher, Miss Vanderhei, who is played by Sigourney Weaver as a woman who has seen it all — if it’s in Brown Valley, anyway.

Lippe’s assignment: Attend the convention and come home with the coveted Two Diamonds Award. I immediately flashed on the older son in “Gates of Heaven,” sitting proudly behind and in front of plaques and statuettes and observing that he is displaying “the maximum trophies” to impress young recruits into — yes, it was the insurance business there, too. Apparently, the folks in Brown Valley prefer to deal with Two Diamonds winners.

The coveted award is the gift of Orin Helgesson (Kurtwood Smith), a mighty figure at the convention. I recall from my days as a cub reporter the self-importance of “industry legends” who lovingly spoke at length to their captive audiences. Helgesson is very public with his piety, and it would be a disaster if he discovers how Lippe’s boss died. Lippe’s job is to stay out of trouble. Since he doesn’t smoke or drink and his sexual adventures are possibly limited to Miss Vanderhei, this should be easy.

The director, Miguel Arteta, understands that real laughter grows from characters. He has a rich start with Lippe, played by Helms as a man who is thrilled even to go through security at the airport. He calls Miss Vanderhei with breathless reports that his hotel has a swimming pool and that there is, gasp, an African-American in his room! This turns out to be his roommate, Ronald Wilkes (Isiah Whitlock Jr.), who is an old hand at the convention and a useful ally. His other roommate, Dean Ziegler (John C. Reilly), is trouble — a hard-drinking womanizer and client poacher.

Now we know the story arc. Ziegler will lead Lippe into temptation, Wilkes will try to caution him, Orin Helgesson will be outraged, and the hotel pool will be involved in an unseemly way. All of this works out to be pretty funny, especially with the intervention of the sexy Joan Ostrowski-Fox (Anne Heche), whose trips to the convention are the highlight of her sex life, I hope.

“Cedar Rapids” has something of the same spirit of “Fargo” in its approach to the earnest natures of its small-towners. The two films, otherwise so different, like their characters. Some of them do unspeakable things, especially in “Fargo,” but none of them WANT to be evil. They just hope to get out in one piece.

It is a relief, for example, that Reilly’s Dean Ziegler isn’t a malicious buffoon, but simply a nice guy, terminally immature. And Ed Helms makes an ideal leading man because he always seems to be searching for someone to stand behind. The problem with so many madcap comedies is that their heroes cannot fully embrace cluelessness. It is funnier for a second banana to play the lead than for a lead to pretend to second bananahood.

  • What:  “Cedar Rapids” (Comedy,  87 minutes)
  • Rating: R
  • Minireview: A sweet comedy with a dirty mind. The innocent and naive Tim Lippe (Ed Helms), who has never left his hometown of Brown Valley, Wis., finds himself at an insurance convention in that sinkhole of depravity, Cedar Rapids, where a motel with a pool strikes him as more thrilling than Las Vegas. With John C. Reilly and Isiah Whitlock as his motel roommates, Anne Heche as a temptress, and Sigourney Weaver as Tim’s former grade school teacher and current lover.
  • Rating: Three stars.

‘hangover 2′ is half-written (and more details)

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A few key details about The Hangover 2 leaked today and I feel that you, loyal reader, should know about the sequel to the best comedy of 2009.

Phillips also told EW.com today that the three main stars of the film – Ed Helms, Bradley Cooper and Zach Galifianakis – will all return for the next movie.  This isn’t shocking news, considering all three are legitimate movie stars because of how well The Hangover did at the box office and among critics.

The biggest question mark fans of the original had regarding a sequel was where it would take place.  Well, Phillips put those rumors to rest today when he said that (as you know from the title of this post) his half-written script would not reuse the same plot.  Which means that The Hangover 2 will not shoot in Las Vegas.

That said, he went on to strongly hint that alcohol will once again play a prominent role in the film, so don’t expect too much change for The Hangover 2.

Other than those tiny nuggets of information, Phillips is being tight-lipped about the film.

****************

This post was written by Eric Van Dril.  For more of his writing, check out RipcordNews.com.

John C. Reilly moves to ‘Cedar Rapids’

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John-C-Reilly-Biography-2This was originally reported at www.hollywoodreporter.com

“John C. Reilly is joining Ed Helms in “Cedar Rapids,” Fox Searchlight’s ensemble road-trip comedy that Miguel Arteta is directing.

Alexander Payne, Jim Taylor and Jim Burke are producing via their Ad Hominem Enterprises banner.

The story, by Phil Johnston, centers on a wholesome and naive small-town Wisconsin man (Helms) who, when his role model dies, must represent his company at a regional insurance conference in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where his mind is blown by the big-town experience.

Reilly’s character also is attending the conference and is a family man who sees the event as a vacation and time to let loose.”

‘The Hangover’ star set to shoot film called ‘Cedar Rapids’

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Ed Helms

Ed Helms

Variety.com is reporting that Ed Helms, who is on NBC’s “The Office” and starred in this summer’s “The Hangover,” is planning to shoot a movie called “Cedar Rapids” starting in October.

The entertainment publication reported that Helms will play an insurance agent who goes to an industry conference in Cedar Rapids to try to save his coworkers’ jobs.

It’s not clear if the movie will be filmed in Cedar Rapids.

For more, see the Variety article here .