Melvin Goes to Dinner (2003)

Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

Awesome Movie

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

i don't get this s**t. You have cameos from all these funny, interesting actors, and you cast the leads as there community theater rejects? what gives? what are you trying to covey? The content become contrived and predictable after a while. The dialog COULD have been striking, but s**t, you got Jack Black playing a mental defect, and Laura Kitelinger on screen for like a second and a half, and you cast the movie with these forced dialog suckers? I don't get it, Bob, i don't' get it. This film had a lot of potently but failed. I DE-Recommend this film. Don't bother, It's not worth it. It's too simple, but could have been good.

I have never walked out of a movie in my life. Had I seen this in the theater I would have.The characters in this movie are very true to life, unfortunately they are all pseudo-intellectual hipsters who think every mundane thing in their lives is absolutely fascinating. Perhaps for his next movie Bob Odenkirk can make a feature about a group of alarm clocks. The buzzing of the alarm clocks would be no less annoying than the characters in "Melvin Goes to Dinner" and the film would be just as entertaining."Melvin Goes to Dinner" may be the worst movie ever made avoid it at all costs.

This was a great TiVo pickup. I liked the title, got it off IFC. Although Melvin is the title role, I loved Matt Price as Joey. And it does seem to center more around Joey (at least until the "revelation"), and the revelation was a real surprise, one that makes you go back to the beginning and watch all over again.It all about what can happen at a loosely arranged dinner between 2 friends, that expands into a dinner among friends and strangers, where people drink too much wine and start revealing things about themselves, and then it's about coincidences and fate and life-after-death, and everything else that can go on at a casual dinner.But it's not just talk, and the flashbacks and flashforwards make the movie move. And the waitress, Kathleen Roll, with a voice like Lily Tomlin, steals her scenes.

Just got the DVD after discovering it on Netflix and enjoyed it, although I wish I'd seen it with a live audience for the laughs. It's "My Dinner with Yuppies" - but these guys are likable, smart, funny and occasionally deep. The effect is that you feel like you're the fifth member at the table. Definitely a worthwhile rental.Bob Odenkirk directed, so there's some of his Mr. Show gang involved like David Cross and Jack Black (who delivers big time as the "Creatress"). There's also the uber-likable Maura Tierney along with Laura Kightlinger, to pepper this low-budget indy with a some bankable star power. But none of the major characters are "stars" although Blieden's is a face you'll swear you've seen somewhere (commercials?), but you can't quite place it.But like so many independent films, the story behind the movie is just as, if not more interesting. The additional features include scenes from the play "Phyro-Giants" written by Blieden, that spawned this film. The commentary, especially the producers track is an independent producer's 101 where you found out how Blieden edited this whole film on a "single processor Powermac" in Final Cut. Damn, I'm impressed...No, it's not quite "Swingers" but it's very good, with solid performances that come from a unique ensemble chemistry (these guys did this thing on stage for five months). I hear this has been on the Sundance Channel (don't get it), but I'd recommend the DVD for the extra's.Somewhere between TV pap and movie crap, independent films like this, made on the cheap but sparing little or nothing in the quality of writing/performance, offer some hope for viewers who want something more. I look forward to Blieden's next film.