Corbett Sees Movie, Gets Prestigious Bottle Opener

Cedar Rapids' Mayor Ron Corbett has now seen “Cedar Rapids,” the movie. He even came home from its Midwest premiere in Ann Arbor, Mich., Friday night with a nice new bottle opener. More on that later.

Thumbs up or down?

“I'm not a movie critic,” Corbett said Monday, the paparazzi's flashbulbs now a distant memory. He took in the show with City Manager Jeff Pomeranz. They paid their own way. “It's not a family movie. There were some scenes that were just not my style. But filming is an art. But not every painting do I like, or every sculpture.”

“Cedar Rapids” stars Ed Helms as a Wisconsin insurance agent who travels to a convention in “Cedar Rapids.” His life is never the same after that rowdy, raunchy weekend.

It debuted at the Sundance Film Festival and then in Ann Arbor, where it was filmed. That's because ... well, let's allow “Cedar Rapids” co-star Anne Heche to explain. No, seriously.

“Yeah, there was a scandal with the film commission. And the film commissioner took off and bought these SUVs with the money that people had given for the film so the whole office shut down,” Heche told Hollywood.com. Who knew that she followed Iowa politics so closely? Director Miguel Arteta reluctantly moved production to Michigan, where credits were available.

But Corbett said the film still contains shots of our fair city, and even makes mention of the flood of 2008 during a stirring speech on the importance of insurance. Westdale Mall and Wilson Avenue get mentioned. The premiere also gave Corbett a chance to tout his town in a two-minute speech.

And he got swag. “I got a key to the city. And you know, the key to Ann Arbor also works as a bottle opener,” said Corbett, who brought the director and Ann Arbor's mayor bottles of Cedar Ridge bourbon.

Unlike our reluctant, diplomatic Mayor, others are willing to say what they think of “Cedar Rapids.” Most critics I found online seemed to like it, although nobody heaped praise.

“I can't honestly say that you'll be blown away by ‘Cedar Rapids' or that it's a must-see, but the film's gentle charms are persuasive, and on the whole, I enjoyed the time I spent with it,” Drew McWeeny wrote at HITFIX.

Vince Mancini at Filmdrunk strongly defended the movie's comedic earnestness.

“On the way home from the theater, I watched my bloggin' and reviewin' colleagues light up Twitter with mini-reviews, calling `Cedar Rapids' things like ‘sentimental' and ‘inoffensive' as an insult. No offense to my colleagues, but most of those booger-faced milk babies wouldn't know comedy if it bit their soft foreheads like a rabid baboon,” Mancini wrote.

Wow. Get that guy a bottle opener.

Screen Daily called it "hillarious," though also "hackneyed."

The Hollywood Reporter gives it a decent review.

If you see other reviews etc., share.