Hammy would approve!!!

Last night, arguably the inauguration of Spring Breakout 2011, I had the pleasure of viewing Cedar Rapids. While the comedy has its share of flat attempts at humor, I agree with Ebert's review that this film is wise to create comedy via character development. For a movie such as this, too reliant at times on homophobia for laughter, we do get a somewhat full sense of each character--their motivations, their secrets, their qualities, and their flaws. This is especially true for Tim Lippe (played by The Office's Ed Helms), who works for BrownStar Insurance in tiny Brown Star, WI. Lippe, who's never left his hometown, is sent to the annual ASMI convention in relatively huge Cedar Rapids, IA, where he meets nice guy Ronald Wilkes (Isiah Whitlock Jr.), Omaha resident John Ostrowski-Fox (Anne Heche), and social deviant Dean Ziegler (John C. Reilly), whom Lippe is instructed from his boss to be sure to avoid. From there, the plot unfolds as Lippe and his convention friends share good laughs and stick up for one another. The result is a feel-good movie that you'll probably never watch again, but I'll give it a hearty 4 out of 5 jalapeños partly due to its making-fun-of-the-midwest appeal.