Melvin Goes to Dinner (2003)

Wonderful Movie

Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

Simply Perfect

An Exercise In Nonsense

I just saw this movie. It was recommended by a friend who is a die hard Mr. Show fan. I didn't mind that it was a more serious movie that I expected and although it had its moments I think that it fell short of the profundity that it was attempting. Some of the dialoge was genuine and intriguing, but a lot of it was pretentious and over written. There were some good cameo's from Jack Black and David Cross and although I'm a fan of both Maura Tierney and Melora Walters, I felt that in this movie they were given thankless,one dimensional roles. The payoff at the end of the movie didn't really live up to the build up. I fell in love with Kathleen Roll as the compelling and inept waitress who provided the some of the most genuine and funny moments of the movie. I hope to see her again.

I had mixed feelings about this one. I went into it knowing that it was largely based on conversation with very little vestiges of plot, so I was pleasantly surprised to find that it all sort of falls into place to mean something at the end. All in all, the conversational elements are richly written and very appealing. However, that's the end... it takes a while for it to be truly enriching.Sometimes the conversation is such that you feel like you're in it, and that's probably as close to good as the cinematography and editing gets, considering in general it really isn't that well done. I can forgive the hand-held look and a lot of how the image turned out from its independent production value, but try as I might I couldn't help but feel a lot of the work was just shoddy camera operation.Sometimes the conversation isn't very appealing and I can't help but think, "I'm obviously not in this conversation because I wouldn't go there." So there's that element too, a sort of discursive alienation one feels when the conversation feels less than involving.Mostly, however, the dialog is great and the characters are amazing. There are some really great performances all around and it's definitely worth a viewing or two, or more, but even as I say that I can't help but think that the play version of this story must be absolutely amazing because of mostly the format of the two media.--PolarisDiB

Nearly all of Melvin Goes to Dinner's brief running time is spent observing a rambling but always interesting dinner conversation among four variously connected people in their late twenties. I was very impressed by both the writing and the acting. It's rare enough that we get even brief conversations that sound right, like real people really speak to each other; Here we have over an hour's worth.All of the performances are very good. I especially liked Stephanie Courtney's ability to make Alex simultaneously annoying and charming. Others have noted the wonderful cameo by Jack Black as a mental patient with an impressively detailed conception of reality.If you find yourself looking for a break from CGI and other special effects, give Melvin Goes to Dinner a try. The best thing I can say about it is that as soon as it ended, I wanted to watch it again from the beginning.

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.