Main Cast: Michael Blieden, Stephanie Courtney, Matthew Price, Annabelle Gurwitch, Kathleen Roll
Release Year: 2003
Country: US
Run Time: 83 minutes
Plot
Mr. Show alumnus Bob Odenkirk's directorial debut, Melvin Goes to Dinner, is based on the play Phyrogiants! by Michael Blieden, who also adapted the script for the screen and stars in the film's titular role. Melvin has just broken up with his girlfriend, Trenice (Melora Walters), and has met up with his friend Joey (Matt Price) and two women, Alex (Stephanie Courtney) and Sarah (Annabelle Gurwitch), whose relationship to the men remains ambiguous. From there, the bulk of the action takes place around a table at a restaurant, as the four bare their innermost secrets and discuss everything from ghosts to stewardesses to masturbation. The film was shot simultaneously on five hand-held cameras in order to capture the essence and idiosyncrasies of the constantly overlapping conversations. Featuring appearances by Odenkirk, David Cross, Maura Tierney, and Jack Black in an unbilled cameo as a mental patient, and a score by Michael Penn, Melvin Goes to Dinner was the winner of the Audience Award for First Film at the 2003 South by Southwest Film Festival, the Best American Feature Award at the 2003 Avignon Film Festival, and the Best Picture Award at the Phoenix Film Festival. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide
Missy Parker - Art Director, Bob Odenkirk - Co-producer, Michael Blieden - Co-producer, Averi Bell - Costume Designer, Van A. Hayden - First Assistant Director, Bob Odenkirk - Director, Michael Blieden - Editor, Alex Campbell - Line Producer, Michael Penn - Composer (Music Score), Michael Krantz - Production Designer, Alex Vendler - Cinematographer, D.J. Paul - Producer, Naomi Odenkirk - Producer, Jeff Sussman - Producer, Missy Parker - Set Designer, Erik Magnus - Sound/Sound Designer, Michael Blieden - Screenwriter
Melvin Goes to Dinner is a 2003Americanfilm adaptation of Michael Blieden's stage play Phyro-Giants!, directed by Bob Odenkirk. Blieden wrote the screenplay from his stage play, and he also stars in the film (as he did in the Los Angeles stage production),[1] along with Stephanie Courtney, Matt Price[2] and Annabelle Gurwitch. The film became noteworthy in 2009 because it is an early appearance of Courtney, who gained fame that year for recurring appearances in television advertisements for Progressive Insurance.
Melvin is a onetime medical student who has dropped out of medical training and now works (after a fashion) in a planning office of an unnamed city; the office supervisor is his big sister, so she "mothers" him instead of making him perform well. Melvin accidentally makes telephone contact with an old friend, and they decide to meet that evening for dinner. The friend decides to arrive early at the restaurant for drinks with a lady friend. By the time the dinner appointment arrives, there are 4 people involved, all of them connected in some way to at least one of the other parties. The evening passes in a leisurely dinner with much conversation, sometimes intimate. The connections between the parties are revealed throughout the evening. The movie includes several flashbacks, which at the start are not explained but which become understandable by the end.
The movie provides an interesting sidelight of "spot the actor", since it uses many actors who are mainliners in other television productions. However, the main characters are all played by the stage actors who performed in the Los Angeles stage production on which the screenplay is based.
