Melvin Goes to Dinner | |
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Directed by | Bob Odenkirk |
Written by | Michael Blieden |
Starring |
Michael Blieden Stephanie Courtney Matt Price Annabelle Gurwitch Kathleen Roll Maura Tierney Jenna Fischer Jack Black |
Music by | Michael Penn |
Distributed by | Arrival Pictures |
Release date
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Running time
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83 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Box office | $4,168 (US) |
Melvin Goes to Dinner is a 2003 American film 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), along with Stephanie Courtney, Matt Price and Annabelle Gurwitch.
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.
Michael Penn wrote the music for the film. The film won the Audience Award at the 2003 South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin, Texas, and the Best Picture and Best Ensemble Awards at the Phoenix Film Festival.
The movie uses many actors who are mainliners in other television productions, such as Odenkirk's former Mr. Show co-star David Cross as a self-help seminar leader. 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.