Next for the duo was Run Ronnie Run<\/em>, a comedy charting the misadventures of two of Mr. Show<\/em>\u2019s recurring characters that was an unhappy experience for Odenkirk and Cross since they were barred from the editing room by director Troy Miller, who had worked amicably with them on the show. By the time Ronnie <\/em>had its belated premiere at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival, it was in a form nobody was particularly happy with, least of all its stars. One year later, Odenkirk was back in Park City \u2013 at Slamdance this time \u2013 with his directorial debut, a low-budget indie based on a play he saw during its five-month run in Los Angeles in 2001. The play was Phyro-Giants!<\/em> by Michael Blieden, but in the course of adapting it for the screen, it was renamed the more sensible Melvin Goes to Dinner<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Along with Blieden, who plays the title character, a chronically unmotivated government employee in a go-nowhere relationship with a married woman, Odenkirk kept the main cast of the stage production intact. Matt Price is Melvin\u2019s friend Joey (who extends the dinner invite), Stephanie Courtney is Alex (who knows Joey from business school), and Annabelle Gurwitch is Alex\u2019s friend Sarah (who gets roped into joining the party). Odenkirk took full advantage of their familiarity with the material and each other, shooting the bulk of the film in two nights with five digital cameras to catch all of the action and the reaction shots simultaneously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Blieden and Odenkirk also opened up the play, creating scenes and flashbacks out of moments previously only described in the dialogue. This opened the door to cameos by several Mr. Show<\/em> alumni (and a pre-SNL<\/em> Fred Armisen), as well as meatier roles for a few ringers. Cross came on board as the leader of a self-help seminar Joey was once tricked into attending, Maura Tierney was tapped to play Melvin\u2019s disapproving sister, and Melora Walters appeared unbilled as the married woman he\u2019s sneaking around with. Also in the uncredited column is Jack Black, whose \u201cfame surpassed anyone else in the picture at this point,\u201d as Odenkirk wrote in his memoir, \u201cso this was a great favor.\u201d Black\u2019s role as a persistent mental patient is also pivotal since one of his delusions gave the play its title.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mental health (or the lack of it) is but one of the subjects broached during the quartet\u2019s wide-ranging conversation, which lasts so long they essentially close the restaurant down. The others include ghosts (brought up in the in medias res<\/em> opening), religion, infidelity, pornography, and the hidden connection between two characters who supposedly just met that night. \u201cI\u2019m sort of like going back and putting the whole evening together in my mind,\u201d Melvin says after the bombshell is dropped. That\u2019s also an accurate reaction to the film, which jumps around enough that it\u2019s necessary for viewers to do the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In spite of its failure to get into Sundance, and the sound problems that plagued its Slamdance debut (an unfortunate technological gaffe for such a dialogue-heavy film), Melvin Goes to Dinner<\/em> eventually found its way to the Sundance Channel and a DVD release through its Home Entertainment division. Its reemergence on the Criterion Channel two decades later is cause for celebration, however, since it looks (and sounds) as good as it ever will. While it lacks the polish of a classically shot film like Louis Malle\u2019s My Dinner with Andre<\/em> (a clear antecedent), Melvin<\/em> makes up for that with its unbridled exuberance and the committed performances of its leads, all of whom seem like real people in a way many movie characters (especially ones in quirky indies) do not. It\u2019s easy to see why Odenkirk thought their stories would translate from the stage to the screen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the years that followed, Odenkirk tried the Hollywood route, taking the reins of two studio comedies: Let\u2019s Go to Prison<\/em> for Universal and The Brothers Solomon<\/em> for TriStar. Neither did well enough to make him a bankable director, however, so Odenkirk found himself back in front of the camera, taking a recurring role on a basic-cable drama (Breaking Bad<\/em>), headlining its spinoff (Better Call Saul<\/em>), doing a season of another prestige show (Fargo<\/em>), making a left-field cameo in a Best Picture nominee (Greta Gerwig\u2019s Little Women<\/em>), and taking the starring role in an action film (Nobody<\/em>). Even if Odenkirk has given up his directing ambitions (\u201cI am happy to fail again at directing features, but only with something I love and believe in completely, so, maybe never,\u201d he wrote in 2022\u2019s Comedy Comedy Comedy Drama<\/em>), however you slice it, that\u2019s a better third act than just about anyone in the business could ever hope for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMelvin Goes to Dinner\u201d is streaming on the <\/em>Criterion Channel<\/em><\/a> as one of its <\/em>Rediscoveries and Restorations<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/melvin2-1024x576.jpg\")
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