Overnight Delivery Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Back in 2000, a week after it was out, my roommate and I went to see Road Trip. It was to be the funny cap to a long day -- she had thrown me a daytime surprise party, and we rushed to the theater once everyone left for a little movie fun. At the time, Tom Green was still pretty popular, and it seemed like the right end to the day. But while everyone else giggled, I grew more and more incensed. I had seen this film before. But the first time around, it didn't have a weird guy tonguing a mouse -- it had a super-cute pair by the names of Ivy Miller and Wyatt Tripps. Road Trip was a barely disguised copy of Overnight Delivery, which had come out two years before.

Maybe if it was five or ten years after the other, I would've let it slide as some sort of tribute. But even with a slightly different spin, it was too similar -- the loyal boyfriend, the fear of cheating, the needing to get back a letter sent to the girlfriend down South, the troubled road trip, the swiping of a vehicle, the violence needed to get the package back ... It was like Todd Phillips was given an outline of the first and just filled in the blanks in a different way.

It's far from the first time a movie mimicked a previous feature without being a remake, and sadly, it won't be the last. In a world full or remakes and reimaginings, what non-remakes drive you nuts? What blatant movie rip-offs make your head spin?

Oh, Breckin Meyer, what happened to you? In the '90s, things were going well. You got a little Clueless, got mixed up in The Craft, led Lovebürger -- all sorts of successful teen fare. But then ... Road Trip got you on the wrong highway until you were suffocating in projects like Herbie and Garfield.

If it wasn't for his animated gigs, I don't know what would've happened to Meyer. But now Production Weekly says he's turned to scriptwriting -- penning the Harry Elfont and Deb Kaplan-created Superguys. They say: "think Ocean's 11 with idiots set at Comic-Con." Man, Con is hot right now. Anyway, this reunites Meyer with the duo who created Can't Hardly Wait. Could this mean something good? Maybe? Or am I just fooling myself with hope?

Meanwhile, the much more successful Clueless alum Paul Rudd has a new gig lined up. He and Owen Wilson are in talks to star in Reese Witherspoon's latest romantic comedy. Yes! Should these talks work out, Wyatt Trips and Ivy Miller will be reunited! (Monsters vs. Aliens doesn't really count.) The untitled feature would pit Paul and Owen against each other to grab Reese's heart -- Paul as a "white-collar executive" and Owen as "a professional baseball pitcher."

Please. There's no way Mr. Wilson can come between the spazzy loves of Overnight Delivery. Actually ... this is probably a bad idea because I love that movie so much that it'll just leave me with ridiculously high expectations. I'd want snarky Reese, great Kevin Smith-influenced dialog ("It's no Jesus walking on water, I give it a six."), and most definitely at least one scene of classic, wacky Rudd dancing.

Reese and Paul might want to remove their last project from our memories, but I will clutch to it 'til the end!

This is the perfect time for a road trip -- the sun is high in the sky, the weather is warm, and the roads are clear. But alas, the responsibilities of adulthood and busy scheduling don't always make the open road a viable option. Luckily, however, there's always the movies -- a million different cinematic road adventures to explore.

For this double feature, I'm giving you a little taste of the '90s and then a little taste of the '80s. One is a feature that helped start the careers of two notable actors, and spawned a terrible copy-cat film with Tom Green. The other made soft, warm pillows seem like more than just a wonderfully relaxing safe haven. Sit back and enjoy Overnight Delivery and Planes, Trains, and Automobiles.

After this weekend hits, I wouldn't be surprised if Forgetting Sarah Marshall becomes the quintessential break-up movie. But even if it doesn't, the comedy will go down in the record books for being that romcom about the really heart-broken and pissed off dude whose story lathered ad spaces everywhere with lovely messages like: "You Suck Sarah Marshall," and made Sarah Marshalls across the US wonder what they did to deserve that.

But there's still a ton of other flicks out there that deal with break-ups -- way too many to even begin to name. But while each of them has heartbreak on their sleeve, they all tackle the issue in different ways. In honor of Peter Bretter's broken heart, here are seven other men who have had their hearts broken on-screen, all for the sake of comedy. Check these out and then weigh in with your favorites. Annie Hall? The Break-Up? The Philadelphia Story? Say Anything? Swingers?

The Nasty Letter -- Overnight Delivery

Wyatt Tripps (Paul Rudd) didn't want much in his happy co-ed experience, just Kimberly Jasney (Christine Taylor)... and one more thing: sex. Imagine his surprise when he finds out that while he's been writing Kim romantic notes and thinking about how much he'll miss her on Valentine's Day, she's been humping the Ricker -- a notion that ruins his dream of white picket fences, kids, and maybe even a house. Sure, he ends up on a spastic road trip with Ivy Miller (Reese Witherspoon) to stop the letter with loving phrases like "cellulite-packed cactuses that you call thighs," and finds real love, but before that, he has a good cry in his cocoa and a lot of humiliation.

I first rented Overnight Delivery one evening years ago because that girl from Man in the Moon was in it. I popped the video in, half watching it and half surfing the Internet. After maybe 10 minutes, I'd logged off and turned all of my attention to the movie because it kept making me laugh in spite of myself, and in spite of the questionable story. Really, it's a simple formula: Guy thinks the world of girl, finds out she's cheating on him, goes nuts and sends off a scathing package, finds out it isn't true and then goes on zany adventures to try and stop the package and save his relationship.

Paul Rudd plays Wyatt Trips, a young man who is so sexually pent up that he has become this strange, stiff romantic caricature who knows how to shmooze his girl, but not seal the deal for something more carnal. His relationship has become so by-the-book that he can't even notice the lack of passion behind it. He is, at times, completely ridiculous, something which often makes him seem unbelievable. However, it's Rudd's performance that really sold me on this film. I used to know someone just like him. In fact, the two are so similar, down to the way they say "oh, awesome," that it feels like someone found my old friend and studied him for a few days.