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'Inception' Mash-ups Are Out of Control: Our 10 Favorites

A very resilient idea has taken hold: Wouldn't (insert name of movie here) make a great mash-up with 'Inception?'

After the brilliant 'Toy Story 3' mash-up, the Web is awash with characters from Homer Simpson to Peter Pan offering "a very specific type of security," a la Leonardo DiCaprio in 'Inception's second official trailer.

Zack Hemsley's hypnotic ''Mind Heist' track is being used to score several other re-edited trailers, but we're looking for true mash-ups: the ones where someone shouts, "The dream is collapsing!" as all hell breaks loose onscreen.

Buckle up for 'Total Inception' and 'Willy Wonka & the Inception Factory.' In no particular order, our 10 favorites:

'Dinner for Schmucks' Movie Reviews

Steve Carell is coming to dinner and Paul Rudd is your host.

In the new comedy 'Dinner for Schmucks,' Rudd ('I Love You, Man') plays Tim, a rising executive who needs to recruit a schmuck for his boss's monthly dinner for idiots. The bigger the idiot, the better to ingratiate yourself with the boss. He finds Carell's ('The 40-Year-Old Virgin,' 'The Office') Barry, who is quite the idiot, and the fun starts from there.

Zach Galifianakas, Jemaine Clement and Jeff Dunham play wacky dinner guests and Stephanie Szostak is Tim's reproachful girlfriend. 'Dinner for Schmucks,' directed by Jay Roach of 'Austin Powers' fame, is based on a 1998 Francis Veber French black comedy called 'The Dinner Game.'

Critically, this is one dinner most scribes would like to pass on. Critics feel the Tim and Barry characters have been overly sanitized for American audiences, and the Barry character becomes too likable for the jokes delivered at his expense.

If you do go to this 'Dinner,' look out for the performances of Galifianakis ('The Hangover') and Clement ('Flight of the Conchords'). They're better than the entree, the critics say.

Best and Worst French Movies Remade by Hollywood


It's a cheap truism to say that Hollywood has run out of new ideas; after all, critics have been saying it for decades. Still, Hollywood also has a decades-long history of borrowing ideas from an unlikely source: French-language movies. This week's 'Dinner for Schmucks,' based on the very funny 1998 French farce 'The Dinner Game' ('Le dîner de cons'), is only the latest example of a trend that stretches back more than 70 years and includes dozens of remakes.

It's curious why this should be so. It's not like there's a significant foreign-language film audience in America that will go see these remakes based on their fondness for the originals. Besides, French cinema is very different from Hollywood cinema; it's so much more nonchalant about depicting casual infidelity, casual philosophizing, and casual smoking. Still, a good idea is a good idea, no matter where it comes from.

Then again, that's also true of a bad idea. Below, we've listed five of the best French-to-English film adaptations, five of the worst, and five more that were noteworthy. Which (if any) of these lists does 'Dinner for Schmucks' belong on? Come back to this post after you've seen it and let us know.

Famous Movie Locations: Luke Skywalker's Home (Matmata, Tunisia)


A long time ago, in a galaxy far away -- aka the '70s -- George Lucas changed movies forever with the release of the first installment of the 'Star Wars' trilogy: 'A New Hope.' Fans were taken in by the adventure of young Luke Skywalker, plucked from his simple life to become the Jedi Knight who will save the universe.

Before his adventure begins, Skywalker lives with his Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru Lars, moisture farmers on the planet Tatooine. After unwittingly buying renegade droids C3PO and R2D2, Owen and Beru are killed by Stormtroopers, prompting Luke to leave the planet for good.

Luke may have abandoned his homestead, but you can still visit the Skywalker home. Lucas shot these first groundbreaking scenes at the famous Hotel Sidi Driss, located in the village of Matmata, in the country of Tunisia.

10 Movies for Families: What to See With Your Kids This Weekend

As July comes to a close and summer hits its third act before school starts again, it's a good weekend to huddle together for a good ol' family movie night. Here are 10 recommendations for prime family viewing this weekend.

Toy Story 31. For Families Who've Yet to Go to the Movies Together: 'Toy Story 3' (G) - in theaters
Who's In It: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Joan Cusack
What It's About: 'Inception' may be the grown-up movie of the summer, but Pixar's "threequel" is the overall movie of the summer. Andy's favorite toys Woody (Hanks), Buzz (Allen), Jessie (Cusack) and co. seem doomed to a life in attic storage until a mix-up takes them to a day care center instead. At first the toys, misled by big-shot purple-bear Lotso (Ned Beatty), think they will be cared for by sweet four-year-olds, but they end up in the toddler class, where the little ones slobber and clobber them every day. Can Woody, Buzz and the gang escape in time to bid Andy farewell to college? Of course! Will you still cry when they do? Of course!

Seven Things We Learned on the Set of 'Dinner for Schmucks'


If you're a connoisseur of fine French filmmaking, you might be familiar with the concept of 'Dinner for Schmucks' -- a comedy of errors based around one disastrous evening meal -- from its first iteration as 'The Dinner Game,' (or 'Le Diner De Cons,' for those who can pull off the accent). In its simplest terms, the film centers around a group of arrogant executives who hold regular dinner parties, during which they each attempt to bring the biggest "schmuck" they can find to the party. The exec with the kookiest schmuck wins respect, admiration, and perhaps a coveted promotion.

The original French project was produced in 1998, and when Moviefone took a tour of the 'Schmucks' set before Christmas, screenwriter David Guion admitted that even at that early stage, a U.S. remake seemed almost inevitable. "When the original came out, Dreamworks almost immediately bought the rights," he said. "A lot of different people were approached to work on it; Judd Apatow visited the set not long ago and said, 'Oh, right before I started writing 'Freaks and Geeks' I was approached about doing this.' It's had a very long history."

10 Most Awkward Dinner Scenes in Movies


In celebration of the new comedy 'Dinner for Schmucks' -- where guests compete to see whose plus-one is the most pathetic -- we cordially invite you to join us as we chew over some of the most uncomfortable cinematic dinners ever.

We're serving up bad jokes, bitchy relatives, intimidating future fathers-in-law, slippery snails and the worst menus ever. (Brains!)

Awkward movie dinners don't get any more painful than the 1998 Danish film 'The Celebration,' where, at his father's lavish 60th birthday party, a son's toast includes a shocking accusation of rape and incest. (We couldn't find a subtitled clip online, so it didn't make our list.) And how can we politely segue from there to another clip that didn't make the cut, the handjob-under-the-table from 'Wedding Crashers?' We can't. And we also can't embed that particular NSFW clip, but we did link.

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