DATE NIGHT

Written by Josh Clausner
Directed by Shawn Levy
Starring Steve Carrell, Tina Fey and Mark Wahlberg

Claire Foster: No! When he says,” vagina”, he means your face.

Before the day has even started, it is already gone. Nasal strips are ripped off your face while miniature bodies pile drive into you before the alarm even has a chance to go off. In all honesty, the alarm probably hasn’t even needed setting in years. Something will inevitably wake the Foster’s up to their routine earlier than necessary. Phil and Claire, played by the king and queen of NBC comedy, Steve Carrell and Tina Fey, sit on opposite sides of their bed and stare into the separate abysses that await them. The message is clear; being married is hard, maybe even too hard. As you look at these two comedic geniuses though, you still see hope in their nearly defeated faces – hope for both the Foster’s themselves and for the movie you’re actually about to watch. What everybody needs is a good DATE NIGHT.

I am not married and nor do I have children. In fact, I saw DATE NIGHT in the middle of the afternoon, alone. I may not be the intended audience in regard to the marital doldrums theme we have seen plenty of times before but there is a whole other audience built in to DATE NIGHT that director, Shawn Levy, plays to more often than the first. That would be the legions of Carrell and Fey followers out there, of which I easily include myself among. Before this, I essentially avoided Levy’s work altogether. I’m not saying I’m about to go back and watch the NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM series but I must commend him for rising above the complete implausibility of the film’s mistaken identity premise by allowing his stars to shine when they should. Meanwhile, getting strong character actors, like James Franco, Mark Wahlberg and Mila Kunis, for random bit parts also gives more credibility whenever it was needed.

Fey’s quick wit and Carrell’s endearing awkwardness may be strengths we are used to by now and just expect to some extent, but their mastery is only getting better and it is their chemistry that makes DATE NIGHT work when it so easily could have bombed. These two immensely funny people pull from their dramatic strengths to make sure the Foster’s are a real couple. They’re real because you can always see the fear on their faces – the fear that they could actually lose each other. This DATE NIGHT really needs to work. And it does.

BABY MAMA

Written and Directed by Michael McCullers
Starring Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Greg Kinnear, Sigourney Weaver and Steve Martin


Kate Holbrook: It’s nice to feel needed, useful, important.
Angie Ostrowiski: I like all of those words.

This one’s for the ladies! Here we have one woman, Kate Holbrook (Tina Fey), who cannot get pregnant and then enlists another woman, Angie Ostrowiski (Amy Poehler) as her surrogate, or in the more contemporary sense, as her BABY MAMA. Angie leaves her dope of a common-law partner and moves in with Kate and the two go from cat fighting to slumber parties in no time. They’re having babies; they’re talking boys; they’re singing along to Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” in the living room. The estrogen practically slinks off the screen in stilettos. If only this expectant comedy didn’t deliver such expected results.


The female bonding originates with Fey & Poehler’s offscreen friendship and makes for some fabulous chemistry and spontaneous hilarity but it never successfully hides the gaping story holes. Having paid an exorbitant amount of money to a firm that screens its surrogates thoroughly should have essentially eliminated Angie as an option, as she has no functional understanding of what it means to take good care of herself. Before long, perhaps to intentionally rattle us from the unoriginal unfolding of the odd couple one would ordinarily expect, Angie’s intentions come into question in such a manner that it becomes practically impossible to continue letting the good times just go on. Good clean fun is replaced by awkward angst.

This contemporary comedy draws our attention to the business of babies. It does so however in such a hackneyed fashion that if it weren’t for the talented mama’s at the forefront of it all, it would be little more than a painful delivery.