Movie Review: The Other Guys

Is it just me, or is Will Ferrell decidedly less funny as of the last 5 or so years? For the first half of his career he made a name playing awkward idiotic characters we could laugh at, but after you've seen the same character in 10 different movies, it gets old and you wonder if he can come up with anything new. Maybe his character, Allen, in the movie The Other Guys resembles that as well, but the spin on it (and all the other characters around him) make me think that maybe Ferrell has a few more tricks up his sleeve.

The movie opens with the two famous hero-cops of the department succeeding at yet another bust, and then shortly thereafter dying while failing in another attempt. Through both of the scenarios you get the idea that a lot of the cops don't necessarily have that much respect for each other and just want to climb to the top of the office ladder. Allen doesn't buy into that and is happy to work behind his desk and do paperwork, but his partner Terry (played by Mark Wahlberg), wants desperately to get out from behind the desk and back into the field after an embarrassing incident which cost him his reputation. Needless to say, Terry hates Allen for holding him back.

Eventually Terry gets Allen to start investigating a robbery, and through their misadventures discover that more might be going on than they originally thought. The two bond (although in a very strained and awkward way) and do their best to solve the crime before the other detectives on the force do, and before they are silenced by the criminals.

Set up to be a typical buddy-cop/whodunnit film, The Other Guys veers to the left to infuse Ferrell's brand of comedy into it. The awkward guy might just actually have a hidden (and hilarious) past, the cool guy acts just as awkwardly and might be a little nuts, and the hot girl (Allen's wife played by a spot on Eva Mendes) is well...you guessed it, a little awkward too. Even the chief (played by Michael Keaton in possibly his best role since Batman--think a comeback a la Tom Cruise in Tropic Thunder, but more subtle), is off beat with his constant TLC references.
But for all this awkwardness you'd think you'd be feeling a little uneasy watching the movie and just wishing the characters of the screen, but that's not the case. Each character highlights the aspects of comedy the actor who plays them is good at. And you end up laughing hysterically and just thinking, "What the..." and wonder what weird thing is going to happen next. It's the same kind of comedy that made Ferrell famous, but taken up a level for those of us who've grown bored. Definitely worth the rental fee and then some.

Movie Review: Easy A

What could very easily turn into your stereotypical high school comedy, didn't. Kind of like Mean Girls meets Risky Business, Easy A is about a high school senior who seeks to take control of the rumor mill surrounding her sexual exploits (that are actually all lies).

Emma Stone plays Olive, your typical high school student just trying to get by until her friend falsely assumes she lost her virginity to a guy that doesn't even exist. The rumor is overheard by Jesus-freak Marianne (Amanda Bynes), and is subsequently spread all over school. Within minutes Olive becomes a social pariah and begins to identify with Hester Pryne, the heroine of the book The Scarlet Letter. As Olive plays up her new-found notoriety by continuing to spread false rumors about her sleeping with a slew of guys in the high school, she transforms her personality and wardrobe to play the part of school slut.

Then, when the dust settles and she has no friends, and all the guys (except one), treat her like the high school equivalent of a prostitute she realizes that she has to do something about the image she created of herself and get her real self back.

Easy A references its 80s teen flick predecessors in a playful way that reminded me of what it was like to be a teenager, struggling with a machine you hate but desperately want to be a part of. You identify with Olive when she says she wishes she had the 80s movie ending where the guy of her dreams lets her know he cares and they ride off into the sunset together. And you feel bad for her as she's tormented and used by her peers. You wonder, what's more important? Being popular for a bad reason, or being hidden among the masses, but at least you're yourself?

But this movie is far from being a serious look at the evils of high school; it's a comedic satire so there's plenty of laughs. Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson are hilarious as Olive's wacky parents and Amanda Bynes is too as the Jesus-freak. My mother, Nick, and I watched this together and the three of us laughed almost constantly. Definitely highly recommended for anyone who went to high school, and those who are suffering through it as we speak.

Movie Review: Date Night

In keeping with our Nick's birthday themed posts, tonight's entry is about the movie we rented that night.



I am a planner, everyone in the whole who has ever met me knows this. So for Nick's birthday, since it was just the two of us, I wanted to make sure everything was really perfect. It's hard to have your birthday be at a time when you don't know too many people and you're away from your family and friends, so I didn't want him to be thinking about that at all. A couple weeks ahead of time I skimmed through our Netflix cue to see what we had on there. Should I pick something action packed that any guy would be into? Should I pick something schmaltzy and romantic because Nick is a softie at heart, and the whole night was kinda like a big romantic evening? I eventually decided that something lighthearted would be good and opted for a romantic comedy with emphasis on the comedy. Date Night starring Tina Fey and Steve Carell seemed like the obvious choice, especially because with two comedians at the top of their game, I was expecting it to be intelligent and not just stupid.

Well I'm not going to lie, I was not disappointed. Fey and Carell star as The Fosters, a couple who is a little burnt out from raising the kids and working. They have weekly date nights, but there's little spice to their marriage. Prompted by a close couple's divorce, Carell's character decides they need to do something different to "save" their marriage when in reality it was never that broken to begin with. They head to NYC to try to get into a restaurant that's impossible to get a reservation at, and when they steal another couple's reservation they are struck with a case of mistaken identity and hilarity ensues as they try to survive the night.

Fey and Carell play their characters perfectly with the flair that you might expect from the two of them. Perfect comedic timing, great chemistry, with a bit of honesty thrown in. When you watch them fight, or goof around, you walk away feeling like "wow, that could be me and my significant other." (We laughed hysterically and both said this as they did a "stripper robot dance.")



That being said, this movie is not without it's star supporting characters either. Mark Wahlberg plays a shirtless security expert, Will.I.Am makes a cameo as himself which leads to a hilarious scene, and Mila Kunis and James Franco star in a scene as the couple The Fosters stole the identity of for a night.

Overall, I'd give the movie 5 stars because it has everything you'd want in a date night movie. You laugh, you love your partner a little bit more after it, and you have a good time watching it. I think this is one DVD we may end up adding to our collection.

Movie Review: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

When Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (originally released in 2005 in a limited run) first came out I watched the movie trailer on Apple.com and thought the movie looked like it could be funny so I wanted to see it. But you know how things go, you want to get to the movie theater but then a million things come up and the next thing you know it's three months later and you're waiting for it to come out on DVD to rent. Well this was before Netflix came into my life; so when I did sign up I made sure to put that movie on there.

Last Tuesday I was very excited when it arrived in my mailbox and the whole week I begged my husband to watch it. But like before, things came up and we pushed it off until Sunday when I told him he had no choice, he had to watch it. First thing out of his mouth was, "is this gonna be another one of your weird movies that I've never heard of?" (I tend to read a lot of descriptions of random movies and add those or other things Netflix thinks I'll like, what can I say, I really like movies). Luckily for him though, part buddy movie, part romance, part mystery, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang has something that will make everyone happy. And much to Nick's surprise, he was laughing hysterically and trying to solve the mystery right along with the characters.

New Yorker Harold (Robert Downey Jr.) is a small time crook who evades the police by auditioning for a movie part and is whisked away to L.A. where he stumbles across a dead body during detective training. Pretty soon after that, the dead body and high school sweetheart turned wannabe actress, Harmony (Michelle Monaghan), wind up in Harold's hotel room and the chase is on. Harold teams with his agent Perry (Val Kilmer, who really steals the show with his dry wit and gay humor) and Harmony to solve the mystery of the dead body and Harmony's newly deceased sister all the while tying in the story of Harmony's childhood hero from a series of detective novels.



Harold self narrates the movie which, like his own scatterbrained conversations in real life, is sometimes all over the place. But instead of being annoying it's used as a comedic device to poke fun at Harold, detective noir, and Hollywood in general. There's a particularly funny scene at the end about bringing famous people back from the dead. It's a blink and you'll miss it moment, so pay attention, but it had us crying from laughing so hard. The main mystery itself was somewhat easily solve-able and I think the writers might have done that on purpose, although the details kept us guessing. I think the point was not to have an impossible mystery to solve, but to keep us laughing while we all solved it together.

I can't really say that the movie overall had any kind of a message, like friends are everything or love conquers all. And the movie of course pokes fun at that too, but this isn't a spoof. It's an intelligent way to look at the mystery genre while making us laugh in the process. I'm going to give it a 5 out of 5 stars.