Date Night

Date Night (2010)
Starring: Steve Carell, Tina Fey, and Mark Wahlberg
Directed by: Shawn Levy
SC= 6 V= 4 C= 5
Grade: A-

Everyone was so excited about a movie starring Steve Carell and Tina Fey that I think any movie that came out would have disappointed. That's why I think this movie got so many bad reviews, because it's actually a decent movie with quite a few funny moments (the pleading by Steve Carell for Mark Whalberg to put on a shirt comes to mind.) Steve and Tina's chemistry is very funny. And Jimmi Simpson is in it, which makes it that much better. Phil and Claire's marriage has grown stale and Phil just wants to thrill his wife with a nice dinner in the city. They are late to Claw, the newest and coolest restaurant in Manhattan, so, of course, they don't get a table. On a whim, they decide to take reservations for the Tripplehorns, who missed their reservations. Halfway through dinner, two men (Jimmi Simpson and Common) come over to their table, seemingly to ask them to leave. Once they get out in the alley, it becomes apparent that they aren't from the restaurant and they actually work for a gangster named Joe Maletto. The men are looking for a thumb drive that the actual Tripplehorns stole. After the Fosters luckily get away, they find Holbrooke Grant (Wahlberg), who runs a successful private security firm. With his help, they are able to locate the actual Tripplehorns to get them to give the thumb drive back. With several fun surprises and cameos (like James Franco and Mila Kunis as the Tripplehorns), this is a movie that will make you laugh and just might surprise you. (It also goes to show that reviewers are cranky, old men who only like movies like The King's Speech, bleh.)

Movie Review: Big Fat Liar

Big Fat Liar (2002)
Starring: Frankie Muniz and Paul Giamatti
Characters: Jason Shepherd and Marty Wolf
Directed by: Shawn Levy
Tagline: The truth is never overrated.
Grade: A-

This is another one of those movies that people might not want to watch just because of the genre. Most people consider movies that don't have cussing or bloody violence to be bad. A lot of my favorite movies have violence and cussing (Stand by Me, anyone?) but a lot of great movies are family movies, like this one. The movie is about Jason, who lies all the time...about everything. One day, after sneaking in the window to the classroom with the help of his best friend, Kaylee (Amanda Bynes, who, as always, rocks and steals the scenes she's in), he realizes he hasn't written his paper that was due that day. So he makes up a whole story about how he was in the ER all night with his dad, who had choked on a meatball...which is soon proved to be false when his parents show up at school...his dad meatball free. His teacher gives him until 5:00 that night to write his paper...which he very fittingly titles Big Fat Liar. On his way to turn in his paper, he runs into Mr. Marty Wolf...a ruthless movie producer. After Jason accidentally leaves his story in the limo, Wolf sees it and decides to claim it as his own. Hilarity ensues, with Jason and Kaylee to sneak off to Hollywood and all of Wolf's enemies ganging up on him to force him to confess that he stole the story. All in all, a solid movie from the time when Frankie Muniz was in every movie that came out...like Agent Cody Banks (I also liked that one...but, like I said, I like pretty much every movie.) The clear "winner" of this movie is Amanda Bynes, who wins in all her movies. (See the amazing, AMAZING She's the Man.)
-MOT