Movie Review: Date Night

As with every review, there was a buttload more things I wanted to talk about in this Date Night review...which is why God invented the Internet. If I had the space, I would have talked more about the cameos, which were great. Specifically, James Franco and Mila Kunis, who played white trash, low-rent criminals. Franco is quickly becoming one of my favorite guys in Hollywood, if only for his willingness to do crazy shit for fun without ever worrying about his reputation. Dude starred on a soap opera recently for what amounts to extra credit for his NYU degree. And Kunis...what can I say? Not only is she proving to be equally hilarious, she has become just luminous. Seriously, they tried to make her look like a 3-dollar skank and she looked like this:
Yeah, that's her looking "ugly." Between that cameo and Kristen Wiig showing up briefly just for funsies, I thought the little things worked well in the film. More than that, I was struck by the sincerity that Steve Carell is able to pull off. I'm not going to lie, a certain person that I took to see the movie got more than a little misty eyed during Carell's final monologue about being willing to "do it all again." Not only was the message unique for Hollywood (be thankful for the long-term, committed love that you have because "the chase" is overrated), but the ability of Carell to be sincere, even in a ridiculous setting, is pretty much what sets him apart from other comedic actors out there. Oh, and although the film did a pretty good job flipping some obvious gender roles and exploitative elements around (specifically in the climactic strip club scene...which in any other movie would probably have had the lead actress actually get slutty and seduce the villain), I have to giggle a little that Fey agreed to wear the cleavage-tastic dress throughout the ENTIRE movie...until she switched into lingerie. We live in a world where Tina Fey is a sex symbol. I love it.

Enough already, here's my review:

Monogamy Sans Monotony
Date Night is a defense-of-marriage action movie

Like a suddenly rocket-less Wile E. Coyote briefly hanging midair after furiously flapping his arms, Date Night sort of takes flight based solely on the force of will exerted by Tina Fey and Steve Carell. Saddled with an albatross-esque script and a director (Shawn Levy) whose filmography reads like a list of cinematic hate crimes (Just Married, both Night at the Museums), the two Second City improv alums grabbed the film by the shoulders, slapped it senseless and yelled “don’t you die on me” until it finally registered a pulse. Maybe that’s why “30 Rock” and “The Office” are having off years: their leads are exhausted.

The only passably intelligent design involved here is the long overdue reading of the words “adult comedy” to mean something other than f-bombs and dick jokes. With a moral that can best be summarized as “embrace your grown-up, committed routine or die,” some of the best laughs come not from the zany, shenanigan-laden plot developments but from Carell and Fey cracking-wise on the quirks of adult responsibilities. Although the opening presents the loving-but-tired couple as creaking beneath the burden of childcare and 50-hour work weeks, the nonsense that follows reveals a surprisingly heartwarming and effective approval of no-frills monogamy.

Now, on to the nonsense: Phil (Carell) and Claire (Fey) steal reservations at a posh seafood establishment, only to be accosted by two dirty cops (Common and Jimmi Simpson) searching for a flash drive stolen by the couple who actually had the reservation. Claire uses an old real estate contact and private securities expert, Holbrooke (Mark Wahlberg), to track down the real criminal couple, Taste (James Franco) and Whippit (Mila Kunis), in the hopes of returning the drive to a mob boss (Ray Liotta) in exchange for their lives. It does not go well.

You can almost hear Fey and Carell’s eyes roll when they are forced to engage in undignified physical monkeyshines. Really, Mr. Levy, another “someone walks into a glass door” joke? For shame, you boob. Undaunted, the duo try to class up the joint with an onslaught of obviously improvised one-liners, ranging from the hilarious declaration by Carell that turning a gun sideways ensures a “kill shot” to Fey’s retort to a woman’s dream of having sex with three men: “I have stress dreams about that.” Sure, Carell’s gaffe-happy husband and Fey’s awkwardly hot housewife aren’t exactly playing fast and loose with their well-established wheelhouses, but they swing so hard at anything near their strike zone that it’s easy to forgive them.

Although every subplot and minor character beat is as tired and obvious as a Sarah Palin joke, Date Night is fresh in unique ways. In any other movie, Wahlberg’s perfectly sculpted physique wouldn’t be the butt of a joke but a tantalizing feature. The punchline is that boring, placid domestic life is to be cherished and admired. Combine that with two stars on the top of their game, and you have a recipe for a harmless, affable comedy that’s hard to hate on.

Grade = B

Honestly, I won't be listening

As Brendon at Slashfilm eloquently and intelligently notes, Clint Mansell's "Lux Aeterna" is "one of the most beloved, discussed and arguably overplayed pieces of film music in the medium’s entire history." I mean, I could give a shit because I love it so much, but he's totally right. I love it so much I'm going to post it right here just so I can listen to it again.



In fact, read everything that I write here on this blog with this soundtrack playing. Yeah, it will make my jokes a lot less funny but (A) you weren't going to laugh anyway and (B) I'll give up a little laughter in order to feel bad-ass, which is what this song makes everything feel like. To get to the point, Mansell scores director Darren Aronofsky's stuff, it's what he does. So he's going to score Black Swan, which is (wait for it) the movie in which Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis have angry sex. Yep, photo time:

Okay, back to the actual story at hand. Mansell is going to base his score for Black Swan (potentially) on "Swan Lake." That's all kinds of awesome. He's going to jack with the structure and whatnot, but that's his plan. How cool would that be? The Slashfilm story goes on to talk about how Mansell's score for Moon was rad (which it was) and how he and Duncan Jones (the director of Moon) want to hook up again (for movies, not relations...although maybe that too, who's to say and I'm not judging) but may not be able to. I hope they do because I like them both very much, but until then, I'll have to console myself by thinking about Kunis on Portman action set to a funky "Swan Lake." Weird...but hot.

I will cover every single aspect of Black Swan

The Expendables may have the market cornered on testosterone, but it is not the upcoming film most likely to feel like a man (something modern science has struggled with for decades). No, the film most likely to make me re-experience puberty is Black Swan, a movie about ballet. Yeah, you heard me right. Why? Why would a movie about the art of dance cause me to feel more like Sylvester Stallone circa Demolition Man than like Sylvester Stallone circa saggy-boobed-steroid-arrest? Because, as we are reminded by Slashfilm, Black Swan is the movie in which Mila Kunis and Natalie Portman have “ecstasy-induced hungry aggressive angry sex.” I shudder every time I see those words. Well, the cast of the film is rounding out...and another smokin' hottie has been added. Slashfilm.com is exclusively reporting that

has joined

and

Oh, and apparently Barbara Hershey and Vincent Cassel have been added to the cast as well. Darren Aronofsky, who goes home to Rachel Weisz every night and pumps out good movies every single time out, will be directing these ladies engaged in ballet dancing and sin...and I cannot wait. If I ever say that I'm looking forward to a movie more than this, slap

Bank robbers to wear Aronofsky-masks

Get it? Aronof-SKI MASKS? I really shouldn't use headlines that rely on the pronunciation of confusing director names. Moving on, it turns out that Darren Aronofsky is going to move from directing a ballet movie (Black Swan) in which Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis have hot, angry sex (I'll be over here when you recover from that) to a movie about the biggest heist ever. Slashfilm.com is reporting that the director is adapting the story of the 2006 British robbery that netted more than $83 million in bank notes (or, as the write-up puts it "a sum of money so vast that if the notes were stacked up they would equal the height of high-rise building"). The robbery was led by a former UFC fighter (how crazy is that) and Aronofsky is intending on it being a character-based caper, which isn't surprising. I'm just glad that Guy Ritchie will be busy directing a sequel to Sherlock Holmes, because we've seen this movie from him already about a half dozen times. What we haven't seen is someone with Aronofsky's proclivity for emotionally demanding characters take on the whole slick crime thing. Again, he's one of those directors that has a free pass with me. Until he makes something I don't like, I will watch anything he does. Period. Also, he is married to Rachel Weisz. That has nothing to do with anything but must be respected. As excited as I am for Black Swan (and really, if you aren't, shame on you), I'm equally as excited for this. That's a lie. This one will not have hot, angry Portman/Kunis sex. Then again, maybe that will become his trademark, like Tarantino's dialogue or John Woo's double-gun jumping? It's a thought.