Like any hopeful reader, I have boxes of books just waiting to be read in my garage and even a fair number waiting in the digital realm. There’s not much rhyme or reason to which ones I choose or why they take me so long to read, but I figured I’d put a few thoughts down about these four books I’ve finished in the relatively recent past including books by Joe Hill, Erik Larson, Tina Fey and Roger Moore. Continue reading Four Books I Liked By Joe Hill, Erik Larson, Tina Fey & Roger Moore
Quick Movie Review: Date Night (2010)
The missus and I had Date Night sitting around from Netflix for a while. It’s not that we weren’t excited about watching it, but with her going back to work and us having a newborn, there just wasn’t a lot of time for movie-watching. Then came the glorious weekend! After hanging out poolside for most of the day on Sunday, we came back to the house and watched this as well as You Again? which I didn’t see enough of to review, but would call it a not-bad romantic comedy in the vein of Meet The Parents. It’s not really the kind of movie for me, but there you go.
Date Night starts Steve Carell and Tina Fey as a tired and busy husband and wife who decide to kick things up a notch and go out on a legit date in New York City one night from their home base of New Jersey. When they can’t get their way into a hot new restaurant, they wind up snaking somebody else’s reservation and wind up in trouble with some crooked cops. Since they’re being chased by cops, they can’t go to the police and wind up spending the rest of the movie figuring out how to save their asses with the help of a former PI of sorts in the form of an always shirtless Mark Wahlberg. As these things go, it’s an over the top romp that goes from bad to worse.
If you’re a fan of Carell or Fey’s humor then this flick should be right up your alley as he plays a slightly smoother and less awkward version of The Office‘s Michael Scott and she plays a less emotionally damaged version of Liz Lemon from 30 Rock. That might sound boring or repetitive, but their senses of humor really play well off of each other. The story kind of reminded me of a crazy 80s teen movie like License To Drive or Adventures In Babysitting, but starring really good comedians who know how to deliver their lines like nobody else. Add in the fact that the cast also includes James Franco, Mila Kunis, Taraji P. Henson, Common, Jimmi Simpson from Breakout Kings, Ray Liotta, William Fichtner, Leighton Meester (as a babysitter no less), Kristen Wiig, Mark Ruffalo, Bill Burr, Olivia Munn and you’ve got a recipe for success. My two favorite scenes from the movie were the car chase and the dance scene, the latter of which had me ROLLING.
30 Rock and Roll All Night
2009-01-08
4:31:26 am
I’ve got to apologize again for my lack of posts. Things have been crazy, but I’ve been spending most of my free time watching movies and reading comics, so hopefully that will translate into more posts (if I don’t fall asleep first).
So, one of the first things I did when I started watching Netflix stuff on Xbox Live was add the first season of 30 Rock. When 30 Rock premiered I wasn’t all that into the show, which is strange because most of you know of my love of Saturday Night Live and I also watch The Office and My Name Is Earl which are on the same channel at the same time. I think part of the reason is that I started watching and REALLY liked Studio 60 On the Sunset Strip which is basically SNL on the west coast (as written by Sorkin). So, for whatever reason, it was hardly on my radar and I missed out on most of the first season. But I’ve been watching it since then and am a huge huge fan (I think it makes me laugh more than The Office now).
The one thing that struck me the most is that I had no idea how the series started. I just assumed it was an SNL-like show with a smaller cast and more dancers and that Liz and Jack were always friendly. Well, that’s not the case, as the first episode shows Jack’s first day, coming in and changing the Jenna-starring The Girl Show into TGS Featuring Tracey Morgan. Even though the series has been a lot of fun anyway, this made everything make a lot more sense.
There’s a lot of great episodes, including the one where Tracey goes on Conan Obrien’s show, but my favorite episode of the season has to be the one about Cleveland. As an Ohioan, it’s always great to see one of our cities on TV (especially Cleveland where my mom is from and my Grandma still lives). It’s what hooked me to the Drew Carey Show too. Anyway, I like that they kind of flip the script and make Cleveland out to be this cool, great place to run away to. The funny thing is that, according to Grandma (mine, not a character on the show) Cleveland and its suburbs used to actually be the hot spot for wealthy New Yorkers to summer at because of Lake Erie and it’s relative proximity to NYC. Go figure, huh? It’s kind of like hearing how many people went on their honeymoon to Niagra Falls. But anyway, I laughed for pretty much the whole episode and all the rest. If you’re a fan of smart comedy, you can’t go wrong checking out the first season. Some people say it’s a little slow in the first disc, but I’m not one of them. Definitely give it a disc, though, to see if you’ll like it. I ended up burning through the whole series in about three days.
Oh, also, I love Tina Fey. She’s the cat’s pajams as far as I’m concerned.
