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Monthly Archives: May 2014

May 22, 2014 · 10:09 pm

Mom’s Night Out vs. Date Night

Date Night (2010 PG-13) and Moms’ Night Out (2014 PG) are two comedies with similar themes. Family members take a break from their normal routine to enjoy a night out, and instead encounter disastrous yet funny situations.

The movies are the same in other ways:

Over-the-Top Characterizations. The audience is supposed to identify with parts of these extreme characterizations and find them funny. Or, unintentionally, just get really annoyed.

Moms’ Night Out stay-at-home mom Sarah Drew is frazzled beyond reason. Pastor’s wife Patricia Heaton maintains the perfect image above all else.

Moms’ Night Out dads Kevin Downes and Sean Astin are clueless about how to care for their own children.

Date Night dad Steve Carell is more interested in the babysitter than his wife.

Date Night’s wife Tina Fey is completely oblivious to the need for romance in a marriage.

Crazy Car Chases. I suppose since these can be considered Chick-Flix, the car chases are thrown in to appeal to the men in the audience.

In Moms’ Night Out, cabbie David Hunt races moms Logan White, Patricia Heaton, Abbie Cobb, and Sarah Drew in search of a missing baby. Police cars, bikers, and minivans join in the chase.

Date Night’s couple are mistaken for gangsters, and undercover cop Common gets involved. Cars are crashed.

Bonding Over Music. Audiences like a good dance scene.

Tina Fey and Steve Carell have to do a sexy dance for the gangster boss. Yucky scene.

The moms dance at the bowling alley after biker Trace Adkins has helped them find the baby.

Funny Smaller Roles. Both movies have hilarious scenes with snobby restaurant hostesses.

Anjelah Johnson-Reyes in Moms’ Night Out.

Olivia Munn in Date Night.

The Tattoo Desk Guy (Manwell Reyes) in Moms’ Night Out is great.

Mark Wahlberg plays his private security role well.

Dumb Smaller Roles. Both movies have them.

Moral of the Story: Show Appreciation for the People in Your Life. Good advice for us all!

And the Winner is….. Moms’ Night Out! Date Night has too many icky parts played for comedy. If I wouldn’t feel comfortable watching the movie with my teenage daughters, I shouldn’t be watching it at all.

Captain America: A Good Avenger Movie

Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014 PG-13) is the next in the series of Avenger movies (Iron Man, Hulk, Thor, and Captain America are all Avenger superheros).

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Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) is a super soldier from World War 2 who gets frozen and woken decades later to help save the world from bad guys in Captain America: The First Avenger (2011 PG-13). S.H.I.E.L.D. is the government organization charged with defending the world from bad guys, and S.H.I.E.L.D. calls on the Avengers for help, which we see in their various movies.

Here are the things you just have to take as a part of an Avenger series movie:

There are a lot of fights, and Avengers win them all.
The main characters come close to dying, but survive to fight another day.
The bad guys seem to die, then come back at the end to secretly recover, ready to cause problems in the sequel.
The boys are all muscular, and the girls are all thin.
Everyone can hack into computers, snack machines, and underground tunnels with ease.
Thousands of bullets fly, and most all of them miss.

So, accept these silly things as truths, and enjoy this Captain America movie. Here are my favorite parts:

S.H.I.E.L.D. seems to be infiltrated by traitors. Steve is saddened, and is leaving the building. As the elevator descends, people get in the elevator with him. Watch as a different style of bad guy gets on at each floor – paramilitary, devious business men, Russian gangsters, ninja fighters. As the audience catches on, it’s fun to see who gets on the elevator next!

Captain America is just Steve, a soldier made artificially strong, then pulled from his proper timeline and dropped into the present. Several times in the movie we get a glimpse of how he deals with the adjustment.