Kim's Thoughts

I was so looking forward to Baby Mama – I really like Tina Fey and Amy Poehler and the previews looked so funny! Well, I’ll start right out by saying that it did NOT live up to the hype!!! I was really quite disappointed in this one!

The story is about a rising executive (Fey) who, at age 37, decides she has missed out on the pleasures of having a baby and begins to go through the process of all the alternatives that are available. She tries in-vitro and is told that the odds she can conceive is a million to one, so she tries adoption and is told that a single woman is likely to have to wait 5+ years. So, she turns to surrogacy. Through a service, she is matched with Amy Poehler, who is a poor white trash girl that you find out is out to scam her. The rest of the movie chronicles their relationship, the things most pregnant people go through, and the “is she or isn’t she” pregnant saga.

What I thought was “off” about this movie was the comedy and character chemistry — the jokes were flat and often not really all that funny. Fey and Poehler’s characters really didn’t have any chemistry and seemed to not belong – I don’t mean that they were from different worlds, that can make for very funny and awkward character mixes that really work – I mean they just didn’t work together, they seemed to just happen to be in the same scenes, but don’t really connect. I didn’t laugh out loud at all and I didn’t hear many others in the audience laugh out loud much – a couple short “ha’s” that were few and far between. I even dozed off at one point!

What I thought was good about this movie was the basic story and the character concepts — the story was really cute and the characters were fun. It would have been MUCH better if they had made the characters work better together (more connected) and if they had focused more on the emotions of the story and less on the poor attempt at slap stick humor. I can see how this could have been a really good movie – it just missed the mark!

The best part of the movie: Greg Kinnear!!! I adore Greg Kinnear and he was his usual great self! His character was the most “real” of all the characters and was very likable.

Sadly, what the movie ended up coming off as was a very long SNL skit — I was engaged in the beginning, lost interest for the middle part, and really enjoyed the ending!

So — I gave the story, Greg Kinnear, and the character concepts the higher points and the comedy and character mismatch the lower points — all averaged out to end up with an “eh, it was OK, but wish I had waited until it came out on cable” reaction, a neutral hand with no thumbs up or down, and a C- rating!!! Not so sure I’d recommend it for a trip to the theater — wait for it to come to cable!

Before I get into what I thought about his movie, I thought I would talk about an unusual experience I had during the movie. About 15 or 20 minutes into the film, there were some bright flashing lights on the side walls, the projector cut off, and the house lights came up……we could hear a faint beeping and announcement over a PA system out in the hallways (but couldn’t hear what it was saying inside the theater). We decided it must be a fire alarm, so we started out of the theater. When we got in the hallway, we could hear the announcement indicating that there may be a fire, to leave the building in an orderly manner, and don’t return until told to do so. The theater employees were standing at the place where they take your tickets and tell you which theater your movie is showing in. They told us to just stay where we are because it was just some burnt popcorn and everything would be fine and the movies would resume shortly. So, we all went back in and sat down. About 15 or 20 minutes later, the flashing lights stopped and the movie started again right where it left off. The flashing lights were pretty irritating, though — I had to put my hands over my eyes after a while to block it out – I think it was starting to trigger a migraine cause I was starting to get some early warning signs – one girl left cause she was concerned it would trigger a seizure!!! I think covering my eyes when I did helped stop the migraine — the girl came back in and seemed to be fine, too. I had never been in a theater when a fire alarm went off — it was an interesting experience!!!

Now for my opinion of Forgetting Sarah Marshall — I saw it today — it is the story of a composer (Peter) who has been dating a popular TV star (Sarah) for 5 years when she breaks up with him for a younger rock star who isn’t very good and super full of himself! Peter doesn’t take it well and needs to get away from constant reminders of his love of Sarah. So, he decides to take a vacation in Hawaii. When he gets there, he finds out that Sarah and her new boyfriend are also vacationing in Hawaii — in the SAME resort! What are the odds??? ha-ha During his visit, he keeps running into Sarah and her new beau and gets to know the staff and other vacationers – most of which are either really strange or total idiots!!!! He becomes close with Rachael, the girl at the front desk, who seems to be the nicest, most level headed person at the resort — that is, until she runs into her ex-boyfriend and turns into a foul mouthed wild woman!!!!

The story is cute and most of the scenes are funny — but, all the bazaar characters and the fact that everyone has sex like rabbits gets in the way of the story. It would have been much better if they left more to the imagination and focused more on the awkward situation of them all being in the same resort. Instead, a lot of the story got lost in translation and the jokes often fell flat. I also thought the nudity was a little much — I am not a prude, by any means, but I didn’t think it was necessary to have several full frontal shots of Peter in all his glory – and I’m not talking quick flash shots, either……..

I don’t think it was a total loss and I did find it to be funny, for the most part — but, I would have been happier if I had waiting until it came out on cable and I didn’t have to pay for it. I give it a neutral rating of C+ and only recommend it for those of you who like that bazaar brand of humor and I DON’T recommend it for young children without their parents seeing it first to decide if they want them to see it or not.

I went to see 88 Minutes today — it stars Al Pacino — ’nuff said — no other explanation of why this is a sure bet is necessary!!!!

Seriously, though — I first saw a trailer for this movie back in January when I was at another movie here in Sanford. It got me all excited about seeing it! But, I hadn’t seen anything else on it until just recently when the ads started promoting it. I immediately renewed my anticipation! Quite often when I get that excited about a movie that is coming out, I end up with such high expectations that I am actually disappointed when I get to see it — not the case this time! I was definitely NOT disappointed!

Pacino plays a forensic psychiatrist who specialized in serial murderers and taught forensic psychiatry at the university. The convicted murderer from one of his most famous cases is scheduled for execution on the day that the story takes place. He starts his day by finding out that there is a copy-cat out there shedding doubt on the murderer’s guilt. Before long a series of phone calls come counting down the time before he will die – the first states that he has 88 minutes to live. Over the course of the next 88 minutes, he frantically tries to find out who is making the calls while more women are murdered, he begins to doubt everyone around him, the murderer gets a stay of execution, and he is implicated in the murders. It all comes to an intense climax! The one who did it all was one I guessed, but to be fair, I had a couple of guesses and that was just one of them.

I found this movie intriguing and intense. I give it a big thumbs up (A-) and highly recommend it!