Sabbatical Catch-up: Movie Reviews #1

Date Night:
Amidst all of the wedding planning turmoil, my now-wife/then-fiancée and I managed to make a rare date night out of Date Night. Maybe we were just desperate for a break, but whatever the cause, we had a blast at this movie. Please note that if you don't care for Carell and/or Fey, then this may not be the movie for you (especially if you went with "and"). We, however, felt their combo was just what we needed.

Oh, and the shirtless Wahlberg didn't exactly hurt her opinion of the movie, either...

A-Team:
I don't know what unstable slurry of arrogance, bravery and stupidity was being piped into the movie executives' feeding trough the week this concept came across their desks (even the consideration of which should, in and of itself, have made them deserving of some sort of recognition from Colbert), but I must admit that the end result wasn't anywhere near the Ghost Rider-like travesty that I was assuming it could only be. Sure, BA was painful at times, but success there was nigh-impossible. And then there was the tricky issue of the anthrophobic nature of bullets in the source material; thankfully the movie seemed to remain true to the spirit of the series while nimbly sidestepping this particular point with some liberal use of artistic license. To give you an idea of my surprised enjoyment of this movie, I left the theater not only pondering but excitedly pondering what they might do with sequels. That alone is pretty friggin' impressive.