Quick Thoughts - The 40-Year Old Virgin (2005)

11/23/13: Judd Apatow has never been one for brevity, and I stand by Shakespeare's adage that brevity is the soul of wit. Nobody ever asked for a longer comedy, or to expand on a punchline, but unfortunately that's exactly what Apatow loves to do. However, the premise of The 40 Year-Old Virgin is sound, and Apatow also excels at deeply character-based comedy, so even when he hammers the nail a little too hard, it's always in service of building something bigger than the obvious, gimme jokes that the concept would be chock-full of had somebody else been in charge. It's not perfect, and its long run-time invites Apatow's signature get-on-with-it-already third-act issues, but its plenty funny on the way there, and surprisingly original, too. ***

Date Night - ***

The premise of Date Night is weak at best: a married couple with a boring life go out on the town and unknowingly pose as criminals and get in over their heads, running from both the bad guys and the cops to prove their innocence, all the while injecting some much-needed excitement into their lives and learning that their marriage is still fresh. Yup, it could have been a miserable ninety minutes, but the perfect casting of Steve Carell and Tina Fey saves it from turning into the drollery that it really could have. With great timing and delivery they're able to turn mediocre jokes into good ones, and they're way too good together for even some of the lesser obligatory marriage-and-kids jokes to come off as more than harmless. Great cameos help too, whether it's Mark Wahlberg's ridiculous surveillance system, or Mila Kunis and James Franco as naive scumbags in love... Hell, William Fichtner's horny, drugged-out utterance of "Sexy robots!" alone might make the film worthwhile. It's not all gold, but enough of it is.