Date Night [Blu-ray]
Sony / 2010 / 92 Minutes / Rated R
Street Date: August 10, 2010
Overall Grade 
Nicely doneGenres: Comedy, Family
Starring: Steve Carell, Tina Fey, Mark Wahlberg
Director: Shawn Levy
Plot Synopsis: Tina Fey and Steve Carell are two of the most charming performers in entertainment today. Their goofy attractiveness makes them a perfect couple in Date Night: an unremarkable husband and wife from New Jersey, they get mistaken for crooks in Manhattan, sending them on a wild night replete with snooty wait staff, crooked cops, glitter-specked strippers, a shirtless superspy (Mark Wahlberg, as buff as ever), and a preposterous car chase. The movie makes no effort to be remotely plausible and the last third really goes off the rails, and it would probably be better served by less familiar faces in minor roles (bit parts are played by Mark Ruffalo, Kristen Wiig, Common, James Franco, Mila Kunis, William Fichtner, and Ray Liotta). It's disappointing that the dialogue doesn't crackle the way it does on 30 Rock or The Office. But Fey and Carell carry the movie along through sheer nerdy pluck. Rarely does a couple in a movie seem genuinely devoted to each other, not out of wild passion, but for all the things that a real marriage is built on: patience, shared humor, a willingness to deal with day-to-day annoyances, and simple affection. Fey and Carell seem like a couple you'd actually enjoy going out to dinner with. In today's world, that's more romantic than sunsets and bouquets of roses.
Death at a Funeral [Blu-ray]
Sony / 2010 / 92 Minutes / Rated R
Street Date: August 10, 2010
Overall Grade
A must watchGenres: Comedy, Family
Starring: Zoe Saldana, Chris Rock, Martin Lawrence, James Marsden
Director: Neil LaBute
Plot Synopsis: Less than three years after the 2007 Brit-com Death at a Funeral hit theaters, this remake offered a nearly scene-for-scene variation on the original. Once again a family has gathered for the dignified memorial service for a patriarch: older son (Chris Rock) has prepared a eulogy; younger son (Martin Lawrence) has flown in on his celebrity as a bestselling author; favorite niece (Zoe Saldana) has brought her fiancé (James Marsden, flipping out), unaware that he has accidentally ingested a hallucinogen manufactured by her pharmaceutically minded brother (Columbus Short, from Cadillac Records). You know, the usual fare for a funeral. The wild card is a stranger (Peter Dinklage, the only member of the cast to repeat his role from the 2007 film) who has something urgent to impart to the two sons. There's nothing terribly elevated about the slapstick, and one particular scatological sequence tests the boundaries of the bearable (30 Rock's Tracy Morgan, in his usual unbounded form, takes the brunt of this scene). The unexpected director is Neil LaBute, who shows off his sense of comic timing and keeps the whole apparatus moving along briskly. In addition to the relatively subdued lead turns by Rock and Lawrence, the big cast includes Danny Glover, Regina Hall, Luke Wilson, and Loretta Devine. It is almost irrelevant to debate whether this version improves or deflates the original; both hit their marks, deliver the broad yuks, and leave behind a mostly mechanical feel. But the job is accomplished--now rest in peace.
Disc Features:
movieIQ™+sync and BD-Live connect you to real-time information on the cast, music, trivia and more while watching the movie!
Commentary with Director Neil LaBute and Chris Rock
Deleted Scenes
Family Album
Death For Real
Death at a Funeral: Last Rites, Dark Secrets
Back Catalogue/ Other Blu-ray Releases:
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