Hall Pass

Hall Pass is a movie that most middle-aged men can relate to. And don't use prepositions to end sentences with.

Rick (Owen Wilson) and Fred (Jason Sudeikis) are two middle aged men who are unhappy with their sex lives. Their wives, Grace (Christina Applegate) and Maggie (Jenna Fischer) get tired of catching them looking at other women and surfing porn. They talk with their friend Dr. Lucy (Joy Behar, who I swear her real name is Joy Blowhard) and Dr. Lucy suggests giving their husbands hall passes. This is a pass to do whatever they want for one week and it will save their marriage. This pass includes flirting with women, kissing women, and having sex with other women. In this age of sexually transmitted diseases, this seems to be a big turnoff to me, but if you can be shallow and just look at the intent without the consequences, this could be interesting.

The wives skip town with their kids and the boys are left at home to do as they please. However, they soon realize that they are not 20 anymore. Picking up girls isn't that easy when you're in your 40's. The movie is pretty funny throughout much of the first half. Seeing the guys drinking at the bar that turns out to be Applebee's cracked me up!

The movie has a nice twist when the women put their guard down and start meeting men. At this point I figured out the rest of the movie.

Hall Pass is definitely funnier in the first half compared to the second half. It lacks direction past the first hour and seems to be mostly filler until they can come to a conclusion.

The movie has cameos by former Who's the Boss starlet Alyssa Milano and former Red Sox and Baltimore Orioles player Dwight Evans, in addition to comedian Bo Burnham, and J.B. Smoove.

Hall Pass is directed by the Farrelly brothers, Peter and Bobby. You'll recognize their other romantic comedies and regular comedies, such as Dumb and Dumber, Something About Mary, Me, Myself, and Irene, Shallow Hal, and Fever Pitch.

Hall Pass is Rated R and is 105 minutes long. For those of you who attended Baltimore City public schools this is an hour and 45 minutes. The R-Rating is for some language and nudity, but the straight guys will be disappointed as it was penises. For you gay guys, you'll be super excited!

I did get a few good laughs in this movie, so despite that they came in the first 55 minutes, I'll give Hall Pass 3 stars.

Fantastic Mr. Fox

One of over 400 movies that George Clooney starred in during 2009, Fantastic Mr. Fox is a stop-motion movie about Mr. Fox who raids farms and steals birds. To eat, of course. His wife, Mrs. Fox (Meryl Streep), talks him out of stealing and he eventually becomes a writer for the local newspaper.

Feeling like his life is going nowhere, Fox plans to start raiding farms again. However, the farmers are on to him and they begin to make life hard on the animals. Now it's up to Mr. Fox to save the day.

The movie is an animated adaptation of the Roald Dohl children's book. The movie also stars the voices of Bill Murry, the opossum, Jason Schwartzman, Cate Blanchett, Willem Defoe, and Owen Wilson.

The movie was directed by Wes Anderson, who is known for The Darjeerling Limited, The Royal Tenenbaums, and Rushmore. The Fantastic Mr. Fox is rated PG for smoking (gasp!), smoking, and some mild violence (including shooting of guns - gasp!).

The Fantastic Mr. Fox is very melodramatic. There is very little inflection in the dialog and the humor is very dry. VERY dry. It's drier than a $4 bottle of white wine. Both of my kids watched the movie and neither got into it very much. And neither did their Papa.

This was not my favorite kids movie, nor my favorite dry humor movie. I just didn't find it all that funny. For this I can only give it 2 stars.

Night at the Museum 2 - Battle of the Smithsonian

My kids totally enjoyed Night at the Museum. Totally. So, of course, they would totally love Night at the Musuem 2 - Battle of the Smithsonian.

For this installment of the movie, we have Ben Stiller returning as Larry, along with Owen Wilson, Robin Williams, Hank Azaria, Steve Coogan, and new to the series, Amy Adams. Isn't she cute?

In this sequel, Larry has started a new company focusing on his desire to invent and it has become incredibly successful. Larry in now independently wealthy and no longer has to get by as a night watchman at the museum.

However, upon a trip back to the museum he finds that all of this statue friends are crated up in boxes and heading out. They are slated for storage in the Smithsonian Institution's archives - presumably to be lost forever. Larry has decided he must do something about it!

Also in the shipment to Washington, D.C. is the magical tablet that brings everyone to life. And guess what? Everything comes to life! And this includes Amelia Erhardt. Hubba-Hubba!

By the way, I did a Google search on Amelia. Amy Adams makes a much more attractive Amelia Erhardt than Amelia Erhardt. And have I mentioned that Amy Adams is cute? You'll really like her skin-tight flying pants. I did.

Anyway, Larry finds himself in a predicament as one of the statues that came to life knows about the tablet and its powers and is bent on getting a hold of it and using its powers to control the world. Fortunately, he has the backing of all of his New York museum friends and some new ones, like the very attractive Amy Adams as Amelia Erhardt, in addition to George Custer and Abraham Lincoln.

Night at the Museum 2 is rated PG because Amy Adams' pants are so tight. However, my kids laughed hysterically throughout the movie and their laughter was highly contagious.

The movie is an hour and 40 minutes long and was directed by Shawn Levy, who directed the first Night at the Museum, in addition to the remake of Cheaper by the Dozen.

From an adult perspective, I give this movie a solid 3 stars. However, my kids give it 4 1/2 stars. And that's what is important. In addition to Amy Adams being cute.

Drillbit Taylor

Though I haven't written a movie review in a while, it doesn't mean that I haven't watched any movies. My movie viewing has slowed somewhat now that we are in the summer, but it hasn't come to a halt. That being said -

Drillbit Taylor is a comedy staring Owen Wilson as Drillbit Taylor, a charming vagrant who relies on the handouts of others, so much like his characters in Wedding Crashers, The Big Bounce, and You, Me, and Dupree. Hey, when you play a roll well, you play it often.

Wilson, easily the ugliest guy in Hollywood, is a funny guy. His quick and verbose responses are hysterical. In this movie, three nerdy kids are being pushed around and harassed by a couple of bullies, one of which is Josh Peck from Drake and Josh. How do you get bullied by Josh? He was the fat and spastic nerdy one. Anyway, these kids get tired of being shoved into lockers, having their lunches smashed, and all other things that bullies do to us regular people.

Which reminds me - there was a guy at Bel Air High School that thought he was the coolest thing ever (he had a real pretty blond mullet) and he stiff-armed everyone in the hall. What a corn cob! He probably still drives a bitchin' Camaro.

So the kids put out a help wanted message on the Internet for a bodyguard. They perform a series of funny interviews with potential candidates, only to have their hopes dashed when they present their price. Finally, Drillbit Taylor comes to their aid. The only problem is that he is in cahoots with other vagrants with the intent to rob these kids' parents houses of everything they are worth. To make matters worse, Drillbit has no real intention of helping these kids. He takes them through Drillbit self-defense classes, which have techniques that he makes up on the fly.

Drillbit then infiltrates the school as becomes a substitute teacher. While on watch patrol, he falls for English teacher Lisa (Leslie Mann - 40 Year old Virgin, Knocked Up) and they love their "planning period".

To make matters worse, Ryan, one of the 3 kids, lives with his overbearing and over-loving mother. Wade, the skinny nerdy kid, lives with his mom, his jackass meathead step-father, and his do-no-wrong football step-brothers. Finally, there's

Finally at the end, Drillbit is fired as their bodyguard and the kids stand up to the bullies themselves with some moderate success. But will that success withstand in their attempt to bring down the bully or will they need Drillbit to come in at the last moment to save them? The movie has guest appearances from David Koechner, who specializes in 30 second roles, and stars Nate Hartley, Troy Gentile (who I think plays Seth Rogan as a child in all of Seth's movies),

The movie has some funny one-liners, none of which I can remember at this point. The movie, released in 2008 and spending more than 6 days in the theatre, is 101 minutes long, Rated PG-13 for some crude sexual humor, violence, bullying, and Owen's naked butt. I give this movie 4 stars. I think it is funnier than most of Owen's movies, so give it a shot!