Movies of the week, so far.

I saw "Cedar Rapids" on DVD with the family. Good movie, but not a family movie. It stars Ed Helms from the Hangover as as naive insurance salesman. I'm not sure exactly how old his character in this movie is suppose to be but he definitely acts like an innocent 16 year old. He heads to an insurance conference in Cedar Rapids and his world gets flipped upside down. Now, I've actually been to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, multiple times. One of my best friend went to college there and I went to see a couple of the plays she was in. I thought the shot of the Quaker Oats factory by the freeway really summed up Cedar Rapids. It amazing how one factory makes the entire town (which is not as small as you would think) reek of hot cereal. Back to the movie, it had it moments but the humor overall was sophomoric. My mom walked out after an hour. John C. Reilly added some much needed comic relief but couldn't save this for me. This film premiered at Sundance and actually got decent reviews. I don't know, maybe I'm missing something but I just don't think it was amazing in any way. And I like a good Midwest shout out. I would probably just wait for this movie to hit cable. 

The movie I saw in theaters was much better. It was "Crazy, Stupid, Love" and it was fantastic. I love that rom-coms are finally starting to break out of the box a little bit. The first things that made this movie so great was the casting. It had Steve Carell as a dad who finds out his wife wants divorce instead or dessert one night at dinner. He's hopeless, he's lovable and you root for him the whole time. This was comparable to his performance in "Date Night." He's coached into bachelorhood by Ryan Gosling, a professional womanizer. As sleazy as his is, you really want to root for him as well. Julianne Moore brings warmth to the role of Carell's wife, who you want to dislike but can't. Emma Stone rounds out the cast. I can't decide if I like her in this or "Easy A" more. This girl is going to go on to make many more excellent films. I also loved the young boy in this, who was played by Jonah Bobo.  I can get easily annoyed with child actors trying too hard to be cute, but this kid was great. Kevin Bacon come in as a small cameo role and is great. I'm so excited that he's showing up in the movies again. Beside making it easier for my generation to play the 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon, he's hilarious.I love a good rom-com, but I think even men who get dragged to this movie by their girlfriends may enjoy it. There's laugh-out-loud (I refuse to shorten this to LOL) moments and there's a scene or two that brought a little tear to my eye, but in a good way. Definitely catch this one in theaters while you can.