BABY MAMA

Pictures courtesy of Universal Pictures Tina Fey hears her biological clock ticking in the comedy BABY MAMA. Fey plays successful businessman woman Kate Holbrook. Kate has always put her professional endeavors ahead of her personal ones, and now single and 37, she realizes that what she wants most out of life is a baby. After several failed pregnancy attempts through a sperm bank, Kate elects to have a surrogate carry the child. The surrogate is Angie, a working class woman whose common law husband leaves little to be desired.

Although treading over familiar turf as last summer’s KNOCKED UP, BABY MAMA still feels fresh due to its feminine point of view and two spot-on performances by Fey and co-star Amy Poehler. Unlike Apatow’s comedy, the couple is the same sex, but each is struggling with similar issues. Fey’s Kate has been so focused on her work that she’s allotted little time for herself, and Poehler’s Angie has been enjoying life’s small pleasures but doesn't get the full picture. The plot is second to the humor which mixes Fey’s dry, but clever wordplay with Poehler’s outlandish, yet devilishly deadpan antics. Writer Michael McCullers, of AUSTIN POWERS fame, has a knack with Saturday Night Live alums, and works wonderfully with the Weekend Update anchors. Fey and Poehler are a great comedic tandem, possessing the type of chemistry severely lacking in today’s comedies. Quality supporting performances provide further comedic aid, with Greg Kinnear as a lovable small business owner, and Steve Martin and Sigourney Weaver adding a nice touch to their eccentric characters. Thanks to these performances, and a solidly silly screenplay, BABY MAMA avoids feeling like an Apatow re-run.

Grade: B

HAROLD AND KUMAR ESCAPE FROM GUANTANAMO BAY

Pictures courtesty of New Line Cinema

Two bright, but mismatched friends find their trip to Amsterdam rerouted to a terrorist imprisonment camp in the comedy HAROLD AND KUMAR ESCAPE FROM GUANTANAMO BAY. Just after their wild evening to the fast-food joint WHITE CASTLE, Harold and Kumar decide to travel to Amsterdam, where Harold can reunite with his dream girl, and Kumar can enjoy some marijuana legally. The trip goes sour when Kumar decides to inhale some weed during their flight to Europe, and the authorities mistake Kumar’s bong for a bomb. This leads to Harold and Kumar being suspected of terrorism, and being thrown into a high security cell at Guantanamo Bay.

More of the same would summarize HAROLD AND KUMAR ESCAPE FROM GUANTANAMO BAY in relation to their trip to White Castle. This red-state lambasting, blue state ideological comedy severely lacks both clever social and political commentary and basic comedic elements. In between the first and second HAROLD AND KUMAR flicks a similarly themed, equally offensive, but more often than not hilarious comedy was released, BORAT. Where BORAT allowed its subjects to paint their own derogatory self-portrait, HAROLD AND KUMAR takes familiar, easy and crude potshots at their victims. Southern Americans are in-breeders, racists or hors, and those of a conservative mindset are portrayed as small-minded, racist hypocrites. There’s no joke to low brow for HAROLD AND KUMAR, and no body fluid, function or orifice that escapes writer-directors Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg. Even the appearance of Neil Patrick Harris as Neil Patrick Harris can’t salvage this mess, as his role turns out to be a tired repeat, as opposed to his invigorating and hilarious turn in the original. If you enjoyed HAROLD AND KUMAR GO TO WHITE CASTLE than their trip to and from Guantanamo Bay should be right up your alley, if not, like me it will be a painful exercise in raunchiness.

Grade: D