Double Feature

May 2010 - For close to 100 years now, America has set aside a special day to honor all those women who go by the name of "Mom." So, in honor of Mother's Day, here are two films that show some moms are better than others.

Good friends and SNL cast mates Tina Fey and Amy Poehler team up to make a baby in the PG-13 comedy Baby Mama from 2008. The film features a strong supporting cast including Greg Kinnear (in case you hadn’t heard, I LOVE him!), Steve Martin, Holland Taylor, Sigourney Weaver and Maura Tierney.

The movie is set in Philadelphia (Fey grew up in nearby Upper Darby). Fey plays Kate Holbrook, a career woman who's worked her way up to a VP spot in a chain of health food stores. Kate is unmarried but ready for motherhood. A surrogate mother seems to be her best hope.

Enter Angie Ostrowski (Poehler), a girl from the 'hood who's all about junk food and easy money. The two forge an unlikely friendship as the delivery date gets closer.

Overall review: Liked it. The movie, especially the first half, has a lot of laugh-out-loud moments. There's even a rather surprising twist. But, after that, it settles into predictability. Still, the performances of Fey, Poehler and, of course, Kinnear make it worth a look.

While Fey and Poehler play the cool mom, Meryl Streep is the mother from hell in The Manchurian Candidate. The classic film from 1962 gets an update in this R-rated 2004 remake from director Jonathan Demme. In this version, Denzel Washington takes over the role originated by Frank Sinatra, Streep replaces Angela Lansbury as the power-hungry mother and Liev Schreiber is her son, the candidate.

Washington plays Maj. Ben Marco, who led a company of soldiers on a reconnaissance mission in Kuwait in 1991. That company includes Raymond Shaw, the privileged son of a politically powerful family. During the mission, the company is ambushed and goes missing for three days. When they're finally found, the surviving members recall Shaw as a hero and he is awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Fast forward to the early years of the 21st century and Shaw is a congressman on the cusp of being nominated for vice president. His mother is a powerful senator who wants to make sure that her son eventually becomes president, sooner rather than later. Her plan for making it happen was set in motion years ago, and now it could end up costing a lot of people their lives.

Overall review: Ehhh, it was OK. I haven’t seen the original, so I can't compare. Speaking just for this movie, my overall impression is that it seemed a little disjointed, like there were gaps that needed to be filled in and questions that needed to be answered. I did think Streep was good as the mother who cloaked her egomaniacal personal and political ambitions in patriotism. We've seen that before, haven't we?