A few films I want to remember

Before I head off to the market (gonna smoke some turkey before the rains start) I wanted to tell you about Date Night; while I'm here, I also want to find the title of that film about the young painter...

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Based on the advice of a Blockbuster (MP) clerk, we watched Steve Carell and Tina Fey in "Date Night" (2010), an action farce billed as a romantic comedy. I'll have to say that overall I liked the film (Hey, I like all the corny jokes in "Live Free or Die Hard" and "Car Talk") because in spite of the somewhat, ah, raunchy stuff they get into, this husband and wife really want to make their marriage work.

Guys, I wouldn't recommend this film as a date night movie unless your wife/gf likes "Live Free or Die Hard."

Local Color (2009)

Really enjoyed this one, though I had a hard time remembering the title. Yes, as the above review says, it's got "formulaic structure, treacly score and earnest voice-over narration" but great acting. The basic idea is that a young would-be painter spends a summer in the country with a curmudgeonly old master. There's some "Karate Kid" stuff about mentoring, but more prominent is the writer-director's agenda related to art (real art, vs some of the stuff that passes for art today).

Our daughter is a painter, and especially after watching My Kid Could Paint That earlier this year, we found Local Color a winner.

Deja Vu (2006)

I don't know why we rented this one, but it was quite entertaining. It's got time travel (with the usual paradoxes -- finessed with a plot device at the end), terrific effects (the fire/explosion were real, not CGI), interesting reversal of racial stereotypes, and a little romance with Denzel Washington and Paula Patton.