Women went to the theatres this weekend and made the Tina Fey-Amy Poehler comedy Baby Mama $18.3 million this weekend. A whopping 68% of the audience was WOMEN so we proved women we are moviegoers and we can definitely open a movie. 55% of the audience was over 25 so that means that us older women (yes, Hollywood thinks you are old if you are over 25) attended the film.
Members of my girl posse and I went to see the film and we enjoyed it. I still wish that Tina would have written it (the film was written and directed by SNL writer Michael McCullers) cause, at times, it felt that they were trying to hard to be funny. But Tina is awesome. (and if you don't watch 30 Rock on Thursdays on NBC, you are seriously missing something really funny.) The thing about Tina is that she's funny while being awkward and uncomfortable and unsure of herself which is the crux of her appeal. While the funny guys of Judd Apatow's comedies are pathetic schlubs that no girl would want to be with (but who always seem to get the girl), Fey is the real girl who is insecure in life while confident at work AND she's funny, so it's a winning combination. After this weekend both Tina and Amy's phones should be ringing off the hook with new jobs.
Tina plays a 37-year-old-woman who has been "getting promotions instead of getting pregnant" and finds out she can't have kids. She hires a surrogate through a questionable agency run by the freakishly fertile Sigourney Weaver and is matched up with Amy Poehler, a poor woman looking for some fast cash. Honestly, they don't really do a service to surrogacy since it is a serious process, and most surrogates are women who have previously had kids and are carefully vetted. But it's a movie, and a comedy, so we'll let a lot of that go.
What was great to see was comedy vets from SNL and The Daily Show supporting the work of Fey and Poehler. I'm used to seeing the boys support the other guys so it was great to see them support the girls. Steven Martin also gets in on the game and plays the new-agey boss of Tina. Tina also has a love interest in the adorable Greg Kinnear. Their relationship is so different from typical comedy relationships because they actually seem like they could be a couple. They are around the same age and they have things in common, and oh yeah, he actually has a job and doesn't get stoned all day. He's a mature adult which, you know, is more attractive to women looking for a partner in life.
I'm not saying this is a perfect movie, cause it's not. But I have to say that I was so happy to go to a movie where I didn't want to throw something at the screen, and when I left I still had a smile on my face.
April 28, 2008
Women Make Tina Fey Comedy Number 1 at the Box Office
Posted by Melissa Silverstein at 8:13 AM
Labels: Amy Poehler, Baby Mama, Tina Fey