Dan In Real Life

So I'm trying to catch up on movies I've missed in the past year (hey, you try raising a two year old, going to school, having an active concert life, holding down a job, oh yeah and having a wife and all that too!), and I just watched Dan In Real Life last night, starring Steve Carell from The Office.

I was giving this movie a chance, since I'm a big fan of Carell going back to his days on the Daily Show. He of course was great in the 40 Year Old Virgin, so this was his first foray into the more "romantic" side of the "romantic comedy" genre.

Unfortunately, I was not a big fan of this movie. I'm not sure what I disliked more, the god awful dance-workout scene, the cliche-ridden family football game, the prediction of what my life will be like in 13 years with one daughter begging to drive and the other starting to date boys... No, it was none of these things, not even the fact that the writers, directors and producers expected us to suspend our disbelief enough to make us believe that a woman like Juliette Binoche might actually date a giant douchebag like Dane Cook.

No, it was none of these things, I came to realize. It was actually the fact that I sat through 98 minutes of this movie, and not one single character in the movie threw a punch at Dane Cook. It's my belief that if you're going to put Dane Cook on a screen for more than, oh, 2 minutes, someone had better throw a punch at his face. Just on sheer principle. I don't care if he's playing the same scuzzbag character he always plays, or if he's playing the Dalai freaking Lama, someone had better throw a punch at his face.

Hollywood: Please take note of this, and please plan accordingly in all future productions. Thank you.