Movie Review The House Bunny

The House Bunny (2008)

Directed by Fred Wolf 

Written by Kristen Smith, Karen McCullah Lutz

Starring Anna Faris, Emma Stone, Kat Dennings, Colin Hanks 

Release Date August 22nd, 2008

Published August 21st, 2008 

Anna Faris is a terrifically funny actress. Her work in the first Scary Movie and a cameo in Lost In Translation each looked like star making performances but did not pan out. Faris did terrific work in the indie horror film May but was mostly relegated to small roles in other people's lame comedy efforts (Just Friends, My Super Ex-Girlfriend).

Now with the release of The House Bunny, Faris is getting her due as a leading lady. This vain attempt to recreate the pink hued magic of Legally Blonde is desperate and straining at times but in the end Faris rises above the lameness with a terrifically funny performance.

Shelly (Faris) has long dreamed of becoming a Playboy centerfold. After appearing in a few pictorials, including Girls of the GED, Shelly moved into the Playboy mansion and waited for Hef to make her a centerfold. On her 27th birthday, Shelly was given a huge, celeb filled party but the next morning she was out on her backside.

Kicked out of the mansion for being 27, that's like 50 something in bunny years, Shelly desperately needs a home. What luck then when she stumbles onto a college campus and discovers a misfit sorority house that desperately needs a house mother. The outcasts include Natalie (Emma Stone, Superbad), Mona (Kat Dennings, Charlie Bartlett) and Harmony (Catherine McPhee, American Idol).

The misfit girls and their shabby sorority house are about to be foreclosed on unless they can attract 30 new pledges in the next month. Shelly offers to help with makeovers for the girls and giant parties to attract attention. But, when Hef calls to give Shelly her dream centerfold, Miss November, will she leave her girls behind?

The House Bunny was directed by former SNL sketch writer Fred Wolf. In his directorial debut Wolf shows a near flawless command of the cliché. Wolf nails every well worn trope of the college outsider movie, tossing in a couple of rom-com clichés as well as Colin Hanks joins the cast as Shelly's mismatched love interest.

There is nothing new, original or slightly unfamiliar about The House Bunny. Thus, all of the film's appeal hinges on the star performance of Anna Faris. Lucky for those subjected to this tripe that Faris nearly makes the film watchable. With her stunning physicality, both comedic and otherwise, and her pitch perfect delivery of even the lamest blonde jokes, Faris manages the herculean feat of dragging laughs out from under the banalities.

The House Bunny is not insidiously bad, more innocuously bad. It's not good but not so bad that I can say I hate it. Anna Faris is such a winning presence, such a sunny personality that, for a time, I thought I could actually like the film. However, by the time we reached the obligatory speech to save the sorority house, I was off somewhere else in my mind.

Whether I was remembering an episode of The Office I had just watched or deciding whether to shop for groceries or go do laundry after the movie, I don't recall. Nor do I really recall much beyond the platitudes of The House Bunny.

Movie Review: Big Momma's House 2

Big Momma's House 2 (2006) 

Directed by John Whitesell

Written by Don Rhymer 

Starring Martin Lawrence, Nia Long, Dan Lauria, Kat Dennings, Chloe Grace Moretz, Zachary Levi 

Release Date January 27th, 2006 

Published January 26th, 2006 

2000's Big Momma's House helped to establish Martin Lawrence's star credentials. Unfortunately for Martin it was his last hit as a solo act. Bad Boys 2 owes far more to audience love for Will Smith than for anything Lawrence brought to the table. So, given a string of massive bombs on his resume, it comes as no surprise that Lawrence would make a return to trip to Big Momma's House.

What is surprising, however, is how pleasant--even occasionally funny--that return is. Don't get me wrong, Big Momma's House 2 is not a very good movie, but it is a passable bit of entertainment for very forgiving audiences.

Since we last saw FBI agent Malcolm Turner (Martin Lawrence), he has married Sherrie (Nia Long), the woman whose life he saved by posing as her Big Momma six years ago, and settled into a comfortable desk job. His new duties are far less dangerous than undercover work and include dressing up as an eagle to teach safety classes to school children, as we see in a cute opening sequence that has Malcolm lighting himself on fire while teaching kids fire safety.

Soon however, Malcolm is desperate to get back in the field. His former partner, no longer played by Paul Giamatti, has been killed in the line of duty and Malcolm wants the case. His boss (Dan Lauria) refuses to let him in but of course, as the plot insists, Malcolm will not be denied.

The investigation requires sending an undercover agent into the home of a computer software designer and his family as a nanny. Lucky for Malcolm, he has just the nanny to fit the job. Pulling his Big Momma mask and fat suit out of storage, Malcolm embeds himself; deep cover into a case involving corrupt software designers and a virus that could endanger national security.

Do not trouble yourself with the plot of Big Momma's House 2 because the film never troubles itself with the plot. The whole software/computer virus is merely the mcguffin. It's a reason to get Martin Lawrence back in his Big Momma disguise, dispensing off-color wisdom and, in this cleaned up family sequel, helping the children of this very uptight famly to loosen up and have more fun.

There is nothing original in the film's life lessons and family values storyline so you're left to watch Lawrence, who mugs with fury and somehow manages to find a big laugh here and there. Forget about the ridiculous suit. There is no way anyone bought it the first time around, and as Big Momma parades about in swimwear and cheerleader outfits, they certainly won't buy it this time. What you can buy into, however, is Lawrence's comic talent which, even in his worst films has shown through occasionally, and is in full view here.

I wouldn't call anything in Big Momma's House 2 clever, but some of it is pretty funny and that falls entirely to Martin Lawrence. Returning to the kind of broad comic performance that made him a star, Lawrence has his confidence and charm back. Since all of the laughs in Big Momma's House 2 rely on Lawrence's hard work and comic talent, having him at his cocky confident best is essential and the film works, in it's way, because of that.

There is nothing special about Big Momma's House 2, but get Martin Lawrence in that fat suit, maybe slip a swim suit over the top of it, throw in some fat jokes and some southern fried common sense and you get Big Momma.  It's a character that establishes its own level of reality--if you are willing to take on the herculean task of suspending disbelief.

For family audiences, Big Momma's House 2 is the kind of movie that kids will enjoy and mom and dad won't be bored by. Go in with low expectations and you may find yourself reasonably well entertained. Though the film is PG-13 for some occasionally raunchy humor, it's rare and nothing terribly offensive. Mom and dad can take the kids to see it without fear.

It's not for everybody, but fans of Martin Lawrence and the very forgiving amongst us will find more than a few big laughs in Big Momma's House 2.

Movie Review Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist

Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist (2008) 

Directed by Peter Sollett

Written by Lorene Scafaria 

Starring Michael Cera, Kat Dennings, Ari Graynor, Jay Baruchel

Release Date October 3rd, 2008

Published October 2nd, 2008 

One goal of a good critic is to try not to judge a movie before seeing it. That isn't so hard for me except when I really want to like a movie, sight unseen. I really wanted to like Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist before I saw it. I like the cast, I liked the premise. As I watched the movie I ignored my niggling doubts and kept track of the things I liked. Now, as I sit to write the review, the flaws are crisper and my lingering doubts have replaced much of things I tried hard to love.

Michael Cera is one of the most likable actors to come along in years. From his adorable George Michael Bluth on TV's Arrested Development to his breakout in Superbad and Juno, Cera has grown before our eyes and is prepared to become a huge comic star in the classic Tom Hanks vein. For his latest starring role he plays Nick a musician in a gay rock band.

Nick is not gay but his two bandmates are. Nick, as we meet him, is bumming over the end of his relationship with Tris, a bubble -headed private school girl who abruptly dumped him on his birthday. Thankfully, Nick's bandmates won't let him sit home and cry, they drag him off to New York City where they have a gig and then a quest to find a legendary band performing in secret.

Kat Dennings plays the Nora half of the title, a dyspeptic music loving soul who happens to be an acquaintance of Tris. As Tris has discarded Nick's many mixed cd's Nora has picked them out of the trash and found Nick a kindred musical soul, though they have never met. That changes that night in New York City when Nora, her best friend Caroline (Ari Graynor) and even Tris head into the city and happen upon Nick's band and a mutual quest for this mythical band "Where's Fluffy".

I won't give away Nick and Nora's meet cute other than to say the contrivance is pretty weak even by romantic comedy standards. Once together there is no question that they are meant to be together. The question then for director Peter Sollett is how to believably keep them apart until they are supposed to be together. Thanks to Cera and Denning's prickly repartee this is one of the few things that really works.

What doesn't work, quite shockingly, is the film's music conceit. In a movie called Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist one would quite fairly expect a lot of really great music. What you get is a lot of mediocre indie bands from some yet printed insert in Paste Magazine. The songs on Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist sound remarkably indistinguishable from one another, whiny alt-rockers too hip indies, gay rock. No R & B. No hip hop, this soundtrack has a remarkably white, bourgeois sensibility for an 'infinite' playlist.

Worse yet from my perspective was the filmmakers inability to craft one singular music/movie moment. In the best movies with strong musical sensibilities the filmmakers craft a scene that combines music and film in a way that transcends both expressions. Who can forget Say Anything and Peter Gabriel's In Your Eyes, Moulin Rouge and the performance of Roxanne, every second of Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova's sublime duet in Once.

Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist needed a moment like that, an expression of the way Nick and Nora's musical souls were entwined. It is referred to and indeed assumed but it doesn't exist in the movie. I have many issues with Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist but none with stars Michael Cera and Kat Dennings. Cera and Dennings spark terrific chemistry first as strangers, then as sparring partners and finally as love interests. Dennings has toned down the goth persona that had driven her type casting as recently as August's The House Bunny, and the change serves her well.

Here, Dennings is a leading lady with quirks that set her apart from the typical rom-com heroine. As for Dennings' co-star? What more can I say about Michael Cera. The kid just gets better and better with each succeeding role. Even in this flawed teen-centric romance Cera crafts a thoughtful, humorous, well observed performance.

Both actors, as well as the tremendous, hard-working supporting work of Ari Graynor, are lost, adrift in a movie that knows the lyrics to every Judd Apatow, Cameron Crowe and John Hughes movie, but ironically not the music. Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist plays like a mix CD of Apatow, Crowe and Hughes and while I am not adverse to a good classic mix, I was hoping for something more... original.

With Cera and Dennings Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist has a lot working in its favor. Unfortunately, by recycling the best of teen-centric romance and coming up short on the music side of things, Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist fails to rise above its many influences. The movie really failed for me however by not finding one song and one moment to transcend all of the whole. The best movies with a strong musical presence do that.