On the Big Board |
| Position |
Staff |
In Brief |
| 63/196 |
Max Braden |
I'll put this just ahead of Baby Mama, which was a better movie but didn't have as many laughs. |
Anna Faris is hilarious. She was easily the best element of the Scary Movies she appeared in, and gave memorable appearances in Waiting and Lost in Translation (doing a great Cameron Diaz impression). She's not always successful in finding projects that utilize her particular, almost old-school, comedic talents, though. She's appeared in plenty of dreck, like Just Friends, The Hot Chick, and My Super Ex-Girlfriend.
The House Bunny is her first major movie as the main star. And really, the premise couldn't be more paint-by-numbers - a Playboy Bunny is kicked out of Hef's mansion for hitting the ancient age of 27, and becomes house mother to a bunch of loser sorority sisters and improves their lives with her makeup and clothing skills. Yawn.
And yet… the trailer is actually pretty funny, thanks almost entirely to Faris' crack comic timing. She brings an energy to the film that the story itself doesn't really deserve. Watch as she commits names to memory by repeating them in a growly demonic voice, and try to imagine another young actress successfully pulling that off. Kate Hudson? Anne Hathaway? Doubt it.
She gets some backup here from Superbad's lovely and funny Emma Stone, playing one of the hopeless sisters. Stone, despite being gorgeous and being, well, Emma Stone, apparently can't get a date, presumably because she wears glasses. Why are guys in movies so dumb? Also appearing, in her first major role, is celebrity spawn/Perez Hilton punching bag Rumer Willis, and celebrity spawn/Untraceable survivor Colin Hanks.
The presence of Faris and Stone, though, is enough to make me want to see a movie that otherwise sounds a little too close for comfort to Tommy Lee Jones' unholy abomination Man of the House. If Cedric the Entertainer shows up in pastor robes, though, I'm out of there. (Shane Jenkins/BOP)
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