Millions of brain cells committed suicide last Friday when exposed to Miss March, a “film” that has the distinction of being both less funny and more tasteless than the now-playing The Last House on the Left. For that matter, Miss March also easily snatches the title of “Worst Film of 2009” from the previous holder, Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, which looks like Oscar bait by comparison. It is simply not possible to adequately convey how bad this movie is—at least not within the boundaries of vocabulary established by the Mountain Xpress, which prevent me from using the precise words to describe this … abomination. This is a work that may, in fact, redefine the very word “bad.”
Miss March (the title changed from Miss February when the movie’s release date was postponed) is the creation of two guys from a TV show called The Whitest Kids U Know—and it looks it. The pair responsible are Trevor Moore (who bears an unfortunate resemblance to Jim Carrey) and Zach Cregger (who doesn’t suffer from the Carrey affliction). They wrote this mess, directed this mess and star in this mess. Never has the term “triple threat” had such resonance. Their idea of humor is predicated on screaming a lot, bombarding the viewer with a notion of sex that would embarrass a backward 14-year-old boy, while topping it off with a variety of gags centered on faulty bowel control. It’s the sort of thing that could lead one to feel the need to reassess Tom Green’s Freddy Got Fingered (2001).
The premise (such as it is) has high-school über-nerd Eugene Bell (Cregger)—a guy who goes around with his girlfriend, Cindi Whitehall (Raquel Alessi, Ghost Rider), lecturing elementary-school students about sexual abstinence—being pressured by said girlfriend into having sex on prom night. Unfortunately, Eugene has a goat-like buddy, Tucker Cleigh (Moore), who gets him drunk prior to the planned event. This results in Eugene falling down some basement stairs and being brained by a variety of toolboxes, leaving him in a coma for four years. Alas, he doesn’t stay that way—thanks to Tucker, who revives Eugene by hitting him in the face with a baseball bat. This allows the plot to proceed—at least after Eugene tries to stand up and spectacularly unleashes his bowels all over the floor. It’s downhill from there.
Eugene quickly learns that virginal Cindi is now a Playboy centerfold model (albeit a remarkably modest one), so he and Tucker plan on beating a path to the Playboy mansion for some annual party that’s taking place in three days. But first, they need to get Eugene up and walking in the next couple of days. However, things kick into gear sooner when Tucker inadvertently triggers an epileptic seizure in his girlfriend, Candace (TV actress Molly Stanton), whilst she’s performing a personal activity on him, causing Tucker to stab her in the face with a fork several times to get her to stop. (I couldn’t make this up). As a result, Candace is out for revenge—along with her psychotic fireman brother (TV actor Geoff Meed)—leaving Tucker on the run with incontinent Eugene in tow. Much thrashing about, screaming and encounters with angry firemen ensue as Tucker and Eugene attempt to make their way across the U.S.
To liven things up there are Russian lesbians, a rapper by the name of Horsedick.MPEG (Craig Robinson, Pineapple Express), Playboy bunnies, a gag involving a dog urinating into someone’s champagne and four or five more gags involving Eugene’s bowels. In some inexplicable manner, this is meant to pass for a heart-warming story with life lessons. That the life lessons are delivered by Hugh Hefner may or may not make them more specious. Take my advice: Go rent National Lampoon’s Golddiggers (2004) instead. Rated R for strong crude and sexual content, nudity, pervasive language and some drug use.
I read over this. I was too kind.
The American comedy film is dying a slow and horrible death and worse, no one seems to care. Films like this one are successful despite their awfulness (though this particular film, thankfully, was not) and it really makes you wonder what kind of moron could possibly think this is as good as Animal House, Ghostbusters or even Robin Hood: Men In Tights (which, while amusing, is far from Mel Brooks’ best work)? Tropic Thunder was good, but that’s the exception that proves the rule. It’s very sad.
it really makes you wonder what kind of moron could possibly think this is as good as Animal House, Ghostbusters or even Robin Hood: Men In Tights (which, while amusing, is far from Mel Brooks’ best work)?
I found it interesting the other night when John Landis of Animal House fame was on TCM and he said, “People will come up to me and tell me that Animal House is a classic, and I’ll say, ‘That’s fine, but have you ever seen Keaton or Chaplin? How about movies by Preston Sturges or Lubitsch?’ And they don’t even know who these people are. It’s sad.”
I’ve seen films by all four of those guys and they’re all very funny (as are the comedies of Billy Wilder, especially One Two Three), but that doesn’t make Animal House any less a classic in my opinion.
that doesn’t make Animal House any less a classic in my opinion.
I didn’t say it should.
The American comedy film is dying a slow and horrible death and worse, no one seems to care.
Seen ROLE MODELS yet? Best comedy of last year.
Better than Be Kind Rewind? I doubt it.
Better than Be Kind Rewind? I doubt it.
I’d certainly agree with that. However, the two films aren’t really comparable. That said, I’ve seen Be Kind four times. Once was enough with Role Models, though it was an agreeable enough experience.
Better than Be Kind Rewind? I doubt it.
Yes. I hated BE KIND REWIND.
Yes. I hated BE KIND REWIND
Yes, well, you were wrong.
Yes, well, you were wrong.
No dear sir, YOU are wrong.
No dear sir, YOU are wrong.
Well, my friend, you’re certainly allowed to think that.
“Seen ROLE MODELS yet? Best comedy of last year.”
You sire, are wrong. The best comedy of last year was Forgetting Sarah Marshall (this is coming from someone who dislikes almost every Apatow film).
By the way, how do you make the font bold? Is it or [b*]?
If I may give my two cents, along with Be Kind Rewind, I’d rank In Bruges, Burn After Reading and Synechdoche, New York ahead of Role Models without hesitation.
If I may give my two cents, along with Be Kind Rewind, I’d rank In Bruges, Burn After Reading and Synechdoche, New York ahead of Role Models without hesitation.
I would too, but I really don’t think these are comparable films. They all have elements that Role Models doesn’t have. In other words, they’re more than comedies both thematically and stylistically.
In other words, they’re more than comedies both thematically and stylistically.
Of course, but I still laughed watching each one of them more than I did watching Role Models.
I figure that counts for something.
By the way, how do you make the font bold? Is it or [b*]?
You open it with b in the brackets as you have it first, but without the asterisk. You close it with the same thing, only the b is preceded by a forward slash.
Comedy has died in the US because of political correctness, and people’s desire to not laugh at a joke if they think it might “offend” someone.
So, we are left with disposable trash along the lines of this movie. That is, a film that merely makes fart jokes and sexual innuendo. No room left for political insight or social commentary. Just poop jokes.
Most the shows on Comedy Central are far more risque, relevant, and daring than anything hollywood has produced in the last 20 years.
Comedy has died in the US because of political correctness, and people’s desire to not laugh at a joke if they think it might “offend” someone.
While I am not a rabid endorser of political correctness and would agree that it often goes too far to a point of silliness, this strikes me as too easy. Do you mean that humor can only be effective when it uses race or sexuality gags? And how is it that “sexual innuendo” gets blasted in one paragraph, yet “risque” is celebrated in the next?
Is comedy limited to being “relevant?” Actually, isn’t much comedy that’s “relevant” merely comedy that is topical and will be as dated as a gag about Grover Whalen in a couple years? I’d put the films Justin listed over anything I’ve seen on Comedy Central — as comedy and as relevant. For that matter, it would be hard to call In Bruges or Burn After Reading politically correct. And what about Tropic Thunder? That’s certainly pretty far removed from politically correct. For that matter, you couldn’t really call Miss March politically correct — it merely manages to mix politically incorrect with infantile.
The fact is that comedy has always had its share of crap. Except for the mania for bodily functions — particularly flatulence (for which you can probably blame the typically politically incorrect Mel Brooks) — I find it hard to think that comedy today is appreciably worse than the days of Martin and Lewis, Ma and Pa Kettle and Francis the Talking Mule.
May the ghost of Percy Kilbride haunt your slumbers.
Seriously, though, Ken’s right. It’s merely the *kind* of bad (or at least mediocre; Ma and Pa Kettle were on a TV sitcom scale more than actively offensive and mind boggling) that varies. Though even then, while it was probably more painful in respects, was KANGAROO JACK (inexplicably the number one film in America for a time) anything more than a Francis descendent when you get down to it?
Ken covered the late 40s/early 50s (and prior to that, most of the movie series based on radio personalities were in the same rank, like GREAT GILDERSLEEVE’S GHOST), then in the 60s you’d get the beach movies plus attempts to be both epic and “relevant,” which resulted in Otto Preminger’s SKIDOO, and more. Go to the 70s and 80s and you have the wave of sex comedies and PORKY’s and things like BIKINI CAR WASH and so on. Plus a few which are well known or even popular but may not be particularly good (certainly a few of the PINK PANTHER entries, especially the post Sellers ones, fit the bill and may even be actively worse than the recent Steve Martin ones). The sight of a boxed set of Troy Donahue/Connie Stevens romantic “comedies” at Sam’s Club (while James Whale’s REMEMBER LAST NIGHT and most of Laurel and Hardy are unavailable on Region 1 DVD) was most distressing.
That said, I’d still take Ma and Pa over MISS MARCH. Heck, from the sound of it, I’d almost rather sit through the horrid MULE FEATHERS (1970s “comedy” with Don Knotts as a talking jackass) than MISS MARCH (though that’s like saying one terminal disease is slightly less agonizing than another). I think one of the biggest differences though isn’t so much that comedies are worse as the lack of any real comedic directors/auteurs (or most of the time, even solid work for hire craftsmen) to fill the gap, comparable to those mentioned (Sturges, Wilder, Lubitsch, even Blake Edwards at his best). The Cohens come closest of those active today, unless one wants to count Appatow (who I’d say is closer to a dirtier Arthur Lubin, but that’s me). Instead you get TV people, improv groups, cable special folks, Ken Kwapis… with most directors instead wanting to be as serious as possible. (I thought Tim Burton’s BIG FISH was a nice middle ground but even than more of a mix and more whimsical/odd than laugh out loud; I should get out my DVD though to check my reactions).
PS: I should probably say *good* comedic auteurs, since I just realized that, as terrifying as it is to contemplate, the most prolific current practitioners who fit that bill are Friedberg and Seltzer (their names are funnier than their films), the [Blank] MOVIE guys, which is just flat out depressing.
I also misspelled the Coens (which I felt I should correct since, confusingly, one of the writers behind TROPIC THUNDER, but also IDIOCRACY and MADAGASCAR 2, is a gentleman named Ethan Cohen).
May the ghost of Percy Kilbride haunt your slumbers.
As long as it’s not Marjorie Main.
Seriously, though, Ken’s right. It’s merely the *kind* of bad (or at least mediocre; Ma and Pa Kettle were on a TV sitcom scale more than actively offensive and mind boggling) that varies.
I’d put the Kettles more on the level of Paul Blart in modern film than alongside Miss March. I think that’s kind of saying the same thing with different words.
The sight of a boxed set of Troy Donahue/Connie Stevens romantic “comedies” at Sam’s Club (while James Whale’s REMEMBER LAST NIGHT and most of Laurel and Hardy are unavailable on Region 1 DVD) was most distressing.
You get five bonus points merely for knowing the existence of Remember Last Night? and ten more for thinking it worthy of a DVD release.
unless one wants to count Appatow (who I’d say is closer to a dirtier Arthur Lubin, but that’s me).
What a splendid summation! My only qualm is that Lubin made the stylish 1943 Phantom of the Opera. I’m convinced that was a fluke, but he signed it all the same.
Instead you get TV people, improv groups, cable special folks, Ken Kwapis… with most directors instead wanting to be as serious as possible.
I’d tend to say that most directors — those in the filmmaker league rather than the craftsman one — are perhaps less interested in being serious than they are in doing films that are “more” than comedies. At the same time, I’m not sure what else other than comedies you could rightly call, say, the Wes Anderson films or David O. Russell’s I Heart Huckabees.
Superbad used the teenage gross-out raunchy humor to a much more clever effect, I think. Movies like Miss March seemingly work in conjunction with the abstinence-only view; because they both treat sex unrealistically. It seems our culture can tell teenagers anything about sex except what is natural and true. Sex is either something dirty to keep locked away or something dirty to laugh at and have a thrill out of. In both treatments sex is dirty rather than natural. What does it say about our culture that we maintain abstinence-only education in schools while producing films like Miss March?
Superbad used the teenage gross-out raunchy humor to a much more clever effect, I think.
I didn’t care much for the humor in Superbad — some of it like the mentrual blood business I simply found pointless and unfunny — but it gave us characters we could like. Miss March gives us grotesque caricatures and expects us to like them. It doesn’t work.
Comedy has died in the US because of political correctness, and people’s desire to not laugh at a joke if they think it might “offend” someone.
That’s interesting, because I think some of the worst comedy to hit the big screen in recent years has been motivated by a strenuous effort to be as offensive as possible.
I read over this. I was too kind.
Man, it must have been seriously bad. Where does it rank compared to the excretions of Messers. Friedberg and Seltzer?
Sorry to comment again so soon, but —
I JUST FOUND THE BEST ROTTEN TOMATOES COMMENT EVER.
“Nathan R.” had this to say to James Berardinelli:
Good Job buddy, You just lost every but of respect i could have had for your review skills. Its people like you that think Mark Twain is a bad author because he makes racist remarks you should learn how to take things passed face value and look at symbolism Miss March has humor that goes far beyond sex jokes and saying curse words. It touches the true essance of the human nature and emotion. Im going to make sure your fame as an author is atleast lowered, im gonna do everything in my power to show people you dont know how to review a movie. Ive already started printing flyers to throw around my campus. Youve really pissed alot of people of.
I just gotta say… I found this review on rotten tomatoes and it is spot on! You’re right, you really may have been too kind. Worst. movie. ever.
That’s interesting, because I think some of the worst comedy to hit the big screen in recent years has been motivated by a strenuous effort to be as offensive as possible.
Freddy Got Fingered comes screaming into my brain.
Man, it must have been seriously bad. Where does it rank compared to the excretions of Messers. Friedberg and Seltzer?
Their “work” is kind of a law unto itself. It — and the Wayans Brothers — stands outside the realm of normal movies.
“Nathan R.” had this to say to James Berardinelli
To “Nathan R,” I would merely say, “Just because you have access to the internet doesn’t mean you actually have anything to say. You don’t and you say it badly.”
Ummm I am sure it was in one of your march papers there was a picture in there of a little boy listening to music thru headphones way to big for the little guy and he was singing and obviously REALY singing his foo was like up in the air ..and well I wanted to know how I could find that picture please if you could help me with this let me know thank you so much for your time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I know this is extremely late and Miss March is nothing more than a lost memory, but I just found this review and laughed until my sides hurt. Mr. Hanke, even if you were being too kind, this review is absolutely hysterical.
I haven’t actually seen Miss March, but I imagine that just by reading this review, I’ve gotten a more pleasant experience than the people who have.
Thanks for the laughs, Mr. Hanke!
You are more than welcome, Lexi.