Some movies are just a big set-up to show a wild and over-the-top party. These are usually teen movies, but in Office Christmas Party an adult and quite good cast work through a pretty mundane plot.
Josh Parker (Jason Bateman) is the Chief Technical Officer for the Chicago branch of tech company Zenotek. He's the nice, even-tempered guy who keeps everyone working together. He's also the buddy of Clay Vanstone (T.J. Miller), the easy-going branch manager who loves to party and support his employees. But Clay's serious sister and interim CEO Carol (Jennifer Aniston) wants to get rid of employees' bonuses, cut the staff by 40 percent, and cancel the office Christmas party. The only way to avoid all that is if Josh and Clay get the business of Walter Davis (Courtney B. Vance) while Carol heads out of town for her vacation.
The pitch to Walter goes poorly, until Clay invites Walter to a wild office Christmas party. In no time at all, the office is filled with lights and alcohol, live reindeer, someone dressed as Jesus, and Walter going crazy after blasted in the face with cocaine. There are a few other storylines: Josh's possible romance with programmer Tracey (Olivia Munn); uptight H.R. head Mary (Kate McKinnon) putting a damper on things and feuding with wild guy Jeremy (Rob Corddry); and nerdy Nate (Karan Sori) hiring prostitute Savannah (Abbey Lee Kershaw) to be his pretend girlfriend -- and then dealing with both her and her gun-toting pimp Trina (Jillian Bell). The party gets more and more insane, everyone gets crazier and crazier, and of course Carol's flight is canceled and she winds up back at the office...
It's almost impressive that Office Christmas Party manages to be so mediocre with such a good cast. The actors are all fine in their roles, but the story is completely predictable and there aren't that many laughs through the movie. Office Christmas Party is a very slight film that's easily forgotten.
Olivia Munn is the current reigning geek goddess. She hosts the electronics/video game show Attack of the Show, she appeared in Iron Man 2 and on several magazine covers, and she's been at comic book conventions dressed as everyone from Chun-Li to Slave Leia to Wonder Woman. Suck It, Wonder Woman! The Misadventures of a Hollywood Geek is a collection of her writings. "Ramblings" would be more accurate, both in subjects and tone.
There are three types of essays here. First, we learn a lot about Munn's childhood; in summary, it was rough and she was an outsider, teased and tormented by other kids. Second, we learn about her exploits, good and bad, in Hollywood: a disastrous photo shoot for Playboy, her love of pie and subsequent giant pie jump (shown below), horrible people and wonderful people. Third, there are comedy routines, from semi-serious dating tips to "Princess Leia Tweets Star Wars" to "How to Make Love Like a Zombie." There are also fan art of Munn, her dressed as "A Gallery of Great Women" (from Betsy Ross to Jayna from the Wonder Twins -- probably the only time those two will be on the same list), and a photo of her at the bottom right of the pages, making Suck It, Wonder Woman! a flipbook.
This could be the most colloquial book ever written; it really feels like Munn is chatting instead of writing. This also gives Suck It, Wonder Woman! a fairly amateurish feel (and the typos don't help here either). Sometimes Munn is fairly funny, while other times she's just complaining and cursing a lot. There's no great insight into either geek culture (she loves 'em) or Hollywood (plenty of scumbags out there). On Attack of the Show Olivia Munn can be pretty cool sometimes and awkward at other times -- and that is very true for Suck It Wonder Woman!
