THE HOUSE BUNNY

It's kinda sad when a comedy manages to revolve around two amazingly broad stereotypes. This is the case with The House Bunny, an extended dumb blonde joke.

Shelley (Anna Faris) went from an orphanage to living her fairy-tale life as a resident of the Playboy Mansion. This nice-but-naive blond dreams of being a centerfold, but the day after she turns 27 she's thrown out of the Mansion for being "too old." After living in her car and a night in jail, Shelley wanders onto a college and discovers her perfect job: sorority mother!

Unfortunately, the only sorority that will take Shelley is Zeta Alpha Zeta, a group of misfits (to put it mildly) whose main spokesperson is Natalie (Emma Stone, who is at least more nerdy here than as the "nerd" in Easy A). Of course, the girls of Zeta House are about to lose their sorority and house unless they can get 30 pledges.

Every genre has its cliches -- and just about every cliche for the comedy is present here. Completely different types of people teaching each other? Check. Montages of unattractive people getting makeovers, then strutting in slow motion? Check. Montage of dumb character with lots of books to become smart? Check. Woman with an unrequited crush on a cute boy who gets him in the end? Check -- twice! Snobbish, petty characters who exist only to be booed and get their comeuppance? Check -- twice again.

What's missing here is humor or interest. Anna Faris has done this sort of character so often it's far too familiar to us, and no other actor in the movie stands out. There are no good jokes (Shelley's mispronouncing and misunderstanding words only goes so far) or good sight gags. And every character here is a cliche. Shelley is the continual dumb blonde. The women of Zeta House aren't just misfits, they're virtually freaks: the woman in the full body brace, the short woman who never speaks, the hunched-over woman with pigtails and unibrow, the very visibly pregnant woman, the heavily-pierced gloomy goth, etc. As for the baddies, they're preppies who are snobs, underhanded, and exist solely to be booed and get their comeuppance by the movie's end. As for dvd extras, they consist of a few deleted scenes, a few behind-the-scenes features, and a music video from Katharine McPhee, who is barely in this movie.

Director Fred Wolf scored a hit with the similarly-themed Legally Blonde, but the fish-out-of-water treatment doesn't work at all here. If you want to see The House Bunny, save yourself a lot of time and a lack of laughs and just read a few dumb blond jokes.

Overall grade: F
Reviewed by James Lynch

The Hot Chick (2002)

Clearly I was scraping the bottom of the barrel when I sat through The Hot Chick. If I wanted to figure out how dumb a Rob Schneider film could get, than we may have reached a new low. I'll try an enumerate the horror.

Anna Faris plays April, the stereotypical high school hottie that has her entourage of friends reassuring her of her beauty on an hourly basis. Schneider is Clive Maxtone, a down on his luck guy who robs a gas station convenience store only to figure out the register is nearly empty because everyone charges their gas. Faster than we can say Freaky Friday, or 13 Going On 30, or even Big, we have these two characters, via a set of Mall "artifact" earrings switch bodies. We now focus on Schneider's body with April inside. It's a challenge to convince her friends that it's really her, and to duck out from her family and teachers. Along the way, we get overly generous helpings of penis jokes, bathroom humor, and hair removal from less than mentionable places. Overall, not funny, and it gets real old before too long at all.

There were a few bits that did contain some humor. The bit where Schneider ends up working for April's father, and to avoid chatter pretends he's a Hispanic, and calls himself Taquito was funny. However, like a SNL skit, it is more self contained and doesn't go anywhere towards the greater film.

In case you can't figure it out yet, I'm not recommending The Hot Chick. It's far more crude then funny, and the plot is virtually nonexistent at too many parts, even in comparison of some of his other films. Unless you're a die hard Rob Schneider fan, you can steer clear of this one.

Overall Grade: C-

Reviewed by Jonas