Keep it Folded Up

Zach Cregger and Trevor Moore are members of the Whitest Kids U’
Know, a sketch comedy troupe which now has its own show on IFC. I have
never seen The Whitest Kids U’ Know. I have been told it is
funny. I believed the people who told me this. Last night, however, I
saw Cregger and Moore’s new movie, Miss March. I no longer
believe anything anybody says to me anymore. It’s the kind of movie
that attempts to combine comedy and sex, and ends up making you never
want to laugh, or have sex, ever again.

In Miss March, Eugene (Cregger) and his girlfriend Cindi
(Raquel Alessi) are high school sweethearts who pledge to keep their
virginity until they marry. But on prom night, they both finally decide
that they are going to have the SEX, except that Eugene stumbles down
the basement stairs and falls into a coma. When he wakes up four years
later, Cindi has become a Playboy centerfold, so he decides to
take a road trip to the Playboy Mansion to find out why she “betrayed”
him, and possibly win her back. Trouble is, Eugene’s muscles are
totally atrophied and he can’t walk. (Also, he has the uncontrollable
shits—a joke that is legitimately, completely gross.) So his
friend Tucker (Moore) decides to join him on the trip.

A few words about Moore’s character, Tucker. He wears Hawaiian
shirts. He’s obsessed with sex. He’s possibly pathological, and almost
certainly borderline retarded. When his girlfriend, Candace (Molly
Stanton) has an epileptic seizure during sex, he stabs her in the face
with a fork. Ha, ha! Right?

No. Trevor Moore is single-handedly the most unfunny screen presence
since Ralph Fiennes’ portrayal of Amon Goeth in Schindler’s
List. He’s doing something like Ace Ventura meets the wacky party
guy from every lame ’80s teen comedy. The film’s only laughs—and
I’m being very generous here—come from The Office‘s Craig
Robinson, who plays a rap star named “Horsedick.mpeg.” Don’t groan: The
character’s name is one of the film’s better, cleverer jokes.

So Eugene and Tucker (don’t their names seem awfully preppy for this
kind of movie?) travel across the country to the Playboy Mansion, where
they meet plenty of skanky women and the Impresario of Skank himself,
Hugh Hefner. Here, the movie could have raised some interesting
questions about what might motivate someone to pose nude (uh, other
than money), but when Cindi’s reason for becoming a Playmate is finally
revealed, it’s boneheaded, unsubtle, and sexist (she did it all for
Eugene!). None of this would matter quite so much if the movie managed
to be funny. But it doesn’t. Miss March is an awful, hateful
movie with a truly appalling attitude toward women—it celebrates
them for taking their clothes off, then condemns them for being
sluts.