"MISS MARCH"
Blu-ray Review
by Kevin Carr
| MOVIE: ** (out of 5 stars)
BLURAY EXPERIENCE: ** (out of 5 stars) STARRING Zach Cregger as EUGENE BELL Trevor Moore as TUCKER CLEIGH Raquel Alessi as CINDI WHITEHALL Molly Stanton as CANDACE Craig Robinson as HORSEDICK.MPEG Hugh M. Hefner as HIMSELF Rated R and Unrated Studio: Fox Searchlight Directed by: Zach Cregger & Trevor Moore Back to DVD Review Home |  |
WHAT IT’S ABOUT
Ever since they were childhood friends, Eugene (Zach Cregger) and Tucker (Trevor Moore) have been obsessed with sex. Eugene has decided to take the high road, going the abstinence route with his girlfriend Cindi (Raquel Alessi). Tucker has idolized the female form in Playboy all his life and leaping from one crazy sex-life to another. On Eugene’s senior prom, he promises Cindi that they will “do it.” In preparation, he gets drunk with Tucker, then hits his head and goes into a coma for four years. After he wakes up, he discovers that Cindi has become a Playboy Playmate, so he and Tucker make a cross-country trip to the Playboy mansion so Eugene can hook up with her again.
WHAT I LIKED
I tend to like your average raunchy comedy, and this film does deliver on the raunchiness. It’s not a perfect film by any means, but it does have some great shocking moments, often involving some form of body fluid.
Oddly enough, my wife isn’t a huge fan of raunchy comedies. However, when we watched this together on a lazy Sunday afternoon, she thought it was actually pretty funny. She’s quite a way’s from the teen sex comedy crowd, yet she seemed to really enjoy this movie. So maybe this works to a degree on the unsuspecting fan. It might not click with the college crowd, but the schoolteacher gang might really enjoy it, if my wife is any indication.
Zach Cregger and Trevor Moore bite off a lot to chew with this film being their first big starring roles, their first full screenplay and their first shot at directing. That triple threat is hard to pull off (even with two people doing it), and while Cregger and Moore didn’t nail the job, they at least put together a coherent (if not offensive) film.
The strengths of “Miss March” come from the shocking subject matter as well as the decent cameos by actors like Cedric Yarbrough and a bigger part by Craig Robinson as the bizarre rapper Horsedick.MPEG. Sadly, Hugh Hefner’s cameo is not as well received. The guy can edit the hell out of a magazine, but he’s not an actor by any stretch of the imagination.
WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE
Execution is the key to a good comedy, and it is in this field that “Miss March” had most of its problems. Any of the scenes can be funny taken by itself. However, woven together into the entire film, it doesn’t quite fit together. That’s no surprise considering the writers/directors/stars cut their teeth on their sketch comedy show “The Whitest Kids U’Know.”
The other problem I had with this film (aside from some all-too-obvious looping of the word “retarded”) was the lead actress, Raquel Alessi. She’s a relative unknown, starring in an R-rated raunchy sex comedy. And she plays a Playboy Playmate. Yet, she never gets naked. I had a chance to interview Cregger and Moore, and they let me know that it wasn’t even on the menu for Alessi to do a nude scene. I call shenanigans! If it were a well-known actress trying to stay credible, I’d buy it, but Alessi’s biggest credit to date is a bit part in “Ghost Rider” and the direct-to-DVD sequel to “Carlitto’s Way.” Shenanigans! Shenanigans! Shenanigans!
Still, I did appreciate the other copious amounts of nudity in the film. As I said to Cregger and Moore in my interview... “Thanks for the breasts.”
BLU-RAY FEATURES
The Blu-ray comes bundled with a second disc for digital copy to portable devices.
On the Blu-ray disc itself, “Miss March” is presented with the theatrical cut and the unrated cut (which doesn’t have much difference aside from more babes and a foul but funny tag before the end credits). There’s also a slate of viral videos that Cregger and Moore produced with some of their “Whitest Kids” co-stars.
Finally, there’s a mini-mock-rockumentary about Horsedick.MPEG, in a censored and uncensored cut. (Hint: the censored version is actually funnier.)
WHO’S GOING TO LIKE THIS MOVIE
Fans of raunchy comedies and first-grade schoolteachers (like my wife).
