Miss March

Miss March
Miss March theatrical release poster
Directed by	Trevor Moore Zach Cregger
Produced by	Tom Jacobson
Written by	Trevor Moore Zach Cregger
Starring	Trevor Moore Zach Cregger Craig Robinson
Cinematography	Anthony B. Richmond
Studio	Fox Searchlight Pictures
Distributed by	Fox Atomic
Release date(s)	March 13, 2009
Running time	90 minutes Unrated version: 94 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Box office	$4,591,629[1][2]

Miss March is a 2009 comedy film directed by and starring Trevor Moore and Zach Cregger, stars of the IFC show The Whitest Kids U' Know. The film was released in the United States on March 13, 2009.

Plot

The movie begins with Eugene (Slade Pearce) and his best friend Tucker (Remy Thorne) as kids. They sneak into the bedroom closet of Eugene's brother, as he recently acquired a valuable Michael Jordan rookie card. Upon opening the box the card was in, Tucker notices that Eugene's brother has a copy of Playboy. Tucker opens the magazine, instantly becoming obsessed with it. Three weeks later, Tucker's demeanor has changed to that of a hormone driven teenager, despite that he is only 8 years old. Fast forward ten years later, Eugene (Zach Cregger) and Tucker (Trevor Moore) are seniors in high school.

Tucker is still a huge fan of the Playboy franchise, while Eugene and his girlfriend of two years, Cindi Whitehall (Raquel Alessi) are public speakers on the subject of abstinence for younger teens. Eugene and Cindi claim to their audiences that they plan to save themselves for marriage, and that Eugene's brother's life spiraled out of control due to a series of events starting with an STD. Despite this, in reality, Cindi has other plans, stating that since they have been together for two years, if she is not Eugene's first then they have big problems.

They decide to go through with it at the after prom party that Tucker had invited them to. On the day of prom, Tucker tells Eugene that he has the limo booked, which when pulls up, has already picked up Tucker's high school drop-out friend, Phil, who now goes by the MC name of Horsedick Dot MPEG (Craig Robinson). At the After Prom party, Cindi goes upstairs to prepare, while Tucker takes Eugene into the kitchen and gives him several shots of hard alcohol. As Eugene leaves to go upstairs to meet Cindi, he walks through the wrong door, and falls down the steps into the basement. At the bottom, he is knocked into a coma by a falling toolbox, and shortly thereafter, the rest of the shelf, as everyone watches from the top of the steps.

Eugene awakens almost 4 years later after Tucker "revives him" by hitting him in the head with a baseball bat. Eugene, distressed, tries to react but finds his body is in an extreme state of atrophy. He over exerts himself only to wind up "relieving" himself in a mess all over the floor. Tucker explains to Eugene that he has been there waiting for him to wake up since high school.

He explains that Eugene's dad moved to another location for a job, and that Cindi stuck around for a little while, but disappeared shortly thereafter because Eugene was "a vegetable." Tucker left Eugene to continue his recovery as Tucker went to work. He came back later to visit Eugene again with the newest edition of Playboy. While discussing where Cindi had vanished to, Tucker happened to stumble across a centerfold in his new issue of none other than Cindi

Eugene was not happy that she had been posing in Playboy, thinking she had simply forgotten about him, and that it meant she slept with numerous other men. However, Tucker saw this as true love calling out to Eugene, asking him "what the chances are that this issue would come out just as Eugene was waking up from his coma." Tucker devises a plan to go cross country to the Playboy Mansion where there was a party to be held in 3 days for Playboy's annual Birthday bash, where Cindi was sure to be. Tucker left as he had a date with his "partner" of 13 months, Candace (Molly Stanton), who back in high school seemed to hate Tucker.

Later that night, Tucker broke into the hospital while Eugene was asleep, stating they had to leave on their trip now, as opposed to 3 days later, as Tucker had an incident involving Candace and accidentally forgetting she has seizures caused by strobe lights as a side effect of her Epilepsy. Tucker quickly wheels Eugene out of the hospital against the wishes of the nurse, and drives away. While explaining the situation to Eugene, Tucker notices they are playing the song that started becoming a hit 4 years ago by none other than Horsedick Dot MPEG. This spawns the idea that he can get them into the Playboy Mansion. Suddenly, Candace's brother, Rick (Geoff Meed), and his firemen crew attempt to attack Tucker's vehicle. Tucker states that this is due to the fact that "firemen are crazy." They manage to escape temporarily and wind up several hours later at a side-of-the-road gas station. After a quick fill up, and wardrobe change for Eugene (which looks lame, but was picked out by Tucker), the duo are on their way. Eugene tries to get some sleep only to wake up from a nightmare he had about Cindi. When he turns to look at Tucker, he notices Tucker is fast asleep. After a near-death experience on the road, they pull into a hotel, where Tucker tries to give Eugene a lesson in "sophistication in the Playboy way." This leads to Tucker accidentally setting fire to the hotel when a small spark landed on the hotel room curtains while Tucker was trying to teach Eugene about smoking a pipe. The duo leaves in just enough time before the firemen arrive, nearly killing them both again.

Once in Chicago, they meet up with Horsedick Dot MPEG, who is shooting a music video for his next big hit. They all hop on board his party bus and begin to trek across the country towards the Playboy Mansion. Tucker attempts to have sex with a girl at the back of the bus named Crystal, but while she is stripping for him, the bus goes over a bump. While telling him if "he wants this, to come and get it", the bed shakes and she falls out the window. Horsedick and Eugene were discussing Eugene's story. The next morning, still discussing with each other, Horsedick implies that he was one of the men that slept with Cindi. Eugene took offense to this and attempted to hit him, only to lightly smack him due to his atrophy. In that same moment of anger, he over exerted himself again, leaving a mess on Horsedick's bus. Eugene and Tucker were both thrown out of the bus in the middle of nowhere, and left to walk the rest of the way. Just as it seemed all hope was lost, a car pulled up with two lesbian women. They make a deal where the boys will drive while the girls are in the back with each other having sex.

They make it all the way to the Mansion only to be stopped by bouncers at the door. Moments later, several fire trucks arrived, in search of Tucker. Tucker and Eugene manage to sneak into the mansion dressed in fireman outfits. The two go in separate directions while outside, Candace forces her way into the mansion, followed up by her brother, Rick. Tucker randomly hits on several Playboy models and meets PMOY 2007 Sara Jean Underwood and makes his way to the Grotto. Eugene, still continuing his search for Cindi, overhears Horsedick Dot MPEG talking to his crew about his previous encounter with Eugene. He continues the search only to be suspected of being a stalker and is taken into a secure holding area, but not before being spotted by Cindi.

Meanwhile, Tucker runs into Candace and darts back into the mansion, where he is spotted by the firemen. After avoiding the firemen, he stumbles upon Hugh Hefner's office and although it is locked, he manages to get in with the help of one of the lesbians (who picks the lock wither her tongue in homage to lesbian oral sex) and finds himself face to face with the Hef himself. Tucker tells the Playboy founder how horribly things have been going with Candace. Hugh and Tucker have a discussion about Tucker's issues, telling Tucker about the first woman he ever fell in love with (who to Tucker's dismay, was not as good looking as the Playboy Bunnies of modern day, and had apparently died at a young age). Hefner tells Tucker that "there is a bunny in every woman," and that if Tucker can only see the "bunny" in those women, that he's on to something.

Back in the holding area, Cindi comes in to see Eugene. Eugene seems disgusted to see her, claiming that she left him behind and didn't care about him, and accusing her of sleeping with countless other men. Cindi argues that she did still love him and proves it by telling Eugene that the money she made modeling and being a Playboy Bunny was sent to help pay for Eugene's hospital bills, something Tucker never bothered to mention due to his absent minded nature. Just at that moment, Hef had called to have all stalkers removed from the mansion.

Once tossed out on the streets, Candace finally caught up with Tucker. Tucker apologised for his faults and promised to look past hers. Candace decides to give him another chance. At the same token, Eugene runs into Horsedick Dot MPEG, who promised to "rip Eugene's face off." Eugene seems too distracted regardless to find Cindi. Cindi comes out and reveals that Horsedick was born without genitals, stating that he "wouldn't know what to do with a blow up doll," and that "he has to pee through a straw." His crew confirms that they have never seen him make it with a woman before, and restrain Horsedick, and pull down his pants, showing a straw sticking out where his genitals should be, confirming what Cindi said. Horsedick leaves ashamed, and after Eugene and Cindi make up, Hef lets everyone back in. Eugene and Tucker find themselves in the Mansion's kitchen, and Eugene tells Tucker that Cindi is waiting upstairs for him, shades of the situation that started the whole mess in the first place. And just like 4 years previous, Tucker and Eugene take several shots together before Eugene goes upstairs, where he finally has sex with Cindi. In the unrated version, footage show Eugene and Cindi having sex. As going too fast he overexerts himself.

In a scene that takes place over the credits, Eugene's doctor attempts to revive another patient with a baseball bat. He is initially unsuccessful and almost kills the patient before she suddenly wakes up and reveals herself to be Crystal, who survived the fall off the bus and declares that "You're a dead man, Tucker Cleigh."

Cast

• Zach Cregger as Eugene Bell
• Trevor Moore as Tucker Cleigh
• Raquel Alessi as Cindi Whitehall
• Molly Stanton as Candace
• Craig Robinson as Phil aka "Horsedick Dot MPEG"
• Hugh Hefner as Himself
• Sara Jean Underwood as Herself
• Betsy Rue as Strawberrius
• Carla Jimenez as Nurse Juanita
• Geoff Meed as Rick
• Cedric Yarbrough as Doctor
• Eve Mauro as Vonka
• Alexis Raben as Katja
• Tanjareen Martin as Crystal
• Barry Sigismondi as Mr. Whitehall
• Alex Donnelley as Mrs. Whitehall
• Windell D. Middlebrooks as Bouncer #1

Production

Trevor Moore and Zach Cregger were offered the script of Miss March by Fox, and although not initially interested the idea held some appeal and they took it on as a writing exercise and made it their own. They developed the project intentionally without the involvement of Playboy.^[3] Robert Wagner was originally cast as Hugh Hefner and according to the duo he did a great job but audiences at test screenings did not react positively. Audiences already familiar with Hefner from the television series The Girls Next Door, did not connect with Wagner.^[4] "Tail between their legs" they took the film to Playboy and luckily Hefner liked what he saw and agreed to take part as well as getting Playmate of The Year 2007 Sara Jean Underwood to cameo in the film.^[3][4]

Reception

Critical response

Miss March was poorly received by nearly all critics. Rotten Tomatoes reported that only 5% of reviewers gave the film positive reviews, based upon a sample of 76 reviews, which gave an average score of 2.5 out of 10.^[5] At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film received an average score of 7 ('overwhelming dislike' is their assignation for this score), based upon 15 reviews as of March 17, 2009.^[6]

James Berardinelli, an online film critic, wrote about the film, saying, "This is bad. Not bad in a way that it might be fun to see when inebriated. Bad in a way from which only death provides immunity. Forget waterboarding - just show Guantanamo detainees Miss March and they'll say anything."^[7] Tom O'Neil, a critic for the Los Angeles Times, questioned as to whether the film could be the worst of 2009.^[8] CNN critic Tom Charity declared the film the worst of 2009.^[9]

For his performance in the film, Hugh Hefner was nominated for a Razzie Award for "worst supporting actor".^[10][11]

Box office

On Miss March's opening weekend, the film grossed $2.4 million, which put the film in 10th place of all movies that weekend.^[12] The film grossed $4.54 million at the box office in the United States and Canada.^[1]

References

1. ^ ^{a b} "Miss March (2009)". Box Office Mojo. Amazon.com. April 30, 2009. http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=missmarch.htm. Retrieved 2010-09-03. 
2. ^ http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/2009/MSMAR.php
3. ^ ^{a b} Katey Rich (2009-03-13). "Interview: Miss March's Zach Cregger And Trevor Moore". Cinema Blend. http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Interview-Miss-March-s-Zach-Cregger-And-Trevor-Moore-12350.html. 
4. ^ ^{a b} P. MacDougal (2009-03-13). "Why Hugh Hefner is in Miss March (And why Robert Wagner isn't.)". IGN. News Corporation. pp. 2. http://movies.ign.com/articles/962/962679p1.html. "it tested really great throughout [the running time] until the very end when [Wagner as] Hefner came out, and then there was just this disconnect" 
5. ^ "Miss March (2009)". Rotten Tomatoes. Flixster. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/10010760-miss_march/. Retrieved March 22, 2009. 
6. ^ "Miss March (2009): Reviews". Metacritic. CBS. http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/missmarch. Retrieved March 17, 2009. 
7. ^ Berardinelli, James (March 13, 2009). "Miss March". Reelviews. http://www.reelviews.net/php_review_template.php?identifier=1515. Retrieved March 14, 2009. 
8. ^ O'Neil, Tom (March 13, 2009). "Could 'Miss March' be year's worst movie?". Los Angeles Times (The Envelope). http://goldderby.latimes.com/awards_goldderby/2009/03/miss-march-razz.html. Retrieved March 14, 2009. 
9. ^ Charity, Tom (January 1, 2010). "The best and worst films of 2009". CNN (CNN). http://www.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/Movies/01/01/best.worst.movies.2009/index.html. Retrieved January 1, 2010. 
10. ^ "30th Annual Razzie ® Award Nominees for Worst Supporting Actor of 2009". Razzies. http://www.razzies.com/history/09NomsACTO.asp. 
11. ^ "Hefner devastated at Razzie nod". Stuff.co.nz. 2010-02-06. http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/celebrities/3300290/Hefner-devastated-at-Razzie-nod.  https://twitter.com/hughhefner/status/8637804425
12. ^ "'Witch Mountain' casts box office spell". Associated Press. March 16, 2009. http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iJqkGt4RH5L28yHAx2vEH-C-qCkg. Retrieved March 17, 2009. 

External links

• Official website
• Miss March at the Internet Movie Database
• Miss March at AllRovi
• Miss March at Box Office Mojo
• Miss March at Rotten Tomatoes
• Miss March at Metacritic