When I sat down to watch “Miss March,” I was prepared to hate it. Two days prior, I had berated a friend for expressing interest in seeing it. I screamed, “How can you support such dribble? We’re in an economic depression that is shaking our society to the core and you want to commit what is equivalent to cultural genocide by condoning the production of that s***?”
His response was that the directors and writers of “Miss March”, Zach Cregger and Trevor Moore, have a really funny sketch comedy show called “The Whitest Kids U Know” on the Independent Film Channel. Despite IFC being to me what the wolf-mother was to Romulus, I’ve never watched “The Whitest Kids U Know” (I try to stay away from people and things too lazy to spell out three letter words).
Needless to say, I was bringing some prejudices into the theater with me.
So, I’m sitting there and the movie begins with young Eugene and Tucker discovering Eugene’s older brother’s Playboy hidden in the closet. Eugene survives this incident unharmed; Tucker becomes a pervert.
Cue little-kid-saying-horrible-degrading-things-to-women-gag (“You could bounce a quarter off that turdcutter”).
At this point I begin reconciling with my God as I try to decide which part of my neck would be the best place to violently insert my pen.
Flash forward a few years. Eugene (Cregger) is abstinent and Tucker (Moore) is still a pervert. They now form that classic of comedy duos: the straight guy and the
horny-idiot-but-with-moments-of-brilliant-insight guy. Did you ever see “Eurotrip”? It’s kind of like that.
Then there is some exposition: Eugene and his girlfriend Cindi (Raquel Alessi) are abstinent because Eugene’s older brother engaged in coitus once and his life went to hell. But Cindi wants more, so she convinces Eugene to have sex with her after prom. This development is inter-cut with scenes of Tucker behaving inappropriately and the introduction of Phil (a neutered Craig Robinson), a friend of Tucker’s who is trying to get his rap game off the ground with the MC name Horsed***.MPEG.
The depravity continues for about another 10 minutes and I’m sitting there wondering why God has forsaken his poor servant . and then something happens: I chuckle. What? How can this be? Must have been a fluke; I continue to watch. But then, as the movie progresses, something begins to come alive inside of me. Something that lives in that dark and shameful place in my gut . that place where the “Handbanana” episode of “Aqua Teen Hunger Force” is the epitome of hilarity . that place where, no matter how hard my artistic desires try to repress it, I still laugh at poop jokes. This thing, my id of comedy, begins to slowly crawl up my throat and before I know it . I’m laughing. Hard. I mean I was sitting alone in the theater, geeking out.
What can I say? The movie’s kind of funny.
I mean it’s not really funny. It’s not Strangelove funny. It’s not Superbad funny. But Cregger and Moore do have good comedic chemistry and they’re timing is good, they play off each other well (they do fall into every buddy/road trip comedy cliché imaginable, but they’re always able to pick themselves back up and move onto the next gag).
Is there a plot? Kind of, it’s more or less a variety of sketches strung together with a common theme (Tucker’s an idiot and Eugene loves Cindi), but compared to other road films, it’s remarkably well structured. Do the guys get the girls and everything works out in the end? Of course. Does it misuse the typically hysterical Robinson? Yes. Does the film have any redeemable cultural or artistic value? No. Can Hugh Hefner act? Negatron. Do I overuse the question-response method of reviewing? Yeah, I know, I’m working on it. Is the fact that the most chauvinistic character in the film literally has no penis a comment on the impotence of the masculine sexual domination of women or an excuse to show deformed testicles with straws sticking out? I’m betting on the latter, though the movie is strangely respectful of women, especially considering it’s centered around objectifying them.
There is one big problem though, but it isn’t Cregger or Moore’s fault. “Miss March” doesn’t mark the demise of Western civilization and I did enjoy it. Now, when my friend comes into Richmond Friday, I’m going to have to eat my words. I hate doing that. It’s enough for me to start hating “Miss March” all over again.