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Miss March

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2009 film by Trevor Moore and Zach Cregger

Miss March
Theatrical release poster
Directed byTrevor Moore
Zach Cregger
Written byTrevor Moore
Zach Cregger
Produced byTom Jacobson
Starring
CinematographyAnthony B. Richmond
Edited byTim Mirkovich
Music byJeff Cardoni
Production
companies		Fox Atomic
Jacobson Company
Alta Loma Entertainment
Distributed byFox Searchlight Pictures
Release date
  • March 13, 2009 (2009-03-13)
Running time90 minutes
Unrated version: 94 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$6 million
Box office$4.6 million

Miss March is a 2009 American sex comedy film written, starring, and directed by Trevor Moore and Zach Cregger, stars of the IFC show The Whitest Kids U' Know. The film was released on March 13, 2009. It marks the final on-screen film appearance of Hugh Hefner before his death in 2017. It is also the first of only three films directed by Trevor Moore before his death in 2021, the second being "The Civil War On Drugs" which was aired in segments in the final season of The Whitest Kids U' Know in 2011, and the third being the animated comedy “Mars” which is set to be released posthumously.

Plot

Tucker has been a huge fan of the Playboy franchise since finding his friend Eugene's older brother's magazines when he was eight. Eugene and his girlfriend Cindi Whitehall are public speakers to the elementary kids on the subject of abstinence and the awareness of syphilis while Eugene spoke of what happened to his brother after a fire claiming his wife and nephew. Regardless of the seminar, Cindi tells Eugene she couldn't wait and wanted to have sex. They plan to have sex at an after prom party that Tucker has invited them to. At the party, Eugene is nervous and Tucker gives him several shots of hard alcohol. Eugene falls down the steps into the basement and is in a coma for four years.

Tucker wakes Eugene from the coma with a baseball bat, and they discover that Cindi has become the newest Playboy centerfold. Tucker devises a plan to go cross country to the Playboy Mansion and crash Playboy's annual Birthday bash in order to reunite Eugene with his old girlfriend. Tucker's girlfriend, Candace, also begins hunting him down after an incident where he stabbed her after she bit his genitals during an epileptic seizure while performing fellatio. They are immediately being targeted by the local firefighters led by Candace's brother, Rick. The duo loses the tail and the firefighters reach out to other firefighters across the country, placing a bounty on Tucker's head. After accidentally burning down a hotel room, Eugene and Tucker soon find out that firefighters everywhere are hunting them down.

In Chicago, they meet up with their old friend, who has become a famous rapper with the MC name of Horsedick dot MPEG. They all hop on board his party bus and begin to trek across the country towards the Mansion. On the bus, Tucker is in the bedroom with Crystal, one of Horsedick's women. After bouncing up and down on the bed for Tucker's amusement, she accidentally flies out the open window. After an argument between Horsedick and Eugene, resulting in Eugene defecating on board, Tucker and Eugene are both thrown out of the bus in the middle of nowhere and left to walk the rest of the way. Just as it seems like all hope is lost, a car pulls up with two Russian lesbians, Nadia and Vonka. The four make a deal where the boys do the driving to Los Angeles while the women are in the back seat having sex.

They make it to the Mansion only to be stopped by bouncers at the door while the lesbians are let in. Eugene is suspected of being a stalker and is taken into a secure holding area, but not before being spotted by Cindi. Meanwhile, Tucker runs into Hugh Hefner. Hugh and Tucker have a discussion about Tucker's issues, telling Tucker about the first woman he ever fell in love with. 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. Hugh soon calls security upon learning that Tucker not only stabbed his girlfriend in the face with a fork, but the fact that firefighters want to kill him.

Back in the holding area, Cindi comes in to see Eugene. Eugene claims she left him behind and didn't care about him, but Cindi tells Eugene that the money she made modeling and being a Playboy Bunny was sent to help pay for Eugene's hospital bills after his neglectful father wanted to permanently move him into a low-grade hospital. She then pointed out that Tucker was receiving the mail which sparked some ire in Eugene. Shortly after, both guys are thrown out of the Mansion. Tucker is handed to the firefighters for a beheading and Tucker apologizes to Candace begging for a second chance with her, and she decides to give him another shot, which infuriated Rick and his fire crew.

Eugene is handed over to Horsedick dot MPEG, who promised to "rip Eugene's face off". After Cindi reveals to everyone outside that Horsedick was born without genitals, his right-hand man realizes that he's never seen MPEG in action with a woman. At that moment, his crew pulls down his pants, showing nothing but two straws where his genitals should be. Horsedick leaves embarrassed and ashamed, and after Eugene and Cindi make up, Hefner 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. They finally have sex, where Eugene "overexerts" himself.

During the credits, Eugene's doctor is attempting to resuscitate a coma with a baseball bat the same way Tucker did Eugene. The coma patient turned out to be Crystal, who woke up before the doctor struck her, promising to kill Tucker.

Cast

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.

Robert Wagner was originally cast as Hugh Hefner and according to Moore and Cregger, 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. "Tails between their legs," Moore and Cregger took the film to Playboy. Fortunately, Hefner liked what he saw and agreed to take part, as well as getting 2007 Playmate of the Year Sara Jean Underwood to cameo in the film.

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 81 reviews, which gave an average score of 2.90 out of 10. Its consensus states, "Even by the modest standards of the teen sex comedy genre, the crass, poorly-made Miss March misses the mark." On Metacritic, the film received a weighted average average score of 7 out of 100 based upon 15 reviews, indicating "overwhelming dislike".

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." Tom O'Neil, a critic for the Los Angeles Times, questioned as to whether the film could be the worst of 2009. CNN critic Tom Charity declared the film the worst of 2009.

For his performance in the film, Playboy founder Hugh Hefner was nominated for a Razzie Award for "worst supporting actor".

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. The film grossed $4.54 million at the box office in the United States and Canada.

Home video

The film was released on both Blu-ray and DVD on July 28, 2009.

Retrospective

Moore and Cregger talked about the film several times on their weekly Twitch livestreams (before Moore's death). Cregger has stated he believes they did the best they could with the idea, and although some scenes work, the film was their first attempt at making a movie. Despite that, he is still relatively critical of the final product. Moore on the other hand, stood by the movie, comparing it to their sketch group The Whitest Kids U' Know TV series "some parts are funny, some parts aren't." The directors still had a sense of humor about the poor response as they would read the poor reviews and sarcastically remark about the film's quality on livestream.

References

  1. ^ "Miss March (2009)". AFI Catalog of Feature Films. Retrieved February 21, 2021.
  2. ^ "Miss March". The Numbers: Where Data and the Movie Business Meet. Retrieved March 30, 2015.
  3. ^ "Miss March (2009)". Box Office Mojo. Amazon.com. April 30, 2009. Retrieved September 3, 2010.
  4. ^ Rich, Katey (March 13, 2009). "Interview: Miss March's Zach Cregger And Trevor Moore". Cinema Blend. Archived from the original on March 15, 2009.
  5. ^ MacDougal, P. (March 13, 2009). "Why Hugh Hefner is in Miss March (And why Robert Wagner isn't.)". IGN. News Corporation. p. 2. Archived from the original on December 1, 2017. it tested really great throughout until the very end when Hefner came out, and then there was just this disconnect
  6. "Miss March (2009)". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved August 22, 2021.
  7. "Miss March (2009): Reviews". Metacritic. CBS. Archived from the original on February 12, 2010. Retrieved March 17, 2021.
  8. Berardinelli, James (March 13, 2009). "Miss March". Reelviews. Retrieved March 14, 2009.
  9. O'Neil, Tom (March 13, 2009). "Could 'Miss March' be year's worst movie?". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on March 18, 2009. Retrieved March 14, 2009.
  10. Charity, Tom (January 1, 2010). "The best and worst films of 2009". CNN. CNN. Retrieved January 1, 2010.
  11. "30th Annual Razzie Award Nominees for Worst Supporting Actor of 2009". Razzies. Archived from the original on February 4, 2010. Retrieved December 30, 2010.
  12. "Hefner devastated at Razzie nod". Stuff.co.nz. February 6, 2010.
  13. Hefner, Hugh (February 4, 2010). "I've been nominated for a Razzie for my portrayal of Hugh Hefner in "Miss March." Maybe I didn't understand the character" (Tweet). Retrieved October 7, 2017 – via Twitter.
  14. "'Witch Mountain' casts box office spell". Associated Press. March 16, 2009. Archived from the original on March 22, 2009. Retrieved March 1, 2021. Racy comedy "Miss March" debuted at a disappointing 10th place, bringing in 2.4 million dollars.

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