Rating out of 5 stars:
Director:
Tom Putnam
Producer:
Gary Barber, Roger Birnbaum, Jonathan Glickman
Screenwriter:
Heidi Ferrer
Stars:
Paris Hilton, Joel Moore, Christine Lankin, Adam Culbersh, Greg Wilson,
Johann Urb
MPAA Rating:
PG-13
Released:
2008
The Hottie and the Nottie
Review by Mike Lippert:
Back in 2005, when doing interviews for her then new film House of Wax, Canadian actress Elisha Cuthbert expressed reservations about working with Paris Hilton, and why not? She seems to be just about the most vulgar, annoying, dimwitted, shallow and intolerable of all the recent pseudo-celebrities who have become famous without doing anything of the slightest importance. However, the comment was unfair and the finished film showed that Hilton was no more inept in front of the camera than her co-stars Chad Michael Murray and especially Cuthbert herself, who couldn't act her way out of a wet paper bag if life depended on it.
I also don't blame Hilton for the wretchedness that is her newest film The Hottie and the Nottie, even though she is smack dab in the center, contributing to it every step of the way. No one, after all, but Hilton, could recite a line with a straight face stating that fate and magic is the same thing. No, if anything, Hilton is just an innocent bystander: a girl with a bad agent who was too stupid to know that this film could not be anything but absolute garbage. Instead I blame the screenwriter, a woman who must loath the very thought of the sexuality she was born into; the director who didn't realize how unfunny and insufferable what he was putting on screen actually was; or the producers who actually believed enough in this project to put money into it. Not to mention the distributor's who thought that the finished product that lay before all our eyes was good enough to be released to theaters. There are all kinds of interesting films with big stars that go direct to video all the time, so who in the hell, I must wonder, thought that this film was good enough to enter into even the lowliest of multiplexes? Ya, Paris Hilton is the least of the problems here.
Hilton plays Christabelle Abbott, the apparent hottest girl in L.A., although, I don't know, Paris Hilton as the hottest girl in L.A.? Maybe if the film took place in Alaska…Nevermind. Nate Cooper (the thoroughly annoying sad-sack of an actor Joel Moore), who doesn't take the hint when his recently ex-girlfriend spray paints loser across the side of his car, smashes his guitar over his head, and runs him over, has been in love with Christabelle since first grade. He visits his buddy Arno (played by a guy who is listed on IMDB as, and I kid you not, The Greg Wilson), a character so pathetic that he lives at home with his mom, and has a folder on Christabelle, tracking her every move. I guess this character is supposed to be funny, but isn't a guy who lives at home and keeps folders on hot girls, kind of creepy no matter how you slice it? I think it's safe to say that if I never see The Greg in another film for as long as I live I won't lose much of The sleep.
Nate reconnects with Christabelle by the beach after her knocks her down while she is jogging; he gets too close from behind while trying to sniff her you see. I guess, being an improvement over the albino stalker and the other guy with the "will you marry me sign" who sit on a bench waiting every morning for Christabelle to jog by, Nate seems like a decent enough guy, despite the fact that he is actually shallow, conniving and will lie to any extent just to be with her. Did I mention he was sniffing her? Then again, Christabelle doesn't seem like the kind of girl who puts much thought into anything. Her philosophy: "A life without orgasms is like a life without flowers." Apparently daffodils are more important to her than say, oh I donno, water, food, shelter, true love even?
However, there is one thing standing between Nate and his true love: Christabelle's best friend June Phigg, the nottie, who has never had a boyfriend, making Christabelle promise that she will not date until June has someone special in her life. Unfortunately for Nate, who plans to hire a man to take June out (when that doesn't work, he tries hypnoses to similar results), June is the ugliest girl imaginable: think Nanny McPhee with leprosy. June has horrible acne, a gigantic mole on her face, pitch black teeth, hairy legs, peeling skin, and an infected toenail that would make even John Waters flinch in disgust. This girl is a real piece of work. That's the problem. June's ugliness is so hyperbolic that it soars right past comedy into the realms of the downright obscene. No human being, no matter how unkempt, is as ugly as June, and the more the film tries to play on all of her physical deficiencies the farther it moves away from comedy and into the realms of the shallow.
What's surprising is that Christine Lakin, the actress who plays June, who is naturally beautiful, doesn't play her as caricature; probably the only thing saving the film from utter contemptibility. It's a wise choice on behalf of Lakin who, given time, could prove herself to be a halfway decent star. She at least tries to make June a lot smarter and sympathetic than she needs be, despite the fact that the film goes to great, disgusting lengths in order to translate mocking her ugliness into comedy. Watch the unexpected nuance to an exchange with Joel about Vienna, or the way she almost saves a contrived scene in which she deals with the fact that Joel is just too stupid to realize something about her that all of us already know. That's more than can be said for Hilton, who doesn't so much act, as pose, and pout, and deliver lines as if she is reading them right out of the script.
Near the beginning of the review I mentioned that writer Heidi Ferrer must really hate her sexuality. That's because, in the third act, the Hottie and the Nottie becomes so morally corrupt that its very pomposity should insult every woman who sees it. The gang meets a European model/pilot/cook/dentist named Johann who offers to fix June's teeth for her. He apparently also removes the mole and fixes her hair and skin too, because June is given a complete make-over, revealing her as a true beauty, at which point Joel slowly begins to realize that it is June who is his true love. How is this supposed to empower women? Should we take this to mean that all women deserve the love of a man; all they need to do is get a full body make-over? I can see why Paris Hilton might like that moral, but Paris Hilton doesn't make herself out to be like the rest of us: people of intelligence, and humanity. No, she's more like June: over exaggerated to the point of caricature.
Back in 2005, when doing interviews for her then new film House of Wax, Canadian actress Elisha Cuthbert expressed reservations about working with Paris Hilton, and why not? She seems to be just about the most vulgar, annoying, dimwitted, shallow and intolerable of all the recent pseudo-celebrities who have become famous without doing anything of the slightest importance. However, the comment was unfair and the finished film showed that Hilton was no more inept in front of the camera than her co-stars Chad Michael Murray and especially Cuthbert herself, who couldn't act her way out of a wet paper bag if life depended on it.
I also don't blame Hilton for the wretchedness that is her newest film The Hottie and the Nottie, even though she is smack dab in the center, contributing to it every step of the way. No one, after all, but Hilton, could recite a line with a straight face stating that fate and magic is the same thing. No, if anything, Hilton is just an innocent bystander: a girl with a bad agent who was too stupid to know that this film could not be anything but absolute garbage. Instead I blame the screenwriter, a woman who must loath the very thought of the sexuality she was born into; the director who didn't realize how unfunny and insufferable what he was putting on screen actually was; or the producers who actually believed enough in this project to put money into it. Not to mention the distributor's who thought that the finished product that lay before all our eyes was good enough to be released to theaters. There are all kinds of interesting films with big stars that go direct to video all the time, so who in the hell, I must wonder, thought that this film was good enough to enter into even the lowliest of multiplexes? Ya, Paris Hilton is the least of the problems here.
Hilton plays Christabelle Abbott, the apparent hottest girl in L.A., although, I don't know, Paris Hilton as the hottest girl in L.A.? Maybe if the film took place in Alaska…Nevermind. Nate Cooper (the thoroughly annoying sad-sack of an actor Joel Moore), who doesn't take the hint when his recently ex-girlfriend spray paints loser across the side of his car, smashes his guitar over his head, and runs him over, has been in love with Christabelle since first grade. He visits his buddy Arno (played by a guy who is listed on IMDB as, and I kid you not, The Greg Wilson), a character so pathetic that he lives at home with his mom, and has a folder on Christabelle, tracking her every move. I guess this character is supposed to be funny, but isn't a guy who lives at home and keeps folders on hot girls, kind of creepy no matter how you slice it? I think it's safe to say that if I never see The Greg in another film for as long as I live I won't lose much of The sleep.
Nate reconnects with Christabelle by the beach after her knocks her down while she is jogging; he gets too close from behind while trying to sniff her you see. I guess, being an improvement over the albino stalker and the other guy with the "will you marry me sign" who sit on a bench waiting every morning for Christabelle to jog by, Nate seems like a decent enough guy, despite the fact that he is actually shallow, conniving and will lie to any extent just to be with her. Did I mention he was sniffing her? Then again, Christabelle doesn't seem like the kind of girl who puts much thought into anything. Her philosophy: "A life without orgasms is like a life without flowers." Apparently daffodils are more important to her than say, oh I donno, water, food, shelter, true love even?
However, there is one thing standing between Nate and his true love: Christabelle's best friend June Phigg, the nottie, who has never had a boyfriend, making Christabelle promise that she will not date until June has someone special in her life. Unfortunately for Nate, who plans to hire a man to take June out (when that doesn't work, he tries hypnoses to similar results), June is the ugliest girl imaginable: think Nanny McPhee with leprosy. June has horrible acne, a gigantic mole on her face, pitch black teeth, hairy legs, peeling skin, and an infected toenail that would make even John Waters flinch in disgust. This girl is a real piece of work. That's the problem. June's ugliness is so hyperbolic that it soars right past comedy into the realms of the downright obscene. No human being, no matter how unkempt, is as ugly as June, and the more the film tries to play on all of her physical deficiencies the farther it moves away from comedy and into the realms of the shallow.
What's surprising is that Christine Lakin, the actress who plays June, who is naturally beautiful, doesn't play her as caricature; probably the only thing saving the film from utter contemptibility. It's a wise choice on behalf of Lakin who, given time, could prove herself to be a halfway decent star. She at least tries to make June a lot smarter and sympathetic than she needs be, despite the fact that the film goes to great, disgusting lengths in order to translate mocking her ugliness into comedy. Watch the unexpected nuance to an exchange with Joel about Vienna, or the way she almost saves a contrived scene in which she deals with the fact that Joel is just too stupid to realize something about her that all of us already know. That's more than can be said for Hilton, who doesn't so much act, as pose, and pout, and deliver lines as if she is reading them right out of the script.
Near the beginning of the review I mentioned that writer Heidi Ferrer must really hate her sexuality. That's because, in the third act, the Hottie and the Nottie becomes so morally corrupt that its very pomposity should insult every woman who sees it. The gang meets a European model/pilot/cook/dentist named Johann who offers to fix June's teeth for her. He apparently also removes the mole and fixes her hair and skin too, because June is given a complete make-over, revealing her as a true beauty, at which point Joel slowly begins to realize that it is June who is his true love. How is this supposed to empower women? Should we take this to mean that all women deserve the love of a man; all they need to do is get a full body make-over? I can see why Paris Hilton might like that moral, but Paris Hilton doesn't make herself out to be like the rest of us: people of intelligence, and humanity. No, she's more like June: over exaggerated to the point of caricature.
Copyright © Greg Roberts
