Hey everyone, I'm TheCinemaChick and I check out what's new so you can make an informed decision about what you see in the theaters. I've been putting this one off for a few days because honestly, I just haven't wanted to touch it. So, instead of putting it off I'm just going to tackle it.
So here we go with the newest Cameron Diaz flick, Bad Teacher.
I actually didn't intend to see this movie. I had gone to see Mr Popper's Penguins with Butterfly but the theater was so crowded that we ended up going into Bad Teacher instead. Neither of us had high hopes for this and I had no desire to see it. However, it wasn't completely miserable. If I were to give it a grade, I'd give it a D+.
It's another raunchy comedy and those aren't my personal favorite. As you may have read in one of my former blogs, I loathed Bridesmaids. Bad Teacher is a step up from that, however. It had moments that were genuinely heartwarming and almost seemed like it tried to send a good message. Even though it never delivered on that, at least they tried. Bad Teacher has a lot of drinking, a lot of pot smoking and more than enough coarse language to turn a person off.
Cameron Diaz's character is the epitome of horrible teachers. She shows up hungover and shows movies in class instead of actually teaching. Also, the plot of the movie centers around her wanting to get breast augmentation. Yes, you read correctly: A boob job. She goes to great lengths to get the money for this, even going so far as to steal cash from the school car wash. The only reason she does this is because she has her eyes set on the new substitute teacher at school, played by Justin Timberlake. Diaz's character is a gold digger and at the beginning of the film, she is dumped by her sugar daddy. Scott Delacorte (Timberlake) happens to come from a family with lots of money.
However, the boob job plot seems to take a backseat a lot. There are lots of scenes that just really don't fit in with the overall movie. We also have Amy Squirrel, who is an irritatingly upbeat and happy teacher who is the total opposite of Elizabeth Halsey (Diaz). While Squirrel (played by Lucy Punch) is annoying, she is meant to be so. Her perkiness counteracts Halsey's laziness. I do wish they had better explained the "2008 incident" that is referred to a few times. Maybe I missed what it was, but I know had to do with Squirrel's obsessive behavior.
While all of that is going on, the gym teacher, Russell Gettis (Jason Segel) pursues Halsey but she looks down on him for being a gym teacher. Eventually he succeeds but probably because of the wrong reasons.
Halsey does get her happy ending, but it's not satisfying. She clearly doesn't deserve all the good things in her life but she still earns it.
Overall, it's just disappointing. I laughed twice and giggled maybe a few times. I'm not a huge fan of overly crude humor and I don't like seeing movies that have to rely on that for laughs. It also bothered me that Halsey never got fired for her actions, even though she was got caught smoking marijuana on campus, keeps alcohol in her desk and even steals answers to a standardized tests to ensure that she gets a bonus to help her get her plastic surgery. She never gets in trouble for her actions and never has to atone for them. I guess good things to happen to horrible people.
I'm happy to report that after this letdown, I'm going to be able to work on my Back to Basics series again soon. I've recently rewatched The Lord of the Rings trilogy, extended version and I'd like to write about that. I'm also considering reviewing Suburban Knights, a video series on thatguywiththeglasses.com. I've been watching it every night since it's release on Monday and I love it. Again, I doubt the site gives a damn if I write something to promote them, but my goal is to be on their team in two years. I just need to work on becoming a vlogger instead of a plain old blogger.
Other than my thoughts on Lord of the Rings, I'm going to see the new Transformers movie on Saturday with Butterfly and Fry. I'm hoping it's better than the second one.
Well, I'm TheCinemaChick and remember, every pageview I earn makes me money.
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