THE HOUSE BUNNY (2008) - ***

Yeah RRA yours truely is putting aside his usual queue of masculine pulp action exploitation trash and 1980s fantasy cinema by reviewing this girlie flick. Plus my girlfriend made me watch it or else I can't get my next DVD through Netflix, so I had to make the most of this situation.

For better or for worse, THE HOUSE BUNNY is exactly the sort of picture I interpreted from the trailer that endlessly played in theatres back in the summer, but is that a compliment or an insult, or both? You know what I mean, BUNNY following a time-honored plot formula practiced from ANIMAL HOUSE to BACK TO SCHOOL and OLD SCHOOL and so forth where some outsider joins a college campus, meets up with misfits who won't conform, jokes at the clashing of contrasts between hero and academics, duels with snobbish elites and ultimately triumphs. They all also include epic confrontations at student government hearings and meetings, which from my experience is nonsense since student government is nowhere that fun or interesting.

But for what it is, THE HOUSE BUNNY is basically LEGALLY BLONDE meets REVENGE OF THE NERDS, with self-absorbed and absolutely clueless Playboy bunny Anna Farris kicked out of the Mansion, become the House Mother of a Sorority of losers. I mean come on you've seen this movie before, do I really need to go on?

You bastards, I'll never forgive any of you.

OK I'm kidding, for HOUSE BUNNY was alright, but not for the film itself but simply for Farris. I never cared for that SCARY MOVIE series, but she was always a winner in them. Hell, she was only one of two decent things in Ivan Reitman's otherwise terrible MY SUPER EX-GIRLFRIEND, and also she was in BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN and on ENTOURAGE. But what pays her bills is playing very well, perhaps too well, a persona of the charming but vapid blonde, a shtick that made a fortune decades ago for Goldie Hawn. The sad thing I guess is that Farris is so good at it, I wonder if most people assume she is truely such an intellectual flake. Plus she has a very nice ass, or at least her body double does.

Since BUNNY is a Happy Madison production, thus Adam Sandler is a producer, expect some uninspired if at times funny cruel demaning gross jokes. I mean really, a FOREST GUMP-based gag with a crippled girl? Yeah you paralyzed people, your problem is that you all are too lazy. I mean dear Lord I can't believe I just typed that. I mean you get what you pay for. I warned you.

What I did despise though was that after Farris transforms her girls from ugly duckling archetypes of Goth, Midget, Knocked-Up, Hick, Mute, Nerd, etc., then this film then had the gall to end with preaching "be yourself." WHAT?!? Isn't that what these gals were doing in the first place? I mean for fucks sake, what a goddamn condescending message.

There is a point to be made that society never took these women seriously until they ditched their brains in favor of upgrading and bitching out., and pose for a calender. I guess I like that they all initially were doing all this just to save their charter, but that point is lost and we're stuck with Hollywood once again telling girls that boobs are better than brains. I mean I love both, so why can't we have both like say Scarlett Johansson, a woman I could have an intelligent conversation with while I'm undressing her with my eyes.

Hey, I'm at least a honest guy.

So I guess I'm like the Colin Hanks character, playing a brighter but less chummy role that his dad would have played in the early 1980s. I laughed at that one scene of depressed Hugh Hefner eating ice cream because Farris left the mansion, then I realize how irrelevant Playboy itself has become. My generation of guys were the first to figure out that instead of sneakingly shoplifting a Playboy magazine at the local convenience store or try to watch scrampled porn on pre-digital cable days looking through back issues of National Geographic, you could get the same content and more easier and for free on the Internet. Oh sure there's that popular THE GIRLS NEXT DOOR reality TV program, but that's it for Playboy.

Also, I'm sure Hefner has some dumb blonde bimbos stacked around after Farris left, like Pamela Anderson. OK, she's got Hepatitis, but there are others.

So I like HOUSE BUNNY, or I like Anna Farris who just happened to be in a movie called HOUSE BUNNY. I mean better than having to watch the SEX & THE CITY motion picture, right?

Wait, I gotta review that too? No, that's it. We drew a specific line here when we came into our holy Netflix covenant. With two at a time, you get your stupid shit, and I get my stupid shit. I know you're not interested in watching Jean Claude Van Damme's SUDDEN DEATH or Steven Seagal's FIRE DOWN BELOW, so don't watch it. No, BRIDGET JONES' DIARY isn't higher brow than DIE HARD 2, for both are disposable but fun popcorn. I love you, I really do, but you're killing me here. How about 50 FIRST DATES again, and I'll clean your car?

Deal.