18-year-olds might lap up juvenile "Miss March"; Lowbrow "College" fails out

Miss March (2009) 

90 min., rated R.

Grade: D 

Creators of the cult TV series “The Whitest Kids U' Know,” Zach Cregger and Trevor Moore, star, write, and direct their first feature-length film "Miss March" . . . and it's the Unfunniest Comedy U' Know, this year so far that is. Cregger plays high school senior Eugene who practices abstinence—and even teaches it to elementary school kids—with his gorgeous but modest girlfriend Cindi (Raquel Alessi, remaining a cipher most of the movie) but promises to lose his V-card on prom night. But before he can seal the deal, Eugene slips into a coma for four years. Waking up (with no control of his sphincter), he realizes his sweetheart Cindi is now a Playboy centerfold for the month of, yes you guessed it, March. What do you know, the upcoming Saturday is the same day as Playboy's Annual Anniversary Bash, so Eugene and his always-horny childhood buddy Tucker (Trevor Moore) road trip it. An unnecessary, mean-spirited horror-movie subplot involves Tucker's epileptic girlfriend (Molly Stanton), her fireman brother, and his men on the guys' tail after Tucker stabs said girlfriend when she has a seizure while giving him oral sex (!). 

This juvenile, raunchy horndog sex-comedy suffers from annoying male leads and an overall determination to be crude to an appalling, misogynistic degree, making this thing pretty much a dog. Speaking of, there's one icky gag with drinking dog urine. You may find two cheap snickers at the most, but this is the kind of movie where the filmmakers didn't think one literal bowel obstruction joke was enough, as three make the tally. 

Cregger is uncharismatic as Eugene, and Moore does an insufferable imitation of Matthew Lillard and Jim Carrey's Ace Ventura, mugging and wearing an open Hawaiian button-down. The T&A factor is surprisingly low for a crude comedy with Playboy on the brain, until the final ten minutes at Hugh Hefner's mansion, who by the way gives an extended cameo. Craig Robinson's exaggerated rap artist, Horsedick.MPG, is in particular poor taste, as he rocks a party bus full of black hoes and then flashes his mangina. 18-year-olds and frat guys will be easily amused by "Miss March," but not anyone else.  

College (2008) 

94 min., rated R.

Grade: D

You don't have to clear a 1000 on your SATs to know that "College" is a dim dud. Drake Bell, a far departure from his Nickelodeon show “Drake & Josh,” is Kevin, a straight-arrow high school senior who is just dumped by his girlfriend. So he and his two pals—geeky Morris (Kevin Covais) and slovenly Carter (Andrew Caldwell)—take a road trip to Fieldmont University (ha ha, F.U., get it?!) to experience the wild college parties. Rejecting the dorm room of a chronic masturbator as home for their visit, they get into a frat house, only to be hazed the whole weekend. 

This lowbrow, all too typical teen comedy seems carved straight from the "Superbad" mold (the friends even get fake IDs!) mixed with Animal House and is as uninspired as its own title. Stacked with girls-gone-wild bare breasts, gross-out bathroom humor, and homophobic jokes galore, "College" may suit the college crowd whom it was made for, just not anyone else. The pledge pranks are just gross and so funny you'll forget to laugh (i.e. taking shots off a hairy frat brother's chest and swallowing liquor sliding down his ass crack); the characters are crude and unappealing that you wouldn't want to have a beer with them, particularly Caldwell, who's some sort of junior Chris Farley. 

However, if anything, freshman director Deb Hagan refreshingly makes the girls sweet and intelligent, not simpleminded fun-bag bimbos. Verne Troyer wastes his time giving a namedropping cameo as himself. "College" is like frat hazing to the audience.