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 Playboy 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. They make a deal where the boys will drive while the girls are in the back with each other 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 and when Eugene overexerted himself, there is a flatulent noise underneath the sheets (Let's leave it at that).
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
Zach Cregger as Eugene Pratt, A young male who woke up from a 4 year coma to learn his girlfriend is a Playboy centerfold
Trevor Moore as Tucker Cleigh, Eugene's friend who is obsessed with Playboy
Craig Robinson as Phil aka "Horsedick Dot MPEG", an old high school classmate turned successful rapper
Raquel Alessi as Cindi Whitehall, Eugene's girlfriend, now a playmate
Molly Stanton as Candace, Trevor's girlfriend, suffering from epilepsy
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.[4]
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.[5] "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.[4][5]
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."[6]
On Metacritic, the film received a weighted average average score of 7 out of 100 based upon 15 reviews, indicating "overwhelming dislike".[7]
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."[8]
Tom O'Neil, a critic for the Los Angeles Times, questioned as to whether the film could be the worst of 2009.[9]CNN critic Tom Charity declared the film the worst of 2009.[10]
For his performance in the film, Playboy founder Hugh Hefner was nominated for a Razzie Award for "worst supporting actor".[11][12][13]
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.[14]
The film grossed $4.54 million at the box office in the United States and Canada.[3]
Home video
The film was released on both Blu-ray and DVD on July 28, 2009.[citation needed]
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.[citation needed]
^"'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.
