Bad Teachers

By Author: mspaul
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“Bad teacher” is a foul-mouthed new movie release, in some good ways much like Bad Santa was, but it’s not like “Bad Santa” at all. All in all, it’s a good successor to Bad Santa’s black comedy. Cameron Diaz stars in “Bad Teacher”, right after her role in “Green Hornet.” She’s showing her star-power here as the foxy teacher who will do anything to get boob enhancement to attract a good-looking and wealthy fellow teacher. It seems like audiences are looking for more female comedies after the success of Bridesmaids, which made $100 million in the month of May. New Movie Bad Teacher is up against “Cars 2” and “Green Lantern.”
In this upcoming movie Diaz plays Elizabeth Halsey. She’s a substitute teacher and a real gold-digger. On the final day of school she goes home to her fiancé, a limp-wristed, millionaire, mama’s boy, and finds that he wants to break up with her. So she’s forced to go back to teaching – if you want to call it that. She spends her days asleep at her desk while her students watch movies and she tries to figure out how to snare another millionaire. She soon finds ...
... out that the new teacher at school, Scott Delacorte, played by Justin Timberlake, is rich as Croesus. She then decides to get a boob job to win him over. But how is she supposed to get enough money for the surgery? She decides to have her students cheat on a state test so she can win a school incentive check.
What causes most black comedies to fail is the director’s desire to make the lead character more sympathetic. Director Jake Kasdan makes Elizabeth a “mean girl” from the beginning of the movie to the end of it. She never gets to love having small breasts or gets used to not having much money. What Kasdan does do is create a smarmy character named Amy Squirrel, played by Lucy Punch, who is so annoying that we want Elizabeth to beat her up! Punch is great at playing the passive-aggressive school marm in this movie picture.
The two men who circle around Elizabeth, Scott, played by Timberlake, and Russell, played by Jason Segal, show the difference between the best catch and the best guy. Scott is clueless but has good intentions. Russell is patient, funny, and doesn’t seem to mind Elizabeth’s bad intentions. Both are funny. Segal’s discussion of a car ride sans map is a riot. The funniest scene in the film is probably the totally clothed humping session between Elizabeth and Scott.
Timberlake is terrific. He’s had a lot of roles but this is the one in which he shows his many dimensions as an actor. He’s smart and understands not only his own audience appeal but that of his character as well. Russell is smart, really funny, and multi-dimensional. In fact, he may not be the well-built guy in the movie but he makes himself a worthy contender for Elizabeth and for our attention.
Phyllis Smith, John Michael Higgins, and Dave “Gruber” Allen are a terrific supporting cast. However, it’s Diaz who makes the biggest impression, after a couple of lukewarm performances in “Knight and Day” and “Green Hornet.” Director Kasdan is doing well at placing himself on the list of best young directors. Between “Bridesmaids” and “Bad Teacher” it looks like the genre of woman’s comedy may be on the rise. “Bad Teacher” is one terrific movie that movie forums show will be at the topic of 2011’s comedy list.

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