The World Must Be Good if Anna Faris is Becoming Famous
It's always exciting when the girl who was never supposed to make it totally makes it! And so yay, the New Yorker profile of Anna Faris today (subscription only!), who can now place herself on a list of lady actress script-readers behind "Reese, Cameron, Natalie Portman, Kate Hudson, Katherine Heigl and Anne Hathaway." (Sidebar: at least two of those are frightening and crazy and also chronic liars! To be fair, at least two of them are kindly and human.) But it's a very good look at the "problem" of women doing comedy. Hmm. Is it a "problem"? It's a problem, if you want to spend a lot of money on a movie and then make a lot of money, which is the only goal in Hollywood. It's not a problem if you want to have a good time and make cool stuff, which, then don't move to L.A.
But anyway!
Mmm hmm.
The award for most jaw-dropping quote in the piece goes to… Judd Apatow! "The reality is, I'm a dude and I understand the dude thing, so I lean men just the way Spike Lee leans African-American." Please tell me someone has Spike Lee on the phone right now.
My only beef with the discussion of the film comedies with women is that it underplays the significance of Easy A, which at least gets a mention, but it should be remembered that it's done $75 million globally, and, despite some conventionality, still passes the Bechdel test and was also about a girl becoming the school slut.
I don't know if Anna Faris was a girl who "wasn't supposed to make it"?
I feel like for the last few years she's always been the "watch out for this girl next!", which in itself is annoying when it's going on it's 4th and 5th year?
Oooh, you feel like you got over-sold on Anna Faris for too long? That's a possibility. But she had such a filthy mountain of crap to climb out of! (I mean, I love the Scary Movie franchise, but it's not exactly Lars von Trier, AM I RIGHT?)
And "Observe and Report" was two years ago and since then almost 100% of us have seen her in NOTHING. A bit voice part in "Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel"??? (Also in 2009!)
I feel like there's been a wave of it pegged for at least each of these movies: Just Friends, House Bunny, and Observe and Report. Other people who have suffered from this: Olivia Thirlby, Jesse Eisenberg (pre-Social Network), and Paul Dano.
I think I would be more amenable to this phenomenon if I thought Anna Faris was actually funny. She's a little too over the top for me.
It is true that I like my comedy broad. (BROAD! GET IT?)
But really I would rather this profile would have been of Regina Hall, if we're talking Scary Movie graduates. Now that woman is funny as hell.
There was beaucoup industry talk of her being "the next it-girl" in 2004.
The next IT girl.
They probably think she's one of them "I Like Art" type girls
You are what you eat, egg-face.
Didn't she host SNL three years ago? That makes her easily as popular as Eliot Gould.
Pizza Critic.
mmmm paul dano
(sorry)
She was GREAT in Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel.
This has been the case since at least Just Friends, right?
Look, Just Friends is a comic masterpiece and her Samantha James is one of the main reasons why. There will be no further discussion. I just canonized it. Done! Canon!
Wasn't "Lost in Translation" her coming out party?
It's always great when someone tries to cover up a racially problematic sentence by pointedly saying "african american".
SPOILER ALERT: Radio Raheem still dies in the end.
@Lockheed: Well, first off, what he says is "I'm a dude and I understand dudes, much like Spike Lee understands black people." Which, um. And second, I think maybe acting like there is a "dude america" and a "black america" is sort of kind of the problem?
You mean all doofusy dudes do not share Judd Apatow's brain, anymore than all black men are sharing Spike Lee's?!
For Hollywood, I believe this might be a radical suggestion.
All the statement says is "you write what you know." He is just admitting that he is biased. I don't see the problem. Unless of course you want Judd Apatow to write Legally Blonde 3 and Spike Lee to write the next Joy Luck Club. Just sayin'.
How exactly is the statement "racially problematic"? I think Spike Lee would agree that in 80's and early 90's he had or at least thought he had his finger on the pulse of "Black America". Apatow is saying he is similarly in tune with "Dude America". The box office seems to agree. You can disagree with either assessment, but to imply it is a racist statement seems shallow.
Wait — Tucci and Clarkson were hilarious and wrong all over Easy A, and I *want* Emma Stone to succeed, and yes Lisa Kudrow but in the aggregate, no. No no no.
Agree to all of the above.
Emma Stone was terrific, as was Tucci/Clarkson/Kudrow/Wings Guy…but all the visual and musical references just made me realize how much better Hughes, Ringwald and Cusack were.
Now that I know she is married to the guy who plays Andy from Parks & Recreation, I like both of them more, and can only hope for a "Ron & Tammy"-esque guest spot.
Also, we already knew Judd Apatow was a sexist douchebag, so it's nice to see him branching out like this.
I think you are going to get your wish re: Anna on P&R. Read it somewhere pretty recently.
Huzzah! Next I'm going to wish for a pony.
So who are the bitchy liars? PLEASE SAY REESE AND CAMERON
I'm guessing Portman (did all that dancing herself my ass) and Witherspoon (that chin alone contains multitudes, where multitudes = bitchface)
I've heard Cameron and Heigl are horrible – forget where. I think people confuse poor Reese with Tracy Flick.
I though Heigel was well known to be a bitch on wheels (on a good day)?
Yeah, it's so great to see a blond with big cans get famous because these cerebral flatchesters have been the talk of Tinseltown for far too long.
There's also a really gross quote in there from the Observe and Report butthead who praises for being "funny like men are funny." I want to be more eloquent or cutting but all I've got is: you're an ass.
The House Bunny is the greatest movie to watch when you have a fever: funny enough to make you laugh a good amount and easy enough to follow so you can pass out for a while and enjoy it all the same when you wake up again.
Anna Farris can turn shit into gold. She makes me laugh. I think she's a national treasure.
Warning: reading that profile may lead to overwhelming desire to suicide bomb a studio