Miss March

Miss March
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Trevor Moore Zach Cregger
Written by	Trevor Moore Zach Cregger
Produced by	Tom Jacobson
Starring	Trevor Moore Zach Cregger Craig Robinson
Cinematography	Anthony B. Richmond
Edited by	Tim Mirkovich
Music by	Jeff Cardoni
Production companies	Fox Atomic Jacobson Company Alta Loma Entertainment
Distributed by	Fox Searchlight Pictures
Release date	March 13, 2009 (2009-03-13)
Running time	90 minutes Unrated version: 94 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$6 million
Box office	$4.6 million

Miss March is a 2009 American 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 prior to his death in 2017. It is also the first of only two films directed by Trevor Moore prior to 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.

Plot

Eugene and Tucker are childhood friends. Eugene's older brother, has acquired a valuable Michael Jordan rookie card, and they sneak into his bedroom closet to see it. Tucker notices an issue of Playboy and becomes obsessed with the magazine, and despite the fact that he is only 8 years old soon has the demeanor of a hormonal teenager.

Years later, Tucker is still a huge fan of the Playboy franchise. Eugene and his girlfriend Cindi Whitehall are public speakers on the subject of abstinence for younger teens. Cindi has other plans, and since they have been together for two years, if she is not Eugene's first then they have big problems. They plan to have sex at an after prom party that Tucker has invited them to. When the limousine for the prom shows up, Tucker's high school drop-out friend, Phil, who now goes by the MC name of "Horsedick Dot MPEG" is already there. At the party Eugene is nervous and Tucker gives him several shots of hard alcohol. Eugene takes a wrong turn and 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 tells him that Cindi stuck around for a little while, but disappeared shortly thereafter because Eugene was "a vegetable." Tucker left Eugene to continue his recovery as Tucker went to work. He visit Eugene again later with the newest edition of Playboy. While discussing where Cindi had vanished to, Tucker happened to stumble across a centerfold in his new issue of none other than Cindi. Tucker devises a plan to go cross country to the Playboy Mansion where there was a party to be held in 3 days for Playboy's annual Birthday bash, where Cindi was sure to be. Tucker left as he had a date with his "partner" of 13 months, Candace, who back in high school seemed to hate Tucker.

Tucker breaks into the hospital while Eugene is asleep, stating they had to leave immediately as Tucker had an incident involving Candace and accidentally forgetting she has seizures caused by strobe lights as a side effect of her epilepsy. They are attacked by Candace's brother, Rick and his firefighter crew, but manage to escape temporarily.

In Chicago, they meet up with their old friend Horsedick, who has become a famous rapper. They all hop on board his party bus and begin to trek across the country towards the Playboy Mansion. After an argument between Horsedick and Eugene, 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 lesbian women. 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. Moments later, several fire trucks arrived, in search of Tucker. Tucker and Eugene manage to sneak into the mansion dressed as fireman. The two go in separate directions while outside, Candace forces her way into the mansion, followed up by her brother, Rick. Tucker randomly hits on several Playboy models. Eugene, in search for Cindi, 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 Candace and darts back into the mansion, where he is spotted by the firemen. He tries to hide, and finds himself face to face with Hugh Hefner. Hugh and Tucker have a discussion about Tucker's issues, telling Tucker about the first woman he ever fell in love with (who to Tucker's dismay, was not as good looking as the Playboy Bunnies of modern day, and had apparently died at a young age). 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.

Back in the holding area, Cindi comes in to see Eugene. Eugene seems disgusted to see her, claiming that she left him behind and didn't care about him, and accusing her of sleeping with countless other men. Cindi argues that she did still love him and proves it by telling 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 thought he would never wake up and wanted to permanently move him into a low-grade hospital, something Tucker never bothered to mention. Tucker apologizes and Candace decides to give him another chance. Eugene runs into Horsedick dot MPEG, who promised to "rip Eugene's face off". After Cindi comes out and reveals 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, confirming what Cindi said. Horsedick leaves ashamed, and after Eugene and Cindi make up, Hef 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.

Cast

• Zach Cregger as Eugene Pratt
• Trevor Moore as Tucker Cleigh
• Raquel Alessi as Cindi Whitehall
• Molly Stanton as Candace
• Craig Robinson as Phil aka "Horsedick Dot MPEG"
• Hugh Hefner as himself
• Sara Jean Underwood as herself
• Betsy Rue as Strawberrius
• Carla Jimenez as Nurse Juanita
• Cedric Yarbrough as Doctor
• Eve Mauro as Vonka
• Tanjareen Martin as Crystal
• Alex Donnelley as Mrs. Whitehall
• Jen Taylor as Customs Official
• Anthony Jeselnik as Director

Production

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.

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. "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.

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." On Metacritic, the film received a weighted average average score of 7 out of 100 based upon 15 reviews, indicating "overwhelming dislike".

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." Tom O'Neil, a critic for the Los Angeles Times, questioned as to whether the film could be the worst of 2009. CNN critic Tom Charity declared the film the worst of 2009.

For his performance in the film, Playboy founder Hugh Hefner was nominated for a Razzie Award for "worst supporting actor".

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. The film grossed $4.54 million at the box office in the United States and Canada.

Home video

The film was released on both Blu-ray and DVD.

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 have 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.

External links

• Miss March at IMDb
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• Miss March at Box Office Mojo
• Miss March at Rotten Tomatoes
• Miss March at Metacritic