It’s easy to throw two good looking and talented actors into the predictable plot of a romantic comedy and have it turn into one big cheesy mess. On the other hand, it surprises you when you walk into the theatre expecting that cheesy mess and the film turns out to be a hilarious and charming romcom.

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‘What’s Your Number?’ is a story about sex and the single woman, very reminiscent to ‘Bridget Jones’s Diary’ and ‘Sex and the City’. What makes this singleton story unique is Anna Faris. Faris who has proven herself as one of the most talented comedic actressestoday. Between her ‘Scary Movie’ films and ‘The House Bunny’, she always presents a quirky but lovable character that makes it fun for the audience.

‘What’s Your Number?’ begins as Ally (Faris) wakes up before her boyfriend (Zachary Quinto) and hurries to the bathroom to apply make-up, brush her hair, a scene that is almost identical to Kristen Wiig’s at the beginning of ‘Bridesmaids’. As Ally makes him breakfast, she asks him to be her date to her little sister’s (Ari Graynor) wedding and when he refuses, Ally adds him to her list of other crap ex-boyfriends. Later that day she gets fired from her marketing job, which she never really liked in the first place and starts flipping through a magazine to an article about how women who have slept with 20 or more people are less likely to find a husband. Ally is at 19 and proclaims in front of her sister and all her friends that the next guy she sleeps with is just going to have to be her husband. Well, after a few drinks and maybe a blackout, Ally wakes up next to #20 and decides that she must backtrack and find all of her ex-boyfriends, in hopes that maybe one of them got better with age.

Ally discovers that her womanizing neighbor Colin (frequently shirtless Chris Evans) has some detective skills and she assigns him the duty of tracking down her exes in exchange of him using her apartment as a ‘safe zone’ from his one night stands. Evans shows off his ‘Captain America’ bod in some racy scenes including one with Faris where they are playing a unique game of basketball. Both actors are able to sell this story with their strong chemistry (both comic and sexual). Although it’s easy to tell where their relationship is going, it’s a lot of fun watching them get there.

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Anna Faris is built for comedy, what with those Goldie Hawn eyes and pipes that could wring laughs out of beat poetry.

But she’s all wrong for the latest rom-com misfire “What’s Your Number?“

Then again, even rom-com queen Meg Ryan couldn’t add anything to this misbegotten “Number.” It’s another tale of a lonely heart who thinks her romantic solutions can be found in the pages of a women’s magazine.

Didn’t “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days” teach us anything?

Ally (Faris) is sick of sleeping with the wrong kind of guy. So when she reads an article in Marie Claire saying women who have had sex with more than 20 fellas are less likely to get hitched she panics.

Her number of conquests stands at 19, so she decides to give up sex until she meets the man she plans on marrying.

One drunken night later she reaches the dreaded number 20 mark. Since she can’t sleep with another man according to the article‘s rules she plots to locate her exes to give them one more chance. Men do get better with age, right? That means looking up “creepy puppet guy,” “disgusting Donald” and other former beaus to see if time has been kind to them.

Chris Evans (“Captain America: The First Avenger”) plays Ally’s neighbor Colin, a cad who bursts out of his apartment each morning to avoid pillow talk with his latest one-night stand.

“I bet the longest relationship you’ve ever had is with that sandwich,” Ally tells him while he stuffs his handsome mug.

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An early contender for the worst movie of 2011 is the Topher Grace comedy “Take Me Home Tonight.” Set in the 1980’s, the story successfully celebrates the music of that decade but fails in almost every other regard. Unfunny and without even the inkling of a decent story, “Take Me Home Tonight” is inane and completely lifeless.

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The story revolves around Matt Franklin (Topher Grace), an MIT graduate with few ambitions in life. Despite his parent’s unhappiness, he works at Suncoast Video while trying to figure out what he wants do with his life.  Early on, he’s invited to a party with some of the people he went to high school with.  Joined by his loser best friend Barry (Dan Fogler) and his naïve sister Wendy (Anna Faris), Matt attends the party hoping that he’ll finally be able to tell his high school crush Tori Frederking (Theresa Palmer) that he’s in love with her.

To prepare for the celebration, Matt watches as Barry steals a car from a local dealership. For a MIT graduate and someone who is “supposed” to be smart, Matt idiotically accepts a ride in the stolen car. The duo only make more inane decisions when they find cocaine in the car. Stealing the car and taking cocaine are both played for laughs in the story but none of these scenes are actually funny. (more…)

Seth Rogen’s appeal baffles me, at least as a leading man in romantic comedies, albeit raunchy ones. There’s nothing warm about the guy and no matter how sincere he tries to be an undercurrent of sullen hostility never leaves his voice. Rogen may look like a cute little teddy bear, but there’s nothing cuddly about him. There’s talent there to be sure, and he’s watchable enough, but connecting and rooting for his characters never comes easy, if at all.

No matter how crude or wild things got, Adam Sandler, Chevy Chase, John Candy, John Belushi, and Bill Murray have all managed to capture our sympathy in a single scene. Rogen lacks that gift, which makes him the perfect choice to play a deluded, territorial mall cop in “Observe and Report.”

Ronnie (Rogen) wants to be a hero and leader of men, and he’ll be damned if he’ll let anything get in the way, including his own limitations and station in life. Overweight, not terribly bright and suffering from psychological problems serious enough to require medication, Ronnie’s positioned himself as the Supercop of the Forest Ridge Mall, and with a team of three other mall cops made up of overweight twins and the sycophant Dennis (Michael Pena - finally breaking out of the sensitive-Hispanic typecasting ghetto), skateboarders, suspicious Middle Easterners and anyone foolish enough to make Ronnie’s day had best beware this Hall Monitor from Hell. (more…)

She has a hit TV show on the Disney Channel, a pair of albums that have debuted at #1 on the Billboard charts, a concert tour with 69 sold-out arenas in North America, and now a second #1 movie in as many years. Miley Cyrus is the biggest teen star in the world.

With most of Hollywood (including myself) expecting an opening in the mid-$20M’s for Hannah Montana The Movie (Disney), Miley has surprised “grown-ups” with her box office clout once again. The picture opened with a heavily front-loaded $17.39M on Good Friday then dropped 40% on Saturday to an estimated $10.34M, and it will reach an estimated $34M by the end of Easter weekend, making it the all-time #2 opening for the bunny holiday weekend. My Friday night early 3-day projection was for $33.6M, but then I raised my number to $39M on Saturday. As it turns out, I should have stuck with my first pass. These young skewing movies are tricky to project, and the Easter Weekend, where Saturday traditionally drops from Friday, makes it even more complicated.

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Easter weekend 2009 will almost certainly be an all-time record-breaker for Hollywood with a pair of new releases that could be among the top six bunny holiday openings of all time. Although neither Hannah Montana: The Movie (Disney) or the new R-rated comedy Observe & Report (Warner Bros) will challenge 2006’s all-time Easter weekend opening champion Scary Movie 4 ($40.2M), both new offerings look very solid in pre-release industry tracking, and they will be joined by some strong holdovers.

Universal’s Fast & Furious is likely to cross the finish line first for a second consecutive weekend, following up last weekend’s almost $71M with about $30M, which would mark a 58% drop. Still, it must be considered a triumph that the re-teaming of Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Jordana Brewster and Michelle Rodriguez may have $120M in US sales after just 10 days. That will mean that Fast & Furious will have almost doubled the domestic gross of The Fast & The Furious: Tokyo Drift (the last film in the franchise), and this souped-up thrill ride could be headed for $160M US.

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