#40 The Hottie and The Nottie (2008) (Colin)

Cast: Paris Hilton, Joel David Moore, Christine Lakin, Johann Urb, Adam Kulbersh.

Director: Tom Putman

Genre: Comedy, Romance

*spoiler alert*

Our next movie stars Paris Hilton, a person who I have absolutely no time for. If there was an option to shove a rusty ice pick through my testicles rather than spend any of my time on this vacuous waste of space, then I would have picked the nut painful alternative everytime.

My main problem with her is I have absolutely no idea why she is famous. On her Wikipedia page, her 'occupation' is down as 'Socialite' which confuses me as I had no idea turning up to parties for free champagne was actually an occupation.

Her other listed occupations include; TV Personality, (but surely you need a personality first)? Singer (and who can forget her 2006 smash hit, 'Nothing in This World' which stormed to no. 55 in the UK charts?). And finally author? I've not read the book yet, but I'm sure it'll be short-listed in the Nobel Prize for Literature in the near future.

I'm not being snobby, but Hilton just seems to be trying so damn hard to be famous. In a way she is succeeding as she is famous for trying every single job possible and being pretty shit at all of them.

Except for business woman, I can't deny she has made millions out of being famous for doing not very well at lots of things.

An occupation that I did not mention was 'actor' and this brings us on nicely back to our next movie, The Hottie and The Nottie. I had not seen this movie before and so I had no idea of how good or bad Hilton's acting actually was.  Did Hilton actually find a job she is quite good at or, like her 2004 sex tape, ‘1 Night in Paris’, did she suck throughout?

Nate Cooper, (Joel David Moore), struggles to hold down relationships. His current squeeze, Jane, (Kathryn Fiore), isn’t working out either and it's not long before she's spraying the word 'Loser' on his car and dumping him.  

The problem, it seems, is that Nate is obsessed with a girl he met in first grade called Cristabel Abbott, (Paris Hilton), who he firmly believes was the perfect girl and which he now uses as a measure for future girlfriends.

Nate decides the only way to get the perfect girlfriend is to date the perfect girl and so he decides to track down Cristabel and to ask her out. He calls upon his friend at school and chief creepy stalking guy, Arno, (The Greg Wilson), to help track her down. 

At school Arno referred to Cristabel as the ‘Hottie’ and her ugly best friend, June Phigg, (Christine Lakin), the ‘Nottie’ and has kept an unhealthily large file on Cristabel. Sure enough, Arno knows her exact daily movements and where to find her.

Cristabel jogs along the same stretch of beach every day and Nate literally bumps into her. He finds out that Cristabel is single and still hanging around with best friend June, however, she has decided not to find another man until June has a boyfriend. Seeing an opportunity, Nate decides to try to find June a boyfriend.

Nate tries but ultimately fails to get June a fella but, by chance, a handsome dentist, Johann Wulrich, (Johann Urb), walks into their lives and falls for June. At least this is what June thinks; in actual fact Johann views June as a 'project' and fixes her teeth, gives her a spa beauty treatment and a decent hair cut in the hope of getting his ‘reward’ afterwards.

Now less 'Nottie' and completely unrelated, I’m sure, Nate realises that in actual fact it is June who he actually liked all along……

Will June realise Johann’s plot? Will Nate win June’s heart? And was Paris Hilton heiress or heirhead?

The answer to the last question, without doubt, is heirhead……

It was as feared, Paris Hilton took to acting like a stone to water. Hilton delivers the script as if she is reading the classified ads out loud whilst on the toilet. She is emotionless, cold and aloof and the director could have used a life sized Barbie doll with a lawnmower engine up it’s behind.

Most scenes call for Hilton to do nothing more than smile and pout and for reasons unbeknownst to me, she can not even manage that. Having also listed model on her Wikipedia page, I would have assumed this was caviar and champagne to young Hilton but she makes a dogs dinner of it, (a very posh dogs dinner, I grant you).

What damages Hilton is that, unfortunately for her, she is surrounded by actors who can act. None more so that Moore whose Nate I actually enjoyed. He pulled off some good comedic timing and deliveries and if you’d put his character into another rom com, then I am pretty certain it would’ve worked. I enjoyed him as Colin Fisher in Bones and fortunately this movie did not hurt his career too much as the following year he went on to play Norm Spellman in James Cameroon’s epic Smurfs blockbuster movie, Avatar (2009).

On the surface the movie itself is OK. The soundtrack is decent pop punk in places, the photography is good and has none of the weird editing or bad cuts we’ve experienced with recent movies and the acting, (sans Hilton), is generally at an acceptable level.

The problem with this movie is 2 assumptions. 1) That men will only look on the surface at women and will have no interest whatsoever if they look different, are a bit quirky and slightly odd. 2) Paris Hilton is hot.

Both of these assumptions are way off the mark.

This movie is a High School cheerleader bully who makes fun out of the nerds, geeks and outcasts and thinks it is beautiful, special and all that and a bag of potato chips. It invites us to laugh, mock and poke fun at someone who has confidence issues, a medical problem and possibly depression.

It’s a nasty movie and even though the ending is trying to prove that actually this is a movie that teaches you not to judge a book by its cover, it’s still happy to raise cheap laughs at someone else's expense throughout.

Rant over and back to the question; did Hilton actually find a job she is quite good at or, like her 2004 sex tape 1 Night in Paris, did she suck throughout? Well, to paraphrase Wayne’s World, she managed to blow and suck!

The movie was clearly written for Hilton and massages her already over inflated ego throughout. It supports her own beliefs that she some sort of higher being which we should all worship and that all women should be just like her. It kisses up to the point of cringe and is difficult to watch in places without projectile vomiting.

Avoid this Hilton publicity project at all costs. It was supposed to showcase her talents but it highlighted her shortcomings and added a new career path which she has tried and successfully been bad at.

The problem is as clear as June’s newly found complexion, Hilton is like her namesake hotel chain, over-priced, over-rated and ultimately disappointing.