The Hottie and the Nottie

The Hottie and the Nottie
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Tom Putnam
Produced by	Hadeel Reda
Written by	Heidi Ferrer
Starring	Paris Hilton Joel David Moore Christine Lakin
Music by	David E. Russo
Cinematography	Alex Vendler
Editing by	Jeff Malmberg
Distributed by	Regent Releasing Summit Entertainment
Release date(s)	February 8, 2008[1]
Running time	91 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$9,000,000
Gross revenue	$1,596,232[2]

The Hottie And The Nottie is a 2008 romantic comedy film starring Paris Hilton, Joel Moore, Christine Lakin, and Greg Wilson. It was written by Heidi Ferrer (Dawson's Creek), and is the first full-length feature film directed by Tom Putnam. The film started shooting in January 2007 and was released February 8, 2008. Its first-day earnings were $9,000^[3], with it going on to earn $27,696 on its opening weekend, each theater averaging $249. The film was a critical box office bomb and Hilton won the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actress, making it her second Golden Raspberry Award.

Plot

Nate Cooper (Moore) just can't get it together with women. But he also can't forget his first crush, Cristabel Abbott (Hilton), from their time in elementary school, in the first grade. He sets out for the beaches of California and meets up with his geeky best friend Arno (Wilson), whose mother (Marianne Muellerleile) has an unnatural amount of information about Cristabel, and perhaps an unusual relationship with her son.

Cristabel jogs on the beach every day with many suitors trying to catch her eye, including an albino stalker (Scott Prendergast). But she's still single, and there is a reason: Cristabel is still best friends with the same ugly little girl Nate knew from first grade, June Phigg (Lakin).

Nate reintroduces himself to Cristabel and they hit it off. However, Cristabel refuses to go on a date with Nate unless June has a date as well. Nate sets out to find a boyfriend for June, but guys recoil at the sight of her. At the Santa Monica Pier, Johann (Johann Urb), an attractive dentist who works as a part-time model, appears in their lives. He seems to want to do a makeover on June. As Nate and June become friends and she emerges from her cocoon, Nate slowly realizes that she may be the girl of his dreams.

Cast

• Paris Hilton as Cristabel Abbott
• Joel David Moore as Nate Cooper
• Christine Lakin as June Phigg
• Greg Wilson as Arno Blount
• Marianne Muellerleile as Mrs. Blount
• Johann Urb as Johann Wulrich
• Scott Prendergast as Randy - The Creepy Albino Stalker
• Karley Scott Collins as Young Cristabel Abbott
• Caleb Guss as Young Nate Cooper
• Kurt Doss as Young Arno Blount
• Alessandra Daniele as Young June Phigg

Critical reception

The film received extremely negative reviews from critics. The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 5% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 61 reviews with the consensus being that "The Hottie and the Nottie is a crass, predictable, and ineptly staged gross-out comedy that serves little purpose beyond existing as another monument to Paris Hilton's vanity."^[4] Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 7 out of 100, based on 18 reviews — indicating "extreme dislike or disgust."^[5] In addition, it also scores a zero percent among notable critics on Rotten Tomatoes, a seven percent among Rotten Tomatoes "cream of the crop" and a 1.7 among metacritics users. IGN gave it a 0 star review, noting that the film "presents a problem because there are just no words to adequately express how clumsy, trite and deeply offensive it is from start to finish." Rolling Stone film critic Peter Travers gave the film a half-star rating, saying that the half-star was because "it takes guts (or gross dim-wittedness) [for Hilton] to appear on screen again after House of Wax."^[6] Film critic Scott Feinberg reported that a colleague muttered, "Shoot me in the fucking face", during a Boston press screening of the film.^[7] Online film critic James Berardinelli described the film's comedy as "about as funny as the anal rape scene in The War Zone".^[8] In his review, Richard Roeper said, "It is excruciatingly, painfully, horribly, terribly awful," and that "nobody in this movie really should have a career in movies" and BBC reviewer Mark Kermode put it in his worst films of the year list calling it "a fascist eugenic tract" and saying "it's disgusting". John Anderson of Newsday, while panning the film, was one of the very few critics to not write it off completely. He ranked the film 2 stars out of 4 saying "Ultimately, The Hottie and the Nottie is no worse in many ways than a lot of teen-centric comedies, which generally appeal to their audience through cruelty and vulgarity." An exceptionally rare positive as opposed to less negative came from Dustin Putman of TheMovieBoy.com. He ranked the film 2 and a half stars saying "At the risk of going against the obvious 'it's-cool-to-hate-Hilton' popular majority, it should be stated up front that The Hottie & the Nottie isn't half-bad."

The film featured on several worst of 2008 lists, including that of The Times^[9], New York Post^[10], The Star-Ledger^[11], The Tart^[12] and Metromix^[13].

The film was awarded Golden Raspberry Awards for Worst Actress (Paris Hilton) and Worst Screen Couple (Paris Hilton and "either Christine Lakin or Joel David Moore") and was nominated in three additional categories (Worst Picture, Worst Director and Worst Screenplay).^[14]

Box office performance

The film was a major box office disaster. In its opening weekend, the film grossed $27,696 in 111 theaters in the United States, averaging $249 per theater.^[15] The Houston Chronicle determined that, based on average ticket prices, this represented an average of 35 people seeing the movie per theatre on its opening weekend, or an average of five per showing.^[16] In other words, the movie "bombed", costing the production company responsible over $8,000,000. According to Box Office Mojo, the movie has grossed $1,469,293 worldwide as of June 17, 2008.^[17]

For its release in the United Kingdom, the film is being advertised as "The Number One Film", with small print revealing its being number 1 on the IMDb Bottom 100. The film opened at 32, just missing the top 30, and grossed $34,231 in 28 theaters in the United Kingdom.

Home release

The Hottie and the Nottie was released on DVD on May 6, 2008. Bonus features include:

• Production Commentary
• Actors' Commentary
• 2 featurettes:
  • Making a Video Dating Personal Ad
  • Paris puts make-up on Joel David Moore.

The film has recently been aired on Bravo! several times.

References

External links

• Official website
• The Hottie and the Nottie at the Internet Movie Database
• The Hottie and the Nottie at Allmovie
• The Hottie and the Nottie at Box Office Mojo
• The Hottie and the Nottie at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Hottie and the Nottie at Metacritic