Wednesday, November 9, 2011

The Girl's Got Camerones

Cameron Diaz and Phyllis Smith in Bad Teacher
Tokin' Woman Cameron Diaz lights up more than the screen in Bad Teacher (2011), a raunchy but charming comedy a bit in the style of There's Something About Mary (1998), in which Diaz tokes with Ben Stiller as they reunite onscreen. 

Diaz carries the film as a shallow but smart gold-digging woman who's teaching school (as little as she can) while saving for a boob job. When she's caught by a student smoking a "medicinal" pipe in the school parking lot, she couldn't care less. But she takes an interest in a co-worker played by Phyllis Smith ("The Office"), encouraging her to smoke a doobie; next thing you know she's happily groping a cowboy in a bar. 

Casting her former boy toy Justin Timberlake as a nerdy pantswetter who parodies himself singing a love song in pitch-perfect style, her other love interest is played by Jason Segel, who's the stoner in "Freaks and Geeks" and, as Marshall in "How I Met Your Mother," bonds with Ted over "sandwiches" in the “How I Met Everyone Else” episode. 

The film handles marijuana in irony, moderation and jubilation, with a dash of heart, and soul.

Diaz told George Lopez she "had to have" bought pot from Snoop Dogg while both were in high school in Long Beach.

Best note in the new Harold and Kumar 3-D Christmas extravaganga: when Danneel Harris (Vanessa) tells Kumar not to stop smoking. The actress told High Times in 2008 she smokes pot; neither John Cho (Harold) or Kal Penn (Kumar) partake (so they say).

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