bad teacher: or, how cameron diaz has such great gams they should just call her gam-eron di-thighs

bad teacher: movie starring cameron diaz, jason segel, j-timb, wonderful redhead, and attorney wayne jarvis...

...who a friend of mine has babysat for!  or is it "whom?"  and i know her, and he knows jane lynch, who knows the cast of glee, including jayma mays, who knows eric mabius who knows katherine moennig!!! who knows pam grier!!!  AUGH!!!!!

but this is neither here nor there.

what i have to say about this movie is that i really liked it.  it was pretty dang funny, and all the cliched moments were done really well.  like the moment when cameron diaz character finally connects with one of her students--we knew it was coming and we were kind of hoping for it, but the way she does it is funny and original.

hunh, actually i think i do have something to say about the movie besides "i unqualifiedly enjoyed it very much."  it had a lot of examples of, like, actors doing something subtly different than what i've seen them do before in a really cool way.  the most obvious example of this is jason segel, because i've seen him in the most stuff (i think).  i mean, he gives good very-sweet-guy in how i met your mother and forgetting sarah marshall; he gives good cute-idiot in freaks and geeks; and he gives good smarmy-but-fun guy in knocked up; but i don't think i've seen him do anything as...sincerely, or something, as in bad teacher.  i mean, he really gives an honest performance or something.  not that he's not honest in other stuff, just not this honest--he's really honest-appearing in this.  his eyes get darker, for instance, and his delivery gets even more subtly off-the-cuff.  he has a capital-c Character, and he acts it as such.  the p.e. teacher he plays isn't a nice guy.  he's maybe a good guy, but not a nice one, which is a distinction that doesn't immediately spring to mind when one is thinking about decency in men (for me), but he makes that distinction clear (i mean, this is one way of explaining what i'm talking about) and it's extremely enjoyable to watch.  phyllis smith is another example.  god knows how much of the office i've watched, and it's been enjoyable to see phyllis lapin turn from a very sweet, shy, unhappy woman with an inner core of bitch fighting to get out, into a confident, still-sweet, still-bitchy woman with a core of solid steel.  it's an interesting character arc, and gives phyllis smith range to act in, but i don't think i've seen her do the exact type of shy and sweet that she does so well in bad teacher.  finally, john michael higgins plays that tightly controlling and hilarious character a lot (particularly enjoyed him in fired up and of course freaking arrested development), but, again, i don't think i've seen him have the sort of human-ey integrity he plays as having in bad teache--WOAH HE'S DUCKING BEHIND THAT LITTLE GARBAGE CAR!

the man's a pro.

it's like, all these people are playing types of parts it would seem i've seen them play before, but they're doing such a good job with them that they might as well be new types.  and that's what i mean, i guess, about liking bad teacher so unqualifiedly.  it's a type of movie i've seen before, done really well.  like bad santa.  or fired up, for that matter.  these are high compliments, people.  high-ass compliments.