document.domain = 'boston.com'; var objHTTP; Local Search Site Search otherTab = document.getElementById('searchLocal'); Today's Globe News Business ... Games THIS STORY HAS BEEN FORMATTED FOR EASY PRINTING Movies The very best thing in some very bad movies Appreciating the prize that is Anna Faris Email Print Text size By Ty Burr Globe Staff January 6, 2008 Let us now praise semi-famous women. Maybe you know who Anna Faris is. Maybe you don't. It probably depends on how old you are. The actress's recognizability - her pop-culture Q score, if you will - splits neatly along age lines because, frankly, she appears in movies that people who like to think of themselves as grown-ups tend to avoid. Youth comedies, splattery horror farces, things like that. And she steals them. This isn't as easy or as rewarding as it sounds. When someone like Philip Seymour Hoffman in "Charlie Wilson's War" commits grand multiplex larceny, audiences and critics applaud. Faris, by contrast, has a knack for being the very best thing in very bad movies. So while not many people want to admit they sat through the execrable 2002 Rob Schneider film, "The Hot Chick," those who did know that Faris just about made it bearable as a woman weirdly turned on by a man's soul in her best friend's body. Or how about the silly romantic comedy "Just Friends" (2005)? If not for her slapstick turn as a Courtney Love-style rock star, the movie would be landfill. | |
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