In which I am surprised by celebuspawn

Last week the studio was piggybacking their junkets, likely due to the possible pending SAG strike. So in addition to Step Brothers (note: for various dull reasons, the Step Bros junket post has the wrong date attached; that blog was updated last week, not in April, as I am not able to see the future -- yet), I also covered House Bunny.

House Bunny is a comedy starring Anna Farris as a playboy bunny who gets kicked out of the bunny mansion and then finds the most similar job she can--as a house mother for a sorority. Personally, I wasn't overwhelmed by the movie, which is a shame, as I liked the idea and love Anna Farris. Regardless, you do have to give it up for the female-written, female-lead comedy, so everyone should rush out and buy a ticket. For some reason, my male friends were warmer on this one -- likely because they were lulled into submission by all the cleavage. Whatever works.

Anyhow, junket was standard junket, which means several of the girls from the movie were trotted out onto the dais, along with the two writers. Because it was a press conference, that means the audience was big, although not horrifyingly so. Even during the big ones, if you get there when you're supposed to, you can snag a seat in the front/second row for proper celeb-gawking if that's your thing. It also means it was a mix of American press, foreign press, online press, radio press, and print press. In other words, a motley crew of characters, each of whom have their factions, and none of whom are too fond of one another.

The foreign press, as is their want, asked Rumer Willis (i.e. Demi Moore & Bruce Willis's daughter, who is now getting into acting) a ton of rude questions about her famous parents. Note: Foreign press is known for asking personal questions, therefore it is the convention amongst the rest of us to hate them.

The radio people all seemed to have some sort of insane group brain malfunction in which they would burst in with a new question before the talent had finished answering a previous one (um, hello, not good, we need the quote) and/or when the studio people had clearly indicated another journalist was to ask the next question. In short, there was a hint of clusterfuck action happening amongst the journos. Not sure what the deal was.

As for the talent, Anna Faris was like you'd expect. Very pretty, very cute, bubbly, sweet. Emma Stone was sarcastic and funny, and didn't get nearly enough questions (even though I was lukewarm on the movie, she was great, and I think she might break out). The real surprise was, in fact, Rumer Willis, who was, to my shock, poised, gracious, and lovely. I am an unapologetic fan of (blogger) Perez Hilton, who is rather fascinated with calling her 'potato head' when he posts pictures of her (kinda true) and pointing out the slight ridiculousness of her wanting to go into the family biz. So, in short, I had a bias and I expected her to kind of be a brat.

Turns out that as much as she might not be the most, er, conventional beauty, she seems like a really well-raised kid and wasn't snotty in the least. Very mature, very grateful to get to work, very soft- and well-spoken, handled the 3400 rude personal questions with absolute aplomb. I am now, in short, officially rooting for her. Who knew?

Vilkommen, bienvenue, welcome and also Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, Mary Steenburgen & more

Yesterday, I had to cover the junket for the upcoming Will Ferrell/John C. Reilly comedy, Step Brothers. Not surprisingly, they were both there, along with their frequent collaborator, director Adam McKay.

Ferrell came in holding one of the giant bowls of cobb salad that he obviously snagged from the lunch buffet for us journos, pretending to proffer it to us as a lovely host. Amusing. John C. Reilly was dressed in a rather snazzy slightly funky suit type get up, although that still doesn't really, you know, make him sexy (Ferrell was suited up, too, just not quite as funkily). Somewhat worryingly, McKay appeared to have some sort of Parkinsonian-like tremor going on. Initially I thought it might just be nervous type shaking, and although it did seem to lessen somewhat during the half hour press conference, it was always there. He was v young to have something like that going on, definitely looked neurological.

But I digress. The three had a great time during the press conference and made lots of ridiculous jokes the entire time, much as you'd expect. Virtually nothing they said was true, and about 50% of the stuff that they did say that was true was unusable due to discussions of body parts that my company probably frowns upon seeing in print. Let's just say the word of the day was "nutsack." I will say say Ferrell seemed to get a little more serious as the half hour went on, which I can understand. It can be hard to keep up that comedic energy the entire time, esp when they audience isn't matching it. But even harder is knowing that they expect it from you.

Next up were Mary Steenburgen (remember her from Parenthood?) and Richard Jenkins (the dad from Six Feet Under). They were both lovely. She looks amazing, prompting me to assume that she must have had work done. Although whatever that work was you can't tell, which therefore prompts me to want to know who her plastic surgeon is. Jenkins was surprisingly funny for someone who usually plays grumpy/irascible. Both were oddly... ummm... sparklier? in person. They have more of a light in their eyes, I guess, than comes through on screen.