.

I pride myself with the ability to look at a movie trailer and know if the film advertised will be crap or not. I’m only fooled every now and then — one example still fresh in my mind is Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, when my excitement for the third installment of the chapter allowed me to be blindsided by a crappy movie hid under good advertising.

In fact, before Batman Begins the other night, I was almost taken by the advertising campaign for The Dukes of Hazzard. There is absolutely nothing about that movie that should make me want to buy a ticket — in fact, I’m completely turned off to anything pertaining to the Dukes of Hazzard franchise… and, yet, the trailer made me want to watch the movie. However, despite this momentary brain lapse, I still realize that that movie will blow… and hard.

In fact, movie trailers are often edited to make the movie look even better than the theatrical release will be. Such is the case in Azkaban, and (I’m sure) Dukes… but there are rare cases when an advertising campaign can make the movie seem less appealing than it actually is.

Such is the case with The Girl Next Door.

Thanks to the wonder that is HBO, I was able to watch this movie the other day without having to fork over money to the whores at Blockbuster, or any other nearby rental outlet where I’d be sure to return the movie three days late. (I loves my HBO)

After sitting through the whole thing, I realized that I had been completely mislead by the two trailers I had seen for the film (both of which were very different). My first impressions of Girl Next Door were of a film that couldn’t quite decide as to whether it was a chick flick or a campy teen sex comedy (in the style of American Pie). Quite frankly, I wasn’t really willing to spend $10 on either.

This movie, however, can not really be defined as one or the other. In fact, I think that the closest categorization I can give it is a “chick flick for guys” of sorts (the same category I readily give to Chasing Amy… although these two flicks are very, very different). Not only do we have the element of a teenage romance, we have action and suspense (thanks, in part, to the wonderfully devilish Timothy Olyphant… who plays basically the same character he plays in Go), and — of course — pornography.

Not that Olyphant’s the only good actor in the flick. I really enjoyed Emile Hirsch throughout the entire film (especially the scene at the scholarship banquet)… although he does look a bit like Jason Kurtz, whom I haven’t seen in a while. Anyhow, Emile Hirsch reminds me of Fred and Ben Savage, for some reason. I think that today’s audience can connect with him in the same way we connected to Cory Matthews or Kevin Arnold.

Then again, I could just be speaking out of my ass.

Before I forget — mention must also be made of Chris Marquette as Eli, providing the perfect best friend / character foil to our protagonist. Amazing job.

And Elisha Cuthbert is hot. Oh, I guess she can act allright, too.

All in all, the film was extremely enjoyable.

I can’t wait to pick up the Unrated DVD.