Bad Teacher [Blu-Ray]

On the "Raising More than Funds" Blu-Ray supplement on the Cameron Diaz carwash scene, where she dresses up in cut-off jean shorts and a flimsy, midriff bearing, tied-up shirt for a junior high car wash, the costume designers and filmmakers discuss her knack for physical comedy and unusual bodily comfort. She's one of the only actresses that manage to perfectly blend sexy and funny, actually being attractive but having enough self-deprecation and goofiness to sell the hilarity of the scene without self-consciously sucking in or posing for fear of being caught at a bad angle. Aside from her or Anna Faris, it's hard to imagine anyone pulling off the role of junior high teacher Elizabeth Halsey, a woman whose only aspiration is to earn enough money to get "big, fake boobies" to attract a good sugar daddy. Responding to teachers' lounge chit-chat about the sparkle in rich co-worker Scott Delacorte's (Justin Timberlake) eyes by stating, "I want him to sit on my face," she lacks the finesse of a typical teacher, showing her students movies every day and insulting their mannerisms and outfits. And while her constant impropriety ― smoking pot in the parking lot, giving her panties to an insecure boy with a crush on the popular girl and routinely insulting do-gooder teacher Amy Squirrel (Lucy Punch) ― generates occasional laughs, the tentative handling of the shocking material and unconvincing humanization of the titular "bad teacher" never quite work. But even though Timberlake can't stop winking at the camera for long enough to sell comedy, the interchanges between Diaz and Jason Segel, as the relaxed, dry-humoured gym teacher, consistently amuse. This handful of successfully comic moments peppered throughout almost makes up for the many shortcomings, adding a bit of entertainment to a mostly mediocre film about the inherent folly in trying to improve oneself only on the outside. The Blu-Ray includes an "unrated" version of the film, which includes a few extended scenes that aren't quite as "raunchy" as the cover suggests, as well as supplements featuring Segel and Timberlake insulting each other bis improvisation, an interactive yearbook, a gag reel and a joke feature about a cameo one of the writers makes.