The Best and Worst of Alison Brie

“The Best and Worst of” series chronicles the career highlights and lowlights of an actor starring in one of the week's new theatrical releases. This week, I take a look at the filmography of “The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part” star Alison Brie.

Films starring Alison Brie that I've seen:
Scream 4
The Five-Year Engagement
The Kings of Summer
The Lego Movie
Get Hard
Sleeping with Other People
How to Be Single
Get a Job
Joshy
The Little Hours
The Disaster Artist

Best Performance: Sleeping with Other People (2015)
Sleeping with Other People is the only time I've felt Brie has been able to bring the electricity she routinely brings to her TV projects to the big screen. She's bitter, hilarious and shares a great rapport with love interest Jason Sudeikis in this great "two assholes fall in love" romcom.

Worst Performance: The Five-Year Engagement (2012)
My Mt. Rushmore of all time bad movie accents has to include Brie's horrendous attempt at a British accent in The Five-Year Engagement. She sounds like an American bro being asked to do an impromptu, stereotypical phrase-filled impression of someone from across the pond after they've spent half the night pounding Bud Lights. It also doesn't help that her character isn't given a lot of jokes and almost exclusively shared scenes with a real British person in Emily Blunt-which only drew more attention to her shaky accent.  

Best Film: The Disaster Artist (2017)
While I haven't read a lot of books in my day, I can say with total confidence that The Disaster Artist is my favorite big screen adaptation ever. Through its spot-on acting, near non-stop hilarity and excellent writing that nails the tone of the source material, The Disaster Artist masterfully chronicles the stunningly inept production of The Room and how the now-legendary finished product eventually fulfilled Tommy Wiseau's dream of becoming a movie star.

Worst Film: The Little Hours (2017)
A sex comedy based around a convent of nuns that stars the likes of Aubrey Plaza, Brie, Kate Micucci, Dave Franco, John C. Riley, Fred Armisen, Molly Shannon and Nick Offerman really should've been awesome. Hell, even reading back that sentence right now makes me think that there's a 100% chance that The Little Hours would rule. Unfortunately, Jeff Baena somehow wasted this brilliant premise and heavyweight cast on an insufferably dull, weird-for-the-sake-of-being-weird comedy that's easily among the most unfunny movies I've seen recently.  

Thank you for reading this week's edition of “The Best and Worst of”. The next victim of my praise and ire will be “Alita: Battle Angel” star Michelle Rodriguez.