The MTV shows 16 and Pregnant and Teen Mom have garnered a great deal of controversy, as they have been accused of promoting teenage sexual promiscuity, if not for the attention that the girls receive from those around them, then from the fact that the girls get to be on national TV. Teenage pregnancy has always been a hot-button issue, and these shows have only magnified it. Thus, is this a good time to release a comedy about teenage promiscuity, such as the film Easy A. I don’t know, but I can tell you that an air of controversy would be the least of this movie’s problems.

Emma Stone stars in Easy A as Olive, a shy and socially invisible high-school student. In order to get out of going camping with her friend Rhiannon (Aly Michalka), Olive lies about having a date. When Rhiannon asks Olive about the date at school on Monday, Olive allows her friend to believe that she has sex with this made-up man. Word of this gets around school and suddenly people begin to notice Olive -- simply because she had sex! She assumes that this will simply blow over, but she’s approached by her friend Brandon (Dan Byrd), who is gay, and asks her to pretend to have sex with him so that he’ll be accepted. Olive agrees and suddenly every guy in school wants to have sex with her. As her English class has been reading The Scarlet Letter, Olive embroiders an “A” to her clothes. Her behavior has gotten the attention of religious student-group leader Marianne (Amanda Bynes), who decides that she will either “save” Olive or have her expelled. As Olive’s lies continue to pile up, her world begins to crumble around her.

There's really no other point to be made here save for this: the movie isn't very funny. The movie wants to be clever, as it modernizes The Scarlet Letter and analyzes how gossip spreads in high school, but the humor often falls flat. The movie thinks that everything that Emma Stone says is funny (more on this in a moment), but her rap gets old very fast. The only aspect of the movie which is truly humorous are Olive's parents, played by Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson. It feels as if Tucci and Clarkson are improvising all of their dialogue and I often got the impression that they were in a totally different movie. Their appearances are truly the highlight of the film.

The movie makes the mistake of placing nearly the entire film on Emma Stone's shoulders. Unlike seemingly everyone else, she really doesn't do anything for me, and her "too cool for school" act has really worn thin. Olive is portrayed as yet another teenage girl whose wise beyond her years and far smarter than any of her peers and doesn't have time for their petty pursuits. How come I never meet anyone like this in real life, yet they seem to be abundant in movies? Olive is supposed to be the voice of reason, but her almost alien-like nature makes her unlikable. She has set herself so far apart and above everyone around her, one has to wonder why she even leaves the house.

And then we have the film's message. I'm not assuming that anyone is going to see Easy A for tips on how to live their life, but the notion that being promiscuous, even if it's not true, will make you popular, is a dicey one. And it doesn't even make much sense. In order for Olive's actions to be as shocking and appealing as they are, then everyone else at the school would have to be a virgin. As if that weren't unbelievable enough, the movie also wants us to buy Penn Badgley as a cool guy. Easy A is a disappointment and is only worth watching for the Tucci/Clarkson scenes.

Easy A wastes a great cast (Emma Stone aside) on Blu-ray Disc courtesy of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. The film has been letterboxed at 1.85:1 and the Disc contains an AVC 1080p HD transfer which runs at an average of 27 Mbps. The picture is very sharp and clear, showing no overt grain and no defects from the source material. The colors look especially good, as the movie contains nice bright tones, and the picture is never overly dark or bright. The level of detail is very good and the depth is notably impressive, as some shots has a faux 3D look. The Disc carries a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track which runs at 48 kHz and an average of 2.7 Mbps. The track provides clear dialogue and sound effects. The stereo effects are good, most notably in crowd scenes. The surround sound effects are fairly good, but other than the party scene and some musical cues, the movie doesn't offer an abundance of surround effects. The same goes for subwoofer action.

The Easy A Blu-ray Disc contains an assortment of extras. We begin with an AUDIO COMMENTARY featuring Director Will Gluck and Emma Stone. The viewer can also choose to watch the film with the "Extra Credit: Pop-up Trivia Track". "The Making of Easy A" (15 minutes) features a wealth of comments from Gluck and Stone, who talk about the development of the film and how Stone got the part. We then get comments from some of the other cast members and a nice amount of on-set footage. "Vocabulary of Hilarity" (5 minutes) contains comments from screenwriter Bert V. Royal and focuses on the dialogue in the movie. "The School of Pop Culture: Movies of the Eighties" (5 minutes) looks at the 80s movies references in the film, and has the cast and crew discussing the staples of the high school movie. We get a 5-minute GAG REEL. "Emma Stone Audition Footage" (19 minutes) shows the actress trying out for the part, including the webcam confession made as a way of showing how she would handle that part of the film.