Amy Poehler is a terrific comedian on Saturday Night Live, but her role in this movie doesn't give her anything to work with. Her character, a publisher's representative guiding a new author on a book tour, is mean, not funny.<br /><br />Susan Sarandon plays the author's mother who is involved with the sadistic gym teacher (Billy Bob Thorton) the author had when he was a chubby junior high student. Unfortunately her role doesn't require a talented actress. The funniest thing is the way she looks in the awful gown she wears as the queen of the corn festival. There is no explanation of why the corn queen is old enough to have a grown son.<br /><br />The plot is the stale one of an author who wrote a best selling self-help book and then adopts behavior that contradicts his advice.<br /><br />Still, it is not the worst movie I've ever seen, and I didn't erase it before watching it.