While making a point of skipping the Observe and Report screening at SXSW, I speculated whether Anna Faris might end up being the first person of talent to have a long and prosperous film career without ever making a good movie. I’m already wrong about that, since it had slipped my mind that she was in Lost in Translation. Nonetheless, her IMDb page is highly toxic and should be read only with extreme caution: it includes four Scary Movies, The Hot Chick, My Super Ex-Girlfriend and something called Skanks, which I’m sure is wonderful.

If Faris has any regrets about her career so far, she isn’t letting on.

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Anna Faris may be my favorite actress whose movies I never see. OK, that’s probably overstating the case a bit – I should say “screen presence” rather than “actress,” since I’m basing my statement on a small sample size that suggests her range consists of “cute and funny.” Still, on the rare occasions I do stumble upon her work – Lost in Translation, My Super Ex-Girlfriend, whichever Scary Movie installment I reviewed for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram – I thinks to myself, I thinks, “I like that there Anna Faris. Why isn’t she a bigger star?”

Well, her moment may have finally arrived with tomorrow’s release of The House Bunny. Sure, the movie sounds like a stupid retread of Legally Blonde – but then again, Legally Blonde didn’t exactly hurt Reese Witherspoon’s career. And although I’m sure she’d be delighted to learn I’m in her fan club, an even bigger honor was bestowed upon her this week as Hugh Hefner named Faris an honorary Playboy Bunny and put her on the cover (clothed, alas). We know what you’re thinking, but Faris denies it.

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Anemona Hartocollis interviews the mother of Jack Jordan, the man convicted last week of stalking Uma Thurman. Beth Jordan, 64, met her husband, Thomas, a nuclear physicist, almost fifty years ago in Baltimore. They had nine children, including two that were still born; Jack was raised as "the fifth of eight", including "his sister's child, being raised by their parents" in their Maryland home. School friends remember Jack Jordan as popular, funny, and charismatic. “His entire life he’s been called perfect," recalls his mother. "He was like a golden, beautiful boy-man." But he went through a radical change when he was 25. He underwent a physical transformation losing weight after switching to a vegan diet; a University of Chicago pre-med student who aspired to become a neurosurgeon before abandoning his studies, he started working exclusively at menial jobs; and then there were the "hallucinations that he was talking to Jesus and Muhammad." Before that, Mrs. Jordan thought there was something wrong with her son, as he began to withdraw and lose his competitive nature and seem to starve himself. But she was unable to get anyone to heed her concerns: “You know, who listens to the momma?”

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No one likes a celebrity stalker story, but speaking personally, I am particularly outraged by the unfolding story of 37-year-old Jack Jordan, who is currently on trial for harrassing Uma Thurman by sending her bizarre letter and menacing doodles, breaking into her trailer, and generally acting all creepy around the Kill Bill star.  Hey, pal, not only is stalking Uma Thurman evil and wrong, it's supposed to be my job.  I haven't invested 20 years of my life on this celebrity crush just to have some punk like you steal my thunder.

The Jack Jordan story is filled with icky little details, such as the Henry Darger-esque clippings he left in Thurman's trailer during the filming of My Super Ex-Girlfriend (Uma Thurman stalker tip:  a better thing to leave in her trailer would be a note imploring her to pick better scripts), the stick-figure drawings of himself giggling and leaping off a razor blade into a grave (Uma Thurman stalker tip:  hire a professional illustrator), and the midguidedly tender notes reading "If you think you love me, then how sad that your kids and you and me would have to spend another holiday apart.  Now it's the end of September and I live in my car." (Uma Thurman stalker tip:  it's never a good opening gambit, with any woman, to mention that you live in your car.)

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