And now, a rant about Aubrey Plaza

Aubrey Plaza is the worst.

I'll just say it. She's terrible. She drives me crazy. And not in a good way.

This was not always the case. In fact, those who have not been paying much attention to Plaza and her recent awful choices might recoil from such a proclamation. But it's true. Find out for yourself, if you dare.

(And don't worry, that's just suncreen in the photo I've chosen.)

Plaza came on the scene as a comedy nerd darling when Parks and Recreation debuted back in December of 2009. If you saw Funny People in the theaters about three months before that -- which I did not -- you were introduced to her then, in a similar comedy nerd darling role. She was instantly pegged as a breakout star, though to be fair, nearly the whole cast of Parks and Recreation ended up breaking out. In fact, it's kind of astonishing how much that show was a wellspring for upcoming talent.

Something about her persona was a breath of fresh air. She was acerbic and ironic, irreverent and indifferent. She was like the waify indie version of the gruff man who could never reveal that he cared about or loved anything (a role actually played by Nick Offerman on the show). But of course, by the end of each episode, she would prove that she really did have a heart.

Unfortunately, that shtick kind of got old. April Ludgate's vascillations between false nihilism and false sentimentality eventually began to ring false themselves and become repetitive. Everyone knew she was really a softie, so all her anarchic bluster started to feel tired. You just wanted her to grow up and stop being snarky.

But both the small-screen version of Plaza and the big-screen version of Plaza remained charming for at least a few years. Smart movie choices followed the big splash she made in 2009, in the likes of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Damsels in Distress, 10 Years and Safety Not Guaranteed. I didn't particularly like Safety Not Guaranteed, but it was the right kind of role for her to take, and she was hardly that movie's biggest problem.

At some point, though, Plaza started making dumb choices. The first of these would have been A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III in 2012, though I only saw this a few months ago so her participation in it was not at that time a factor in my growing wariness toward her. Still, it was a movie directed by a guy with a certain vision (Roman Coppola), and Bill Murray was also in it, so I could see her looking past Charlie Sheen's involvement and giving it a go.

But the choices become less defensible as she moves forward. Twenty thirteen marked her big plunge into the crass, an impulse that has guided her since then. In that year she made The To Do List, which seemed promising at the time but was hated by a few people I respect. I missed this one until earlier this year as well, so this is also a bit of a retroactive analysis in where she started to go wrong, but the timing of that viewing helps put into perspective the rest of the awful experiences I've had with her in 2016. And boy was The To Do List awful -- gross and immature and utterly devoid of charm. (And before we get to 2016, I'll also mention that she swung and missed with Life After Beth in 2014, a comedy in which she played a zombie and was partly responsible for the film's uneven tone.)

I missed a couple smaller movies she did in 2015 -- had not even heard of them, in fact -- but she has come fill shit storm in 2016. The picture above is from Dirty Grandpa, which came out in January but which I only just saw this past weekend. And then in July there was Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates.

What to say about these movies. They both also star Zac Efron. They both are slapstick, lowest common denominator movies. They both waste one really charming female romantic lead (Zoey Deutch and Anna Kendrick). They are both wretched, miserable experiences.

And they both feature Plaza as a rude, uncouth, brassy chick who drinks heavily and drops bawdy sexual innuendos.

In other words, she goes big and she goes sloppy.

This is the opposite of the Plaza who originally greeted us back in 2009. It was hard to say whether she would be sweet (Funny People, if memory serves) or sour (Parks and Recreation), but she could in fact be accurately described as a "comedy nerd darling," the phrase I employed twice earlier in this piece. She operated within a sphere of intelligence, a sphere of feminism and self-possession. If you watched her, you were proud that she had carved out a niche in which her particular brand of comedy would be rewarded.

Now?

She has decided that she needs to play Spring Break Girl, someone who has a drink in one hand and a dick in the other -- or at least, metaphorically a dick. In Dirty Grandpa, she decides she wants to fuck Robert De Niro. Plaza is 32. De Niro is 73. And in this movie, an incredible asshole.

But Plaza might be a bigger asshole. She's taken on the obnoxious female sidekick role with relish, playing basically the same character as Lenore in Grandpa and Tatiana in Wedding Dates. If, in an attempt to defend Plaza, you want to talk about having to take what Hollywood gives you upon reaching a certain age, just remember -- she's only 32. It's not like they are putting her out to pasture. In fact, in both movies she is regularly seen in a bikini, as if flautning that she is now castable as some kind of sexual object.

That instinct was totally anathema to the insticts she had five years ago. She was shy, closed off, protective of self in a good way -- she was as likely to tell you to fuck off as to fuck me.

And I don't know if she can ever get that back. For me, Aubrey Plaza has been ruined. I mean, I wasn't a gigantic fan of her in the first place, since her April Ludgate shtick wore on me quickly as well. But at least April Ludgate respected herself and was a fierce advocate for her own will. Lenore and Tatiana, on the other hand, are only fierce advocates for Jell-O shots and outrageous unprotected sex.

At least Plaza is leaving Daytona Beach behind in 2017. She'll play the title character in a movie called Ingrid Goes West, a mentally disturbed woman obsessed with a social media star. And The Little Hours, another comedy, finds her at a convent full of emotionally unstable nuns in the Middle Ages. Um, yes, I think you read that correctly.

Will this get her back in good with the comedy nerds?

Or will her emotionally unstable nun have a proclivity for fucking priests and drinking five times more mead than anyone else?

You watch your mouth, Andy Bailey!

Typecasting is a pernicious thing. According to the very principles by which their profession is defined, actors pride themselves on being able to assume a multitude of shapes and sizes, personalities and proclivities. It's death to the actor -- or it feels that way to them, anyway -- to get pigeonholed as just one thing. Sure, that might allow you to get plenty of work from producers looking for exactly that one thing. But in the long term it's a recipe for career disappointment and early retirement. And not the good kind of early retirement.

As fervently as I believe this, I still can't watch the trailers for Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates, which releases today in the U.S., and think anything other than "Andy Bailey, you watch your mouth!"

Andy Bailey is the cheerfully named character played by Adam DeVine on the show Modern Family. At least, I assume he's still playing that character, as we are at least a full season behind on the show. It's very possible they've moved Hayley on from that subplot.

Nonetheless, this is how I know Adam DeVine. He plays (or played) the nanny to Joe, the child of Jay and Gloria, and he's as squeaky clean as they come. He's so squeaky that his voice almost even squeaks when he talks. He's every parent's dream of the guy their daughter will fall for, though no daughter's dream of the guy they actually want -- until they get older, anyway, and nice guys actually start finishing first. He would volunteer with old people and probably sing in a chorus and dress like he's just walked out of a Banana Republic. He's that kind of guy.

And DeVine plays that character incredibly well. He's clean cut. He has an honesty about him. He doesn't look like he could hurt a fly. In fact, if he found an injured fly he'd probably try to take it to an insect hospital.

Enter Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates.

That's the raunchy new comedy starring Zac Efron, Anna Kendrick, Aubrey Plaza and DeVine. I'm guessing it's a raunchy comedy with heart -- you can't get away with the raunch without the heart these days -- but it's raunchy nonetheless.

And DeVine is burdened with the lion's share of that raunch, if the trailers are to be believed. He's still clean cut, but any politeness has gone out the window. In fact, he tells a bride-to-be who has just received a facial contusion from the wheel of an all-terrain vehicle that she looks like the burnt waffle they throw out at the pancake house.

That stuff doesn't exactly conform to the definition of "raunchy." But how about this? At least in the trailer they've been showing here in Australia, he's talking about a sexual move that involves inserting an entire arm up a rectum and "pumping the pop," or something like that. (I'm at work so I'm not reviewing the trailer right now.)

And all I'm thinking is, "Oh, what happened to that nice young man who cares for that baby?"

I like raunch just as much as the next guy -- when it's done right -- but I guess I just like my raunch delivered by the people I expect to deliver it. Seth Rogen can serve me up as much raunch as he likes, the raunchier the better. Adam DeVine should keep the halo over his head.

Of course, if I were just a bit more familiar with DeVine's career I might not associate him primarily with Modern Family. DeVine also appeared in Pitch Perfect (and its sequel, though I haven't seen that). In that movie, which takes advantage of his singing abilities (you can just tell this guy is a singer), I believe he's a bit of a douche. If memory serves, he's the frontman of a rival singing group that thinks they're the shit. And DeVine personifies the team's arrogance.

So maybe Andy Bailey is the exception for Adam DeVine, rather than the rule. Maybe Mike and Dave's Mike Stangle is the typecasting of Adam DeVine, not the deviation. Maybe Adam DeVine was happy to get cast as Andy Bailey because he wanted to prove he could be a nice guy also.

Well, he's got one thing going for him that may just lead me to see Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates: he's an appealing presence.

Even when he's pantomiming sticking his hand up somebody's ass.