The music industry is in a very ugly place right now. They're not selling music, they're selling products. Let's look at Britney Spears, for example. Sure, she's gorgeous, but with her silicone-filled boobs and her "virgin slut" image, Britney's music takes a backseat to the Britney package, and sadly, it's selling phenomenally well. That's a shame, because then you get someone like Christina Aguilera, who is tremendously talented, getting thrown onto the teen pop singer assembly line. The recording industry is at fault, but only partially. Britney, Christina, and the parade of boy bands are all slaves, and they do whatever it is that the record company tells them to do. Where's the integrity? Sorry, but I can't respect those people.
My respect is reserved for a band like Fuel. Have you ever heard their music? Right now, they're my favorite band, and for the last year and a half, their song "Shimmer" has been my favorite song. Fuel doesn't have a bullshit image. They found success through incredible talent and hard work. Then there's Ani DiFranco. She's definitely got an image, but that image is her true self. Besides, she's not about selling her image, she's about selling her music. I was once told that in order to make it in the music business, you have to sell out at first. I don't buy it, and the above examples are all I need to show why.
Do I seem bitter? Yeah, maybe I AM bitter. Let's just say that the music industry has affected my personal life in a very negative way. No, I'm not some struggling musician or anything like that, but... whatever, I have a review to write.
"Josie and the Pussycats" tries to satirize the current state of the music industry, and though I admire the effort, unfortunately, it falls flat. Very flat. To put it bluntly, this movie is awful.
This movie is supposed to be a comedy, but there were only about 5 instances where I laughed. In those instances, you could see how there was potential for a really clever movie, but it didn't happen. The rest of the time, the humor is really, really stupid.
Rachael Leigh Cook ("She's All That," "AntiTrust," and "Get Carter"), Tara Reid ("American Pie"... she's engaged to MTV guy, Carson Daly, who makes an appearance in this movie), and Rosario Dawson ("Kids," "He Got Game," "Light It Up") play the title characters. Tara Reid is my favorite. She plays the dim-witted air-headed blonde, and her jokes are the worst in the movie. Still, she's so damn hot, I couldn't take my eyes off of her. It's not just that, though. She really DOES play the role well. Rosario Dawson, who is by no means ugly, is my least favorite of the three, but I like how she plays the realist. In this movie, her character is refreshing, if that makes any sense. It's weird how she went from "Kids" to THIS movie, isn't it? As for Rachael Leigh Cook, she's cute and everything, but her performance is pretty blah. Alan Cumming (very memorable as "Saturninus" in the dark Shakespearean movie, "Titus"... he can be seen now in "Spy Kids") gives us another excellent performance. As for Parker Posey, once again, she overacts the hell out of another bad movie. I wish she'd stick to the indie flicks.
"Josie and the Pussycats" was written and directed by the team of Harry Elfont & Deborah Kaplan, and this is their second time writing and directing a movie together, the first being "Can't Hardly Wait." I remember kinda liking "Can't Hardly Wait," more than I expected to like it, at least. By the way, some of the cast of "Can't Hardly Wait" reunite as the boy band "DuJour" in this movie. Those actors include Donald Adeosun Faison ("Clueless" and "Remember the Titans"), Seth Green, Breckin Meyer, and Alexander Martin. In case you don't know, Alexander Martin is the son of the late Dean Paul Martin (who was the son of the legendary Dean Martin) and Olivia Hussey... the woman who played "Juliet" in the classic 1968 version of "Romeo and Juliet" directed by Franco Zeffirelli.
Just to let you know, Bif Naked, a really cool rock chickie, lends her vocals to some of the songs that are supposedly performed by Josie and the Pussycats. Also, the singing vocals for "Josie" herself are by Kay Hanley, lead singer of Letters to Cleo. They're cool, too. So as it turns out, the music is actually really good. It's all girlie pop, which is a sound I like. Other girlie pop bands include Frente, Suddenly Tammy, That Dog, and to a certain extent, Sixpence None the Richer. Girlie pop is very different from the cheesy top 40 bubble gum crap out there right now. One of the most obvious differences is that girlie pop bands actually play their own instruments, as do the characters of Josie and the Pussycats.
Speaking of that, the three lead actresses did a decent job of making it look like they knew how to play those instruments. Any flaws as far as that goes is because of how the film was edited.
I really thought that this movie sucked. I was looking for something that ripped into the recording industry, but I wanted it to be intelligent, clever and witty, not stupid and juvenile. Yes, there were a couple of moments where I laughed, and Tara Reid and Rachael Leigh Cook looked really yummy, but it's not enough to save this movie.
By
the way, call me a hypocrite, but I have a Christina Aguilera calendar hanging
on the wall behind me. Hey, at least I picked the one with actual talent!
Scale of 1-10: 3