Josie and the Pussycats (2001)
USA - 2001
|
|
|
Movie Review By Monica Sullivan
In order to remember "Josie & The Pussycats", you would have to get up before noon on a Saturday & I became a writer so I wouldn't have to get up before noon ANY day of the week, especially Saturdays. I always thought that "Josie" & her friends were downmarket "Archie" wannabes & how pathetic is that? There is actual proof that people BOUGHT "Archie" recordings, whereas "Josie's" music was more of a boxtop giveaway after the breakfast cereal was all gone. To say that the 21st century film of "Josie & The Pussycats" is mildly enjoyable in spite of its cynical packaging isn't saying much, but that's about right. The filmmakers decided to spoof product placement by ensuring that there isn't a frame of the film that doesn't plug something &, spoof or not, it wears you down after the first five minutes & there's still the rest of the movie to go after that.
The movie opens with the bickering DuJour rock group (which includes the unbilled Donald Faison, Seth Green & Breckin Meyer) driving each other crazy while they're driving their fans wild. Their manager Wyatt Frame (Alan Cumming) decides to unload them & search for the next hot new sound in Riverdale, home of Josie McCoy (Rachael Leigh Cook), Melody Valentine (Tara Reid) & Valerie Brown (Rosario Dawson). He signs the girls sound unheard & whisks them & their friends Alan M. (Gabriel Mann) & Alexander & Alexandra Cabot (Paulo Costanzo & Missi Pyle) to the Big City. The sound, it seems, is irrelevant, Josie & the Pussy Cats, like DuJour before them, are just pawns in a subliminal message campaign cooked up by their sleazeball manager & Parker Posey as the evil Fiona. Josie, Melody & Valerie sing nine catchy songs, buy lots of stuff, are jerked around by Wyatt & Fiona & then beseech their adoring fans to think for themselves. Fat chance. Harmless? I don't think so. After the movie, I got this incredible craving for vegetables & I hate vegetables almost as much as getting up before noon. It's a plot: That's what it is: a plot.
© 2001 - Monica Sullivan - Air Date: 4/11/01
