philfromno

I find it unfathomable that this film was the breakout hit of last year. My only guess is that it drove people to the theatre who were excited that it was low on curse words and sex. Which is fine, but I wish that they could have added a bit of humor or drama.

There has been a lot of crowing about the crass stereotypes in this film, to which I can only respond "what stereotypes?" These characters are drawn so flimsily that they don't even reach the level of stereotypes. Michael Constantine, playing the supposedly charming and wacky father, is colorless except for an obsession with Greek root words and the healing powers of Windex. Are you laughing yet? I hope so, because that's all you get.

But at least Constantine has a couple of defining character traits. We learn nothing about the other characters except that they are Greek. Well, Greek and obnoxious. This movie would have us believe that Greek Americans' life revolves entirely around their ethinicity, and yet the only defining thing about being Greek is that you sit around and constantly discuss the fact that you are Greek.

For contrast, we have Corbett's parents, who embody some nightmare thumbnail sketch of Waspish stereotype. Surreally quiet and psychotically uncomfortable, they act as if they've never met a mediterranean before. The exchange of idiocies when the WASP mother tries to explain to the apparently retarded Greek mother that the cake she brought to dinner is a bundt cake is one of the more cringe inducing comedy moments here.

Another reviewer here remarked, as if it were a good thing, that the observations in this movie could be easily applied to any number of ethnic groups. I wholeheartedly agree, and add that all it would take to turn it into My Big Fat Italian (Jewish, Mexican, Puerto Rican, Armenian, Spanish, etc.) Wedding would be a quick find/replace command on the screenwriter's laptop.

When a movie's highest moment of tension comes from a wedding morning zit (a problem solved minutes later by a stick of cover up) you know you're dealing with a limp excuse for a film.

I'm not asking for The Graduate here, but frankly I can't find a thing about this movie that is worth your time or money. But, apparently, America disagrees, so this movie made over 200 million bucks and is not being turned into the sitcom it always more or less resembled. Go figure.

A quick description of this would lead me to think that it's right up my alley. So many of the right words. Grainy, black and white. Cinema verite. 70s New York punk scene. Television. Voidoids.

Unfortunately, it's godawful. Bordering on unwatchable. There is an important difference between gritty realism and watching someone's home videos, and this is definitely the latter. Apparently, the film was taken silent, and then demos and other recordings were played over it. Which is pretty damn annoying, especially considering that half of the time it's a completely different song being played. Christ, for all I can tell it's a different band, as outside of a couple of bands that would become famous, these people are mostly forgotten.

And since most of these bands are so obscure, wouldn't it be nice to have some kind of title cards to introduce us? No, we (sort of) just see some band we've never heard of and a demo of their song playing in the background. Like the song, and want to know more about them. You're out of luck. If the filmmakers are still alive, maybe you can hunt them down and they'll tell you. Otherwise you're screwed.

So, in summation, this film is not entertaining, not particularly beautiful, and it can't possibly teach you anything you didn't already know. In other words, it's absolutely useless.

Reading the reviews posted here, I have to wonder what people walking into a movie called Josie and the Pussycats expected. I expected nothing, actually, as live action adaptations of cartoons had proved themselves to be the lowest of all film subgenres.

But the writers of Josie and the Pussycats took the unenviable task of adapting a second rate and all but forgotten Archie spin off and created a smart and witty satire on post millenial pop culture that reminds one less of the Scooby Doo movie and more of Frank Tashlin's Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? Basically reducing the entire pop marketing machine to a hideous sublminal brainwashing operation, the movie is filled with hilariously over the top product placements in a joke that seems to have gone flying over the heads of self righteous adolescents everywhere. The satire isn't always subtle (the subliminal message tacked on to the Pussycats' single, voiced by mr moviefone, includes the phrase 'there is no such place as area 51') but it is almost always pretty funny. But the film does a credible job of creating a shiny, brightly colored, and vaguely menacing pop culture fantasy world, where everyone is beautiful and every surface is selling something.

As expected, the trio is played by adorable pseudo teen hotties (Rachel Leigh Cook, Rosario Dawson, and Tara Reid), of which only Rosario Dawson rises above the passable in terms of acting. There is a fairly gratuitous cameo by Carson Daly, then Reid's fiancee, that could have been cut out, although on second thought it is kind of funny to see Daly (playing himself, no less) as a smiling, blank faced contract killer. The real stars here are the ever dependable Parker Posey and Alan Cumming, as the ruthless and grotesque record company executives, who provide most of the film's funniest scenes.