Josie and the Pussycats

Josie and the Pussycats
April 11, 2001
Universal
Comedy, Musical
DVD
B+

This movie was much misunderstood at the time, but I found it delightful then and I find it delightful now.  In fact, I still laugh really hard at the opening scene of boy band Du Jour greeting the crowd at the airport, as they lip-sync to their hit "Backdoor Lover," which is about exactly what you think it's about.  Although the movie can't sustain this giddiness, the tone of slyness and irreverence has been set.  Based as this is on an Archie comics spin-off (and two '70s Saturday morning cartoons), this really shouldn't be any better than Spice World, but it includes-- along with very catchy pop music and brightly colored costumes and sets-- the following:

• A cute and charismatic trio as the leads: Rachel Leigh Cook as Josie, Rosario Dawson as Valerie, and Tara Reid as Melody
• A very nice sismance between Josie and Val
• The aforementioned Du Jour, with Seth Green and two guys from Clueless (Donald Faison and Breckin Meyer), one of whom has a monkey named Dr. Zaius.
• Parker Posey and Alan Cumming as the scene-chewing villains
• Missi Pyle coming close to stealing the movie, even if she's playing a character (Alexandra) who is only there because "I was in the comic."  Her delivery on the line accusing Josie of sleeping with Mr. Moviefone is classic.  (And now I guess it's one of the more dated jokes, since no one calls up to find movie times anymore.)
• Over-the-top product placement, which the film-makers didn't make a dime on
• A Eugene Levy cameo (as himself, "the actor") at a time when he seemed to be in every other movie out there
• A hip/nerd sensibility with music jokes for more than one generation, not just about then current pop but about the Captain & Tennille (and Chief)
• A subliminal-message message that is itself mocked
• A reference to Cumming's character in Romy and Michele 

Harry Elfont and Deborah Kaplan co-wrote A Very Brady Sequel as well, but this time they also direct.  Corinne Reilly, who's the Aquarium Tour guide here, would be a Reporter in Legally Blonde.

Spice World

Spice World
December 15, 1997
Columbia
Musical, Comedy
VHS
C+

This movie has of course dated badly, but let me first offer you some background on where I'm coming from, because my criticisms are probably not the usual ones.  My housemate of the time (still one of my dearest friends) was then a 21-year-old gay man who loved the Spice Girls and he'd play their music a lot.  Since I like pop music, I soon grew to like them.  I was never a great fan, but I could tell them apart.  (Well, to this day I can't remember which is Mel B. and which Mel C., but I knew their Spice identities.)  He, I, and another of his besties went to see this movie.  At almost 30, I was the oldest woman there who wasn't accompanied by a preteen daughter.  We had a blast, with the goofiness and the music.

Watching it now, when the Girls breaking up is no longer a plot complication and it's hard to remember their international popularity, what's left is a movie that did not exactly do for the Spices what A Hard Day's Night did for the Beatles one-third of a century earlier.  I want to like this movie more, at least on a camp level, but the problem is that it does not in fact present a "Spice World."  They don't dominate the screen like the Beatles did.  There are too many sideplots and side characters, with the girls offscreen too much of the time.  Even when we get to see them perform or joke around, there are too many interruptions and cuts away.  And there's a scene where the girls play dress-up, as each other and as various female icons, but much of the impact is lost when I can't tell most of them apart in long-shot.  I will say that the music remains catchy, but I'd rather watch a set of their videos, where their energy isn't thwarted as it is here.

There are lots and lots of cameos, most of them wasted, e.g. Roger Moore doing a Blofeld satire that seems feeble after Dr. Evil.  Jonathan Ross plays himself, as he did in The Tall Guy, but that's pretty meaningless to an American.  And having Barry Humphries appear out of Dame Edna Everage drag seems a little pointless.  (This is 19 years after his brief appearance in Sgt. Pepper by the way.)  On the other hand, I realize that most people don't care that I was happy to see Neil Mullarkey show up, even if it's just for one line.  Bob Hoskins is in a brief sight gag, pretending to be Ginger.  (Don't ask.)  Elvis Costello appears 18 years after Americathon, but much more briefly.

Another Americathon survivor, Meat Loaf, is, no, not a roadie, but a bus driver for the Spices.  Alan Cumming, who's usually entertainingly awkward (as he was in Emma and Romy & Michele, and as he would be again in Josie and the Pussycats), is just awkward here.  Hugh Laurie does the best he can in one scene as Poirot (where Baby Spice gets away with murder), but his old friend Stephen Fry almost steals the movie in his scene as a stern judge.

Note, the joke about a potential Clinton scandal of him tucking his shirt into his underwear became ironic by the time this film hit America.

Like animals in the zoo, as baffled by us as we are by them.

Romy and Michele's High School Reunion

Romy and Michele's High School Reunion
April 25, 1997
Buena Vista
Comedy
VHS
B+

While this has its flaws (borderline racism and homophobia, a very meandering plot), this remains a delightful, joyous film, in the tradition of Earth Girls Are Easy and Clueless.  That is, there's sort of a deeper message beyond the bright colors, bouncy soundtrack (here heavy on early to mid '80s pop), and "dumb" heroines.  But mostly the movie is a lot of fun with many quotable lines.  The leads are a I-can't-place-it-but-I-love-it accented Mira Sorvino and a Phoebe-era Lisa Kudrow.  Whether they're mocking Pretty Women or claiming that they invented Post-its (Sorvino as Romy does something amazing to her O's, while Kudrow as Michele reels off a formula for glue), they are very funny.  (And the "I've got a phone" brag by Romy, a flip-phone no less, has only gotten funnier with time.)

Also, their best friendship is touching and believable.  It's sort of a sismance, a female version of a bromance, something not seen enough in movies.  Yes, they're both given romantic prospects--Michele's is a still nerdy but now rich Alan Cumming--but the focus is on their relationship.  (They consider becoming lesbians if they're still single in a couple years, although Romy is disgusted by the idea of having sex with a woman.)  It is entirely fitting that when Cumming (as Sandy Frink) asks Michele to dance, they have to include Romy.  (It's to "Time After Time" and is worth the price of admission/rental in itself.)  It's quite clear that Romy and Michele are each other's favorite person in the world.

But the real gem here is a gaspingly hilarious Janeane Garofalo as the hostile but vulnerable Heather Mooney.  It's a very different role than Abby in The Truth About Cats & Dogs, much more out there, but in its own way just as lovable.  Michele has a line late in the film, "For me, it's like I've just given birth to my own baby girl, except she's like a big giant girl who smokes and says 'shit' a lot.*  You know?"  Meanwhile, Heather decides to buy a non-black dress that "exacerbates the genetic betrayal that is my legacy."  That there was never a 20th-year reunion sequel is one of the minor crimes of Hollywood.

17-year-old William R. Phillips, who's Man at Diner here, would still look young enough to play a student in Kudrow's Mean Girls seven years later.


*Yes, there is profanity in a Buena Vista release.  Also a lot of cleavage.  I'm sure Uncle Walt was rolling over in his grave.

Emma

Emma
August 30, 1996
Miramax
Comedy, Romance, Historical
VHS
C+

While on the surface this may seem like a faithful adaptation of the Austen novel, I find it much less in the spirit than Clueless, not to mention the contemporary Kate Beckinsale TV-movie.  I'm going to have to blame writer-director Douglas McGrath for the main flaws: general miscasting (especially of Harriet), a cutesy device of a sentence being started in one scene ("So then I said....") and then finished in the next ("How delightful!"), and the shafting of the Frank Churchill/ Jane Fairfax subplot.  (Enchanted April's Polly Walker and 25-year-old Ewan McGregor both do their best, but they're given little to work with and are misdirected in most of what they do get.)

That said, there are moments when the film forgets its own unnecessary flourishes and focuses on Austen's still great dialogue and plotting.  Even if the cast isn't quite right, it is an interesting assemblage, including 23-year-old Gwyneth Paltrow in the title role (sufficiently British but too pouty), 31-year-old Alan Cumming as Mr. Elton, and of course Emma Thompson's mother and 34-year-old sister as Mrs. and Miss Bates.  I have to note that Jeremy Northam as Mr. Knightley and Greta Scacchi as Mrs. Weston are both much more interesting and attractive than anyone else in the movie, and I would've actually rather have watched a far from canonical backstory of them being in love ten or fifteen years earlier.