Josie and the Pussycats (2001)

Should I really be admitting to having netflixed this? Should I admit to thinking "3 Small Words" is pretty good for manufactured music?  Sure, why the heck not.  The greatest embarrassment here is having waited 9 years to indulge.


Anyway, the basic premise of the movie is how you should stay true to yourself and not let the inessentials come between you and your friends and your love, and the major subplot driving this is basically the "Cold Slither" episode of the 80's G.I. Joe cartoon, only with Parker Posey in the role of Cobra Commander.  Yeah, that's about right.  


The varying levels of marketing in the movie is ingenious.  Broadly speaking, it's aimed at my generation at 29, fondly remembering the original cartoon series and hoping it couldn't be worse than Josie and the Pussycats in Space, and of course they're hoping to get teens to come see it.  But within the movie, the overarching "message"  is supposed to decry crass consumerism and the encroachment of advertising into every aspect of our lives, so in order to make this point they've gone over the top in product placement.  I like it, and now I want a Coke can with a picture of me on it.


I'll also admit that the cast is actually pretty good, with special kudos to Alan Cumming, who cheerfully shepherds the plot from beginning to end so that there is some semblance of story arc.  The Pussycats are also well cast, and Tara Reid gets Melody hilariously right.  Alexander and Alexandra are all wrong; they don't fit well into the plot, and should have been jettisoned once the Pussycats were signed by Alan (Cumming, not M).


The script, as to be expected, is very uneven.  I actually wanted more music video footage.  Some scenes are pleasantly surprisingly good, and aspire to some kind of pop culture artistry, like the framing of the Pussycats in a CD jewel case as they cross the street at night, in Abbey Road crossed with the Scooby gang style, as Meatloaf's "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" plays.  Others are hackneyed plot expositions -- that would be most scenes with Parker Posey, actually.  It's painful.  Could we drop the Cold Slither plot, swap in Meryl Streep for Parker Posey and have her simply play the Miranda Priestly of Record Executives?