Misfortunes of Imaginary Beings: 01/09/24

A blog formerly known as Bookishness / By Charles Matthews

"Dazzled by so many and such marvelous inventions, the people of Macondo ... became indignant over the living images that the prosperous merchant Bruno Crespi projected in the theater with the lion-head ticket windows, for a character who had died and was buried in one film and for whose misfortune tears had been shed would reappear alive and transformed into an Arab in the next one. The audience, who had paid two cents apiece to share the difficulties of the actors, would not tolerate that outlandish fraud and they broke up the seats. The mayor, at the urging of Bruno Crespi, explained in a proclamation that the cinema was a machine of illusions that did not merit the emotional outbursts of the audience. With that discouraging explanation many ... decided not to return to the movies, considering that they already had too many troubles of their own to weep over the acted-out misfortunes of imaginary beings."
--Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

Tuesday, January 9, 2024

Josie and the Pussycats (Harry Elfont, Deborah Kaplan, 2001)

Tara Reid, Rachael Leigh Cook, and Rosario Dawson in Josie and the Pussycats

Cast: Rachael Leigh Cook, Tara Reid, Rosario Dawson, Gabriel Mann, Paulo Costanzo, Missi Pyle, Alan Cumming, Parker Posey, Tom Butler, Donald Faison, Seth Green, Breckin Meyer, Alexander Martin, Serena Altschul, Carson Daly, Aries Spears, Eugene Levy. Screenplay: Deborah Kaplan, Harry Elfont. Cinematography: Matthew Libatique. Production design: Jasna Stefanovic. Film editing: Peter Teschner. Music: John Frizzell.

A "cult film" is any movie that didn't make it on the first theatrical release but later gained a huge following, either in theatrical re-release or TV and video. The reason usually given for the initial failure is often the mass incomprehension of film critics, but also the failure of marketing to target the right audience. In the case of Josie and the Pussycats it's a bit of both. In the case of the critics, a typical reaction might be Roger Ebert's decidedly thumbs-down comment, "The movie is a would-be comedy about prefab bands and commercial sponsorship, which may mean that the movie's own plugs for Coke, Target, Starbucks, Motorola and Evian are part of the joke." Is there a better example of seeing the point but not getting it? The central irony in the theatrical failure of Josie and the Pussycats is that it was a blatant satire of marketing that failed because of poor marketing: It was targeted to the wrong audiences. Instead of hip audiences like, say, viewers of Saturday Night Live, it was marketed to the teens and pre-teens who are the vehicle for its satire. Now, granted, I don't think it's a particularly good satire. It's silly where it should be edgy, and a bit too loud and obvious. The comparatively novice writer-directors, Harry Elfont and Deborah Kaplan, have allowed skilled comic actors like Alan Cumming and Parker Posey to play too far over the top. But I do endorse what it's doing in its product-placement overkill, and maybe it made a few in its audience aware of how they're being manipulated. Or as Josie (the very good Rachael Leigh Cook) puts it, "Oh my god, I'm a trend pimp!"