Episode 655: Josie and the Pussycats (2001)

Just a word of warning about this episode. One of my co hosts had some major microphone issues, so he's very blown out. I did my best to fix this, but the quality is not up to snuff. Thanks for your patience and I hope you enjoy this discussion of Josie and the Pussycats and Spice World. Oh is Bolt, It's showtime.

People say, goodney to see this movie. When they go out to a theater, they want clothed, sodas, hot popcorn in, no monsters in the projection booth. Everyone for tend podcasting isn't boring, put it off. For every band is a moment when they know they have made it. For one band, this is not that moment.

Thank you guys. You're great crowd. And they were three small town girls with big time dreams. Is a rockstar I am who wanted to share their music with the world. We can't sit around here waiting for dath.

We are musicians. We should out there playing music. We do play. Nobody believed in them, you know you, but they believed in themselves. We're special, yeah, special ed now in a world of tough competition, and that is so sad.

Fate is giving the Pussycats the chance of a lifetime. We love for you to say I'm with records. Am I gonna pull this off? I'm gonna grow from Riverdale. I'm not a rock star.

Go I believe in yourself. Seens are finally going their way, But between the mania, they're gonna be shoes. The managers we decide everything, what's hot and what's not. Welcome to your party. Most thinks that Sion is a freak, and the media We're gonna be onto your outum.

This may be the toughest gig they've ever played. Have you noticed that everything has sort of become all about Josie. Josie, Josie, Josie, Josie joy I made you a rock star. Tell me you don'd love that? Forget it?

You know I never liked you. No matter what happens, we will always be friends. First, we are gonna show you with the guitar you messed with the wrong pussy Jack, my bad. Josie and the Pussycats Welcome to the Projection Booth. I'm your host, Mike White.

Join me once again is MS. Emily and Travia du means Emily and Travia also back in the booth is mister Chris Cummins liter everybody. On this episode, we are discussing the two thousand and one film from writer directors Harry Elphant and Debrah Kaplan, Josie and the Pussycats. It's the story of the Pussycats, Josie, Valerie and Melody, a rock and group from Riverdale, and how they became entangled in a dastardly plot cooked up by the record industry to exploit teens for their limited but plentiful income and to turn them into good consumers. We will be spoiling this film as we go along.

So if you haven't seen Josie and the Pussycats, befo for What are you waiting for? Chris? When was the first time you saw the film and what did you think, sir? Excusably? The first time I said what screeling was about four years ago.

I am a reflong archie comics super fan. I didn't see this movie because of the way the movie was marketed. The movie was notoriously marketing swords, and the trailers and everything did not adequately represent what a smart and fronting and a heat of its time in a lot of waves film that this was so firs Salid about four years ago, and I was blown away by how good the performances are and how incredibly intelligent it is and very superversing for a mainstream movie that was ostensibly marketed towards teenage girls. And Emily, how about yourself, I would say it was probably somewhere between two thousand and three two thousand and four. I know it came out in two thousand and one I was in college, but again it was also not marketed towards me.

I was a young college student who was necessarily seeing movies both that were aimed at little girls as it was positioned, and it didn't seem even I think the whole can't hardly wait team had they said from the team that brought you can't hardly wait. I know my friends would have wanted to see it, and it would have been something that everybody would have watched, but just nobody knew what it was. At some point a few years after it came out, it was either on TV one night or on video where enough people had started to talk about it for me to say, oh, maybe I should sit down and watch this, and of course it's a delight from the team that gave you leap here that wouldn't have Did that come before or after?

That came after? Right? Yeah? That was twenty ten. Oh man, Oh what a trajectory.

And I'll say I'm not the biggest can't hardly Wight fan, but it's one of those movies that I think it doesn't speak directly to me, but I know people that really did connect to it, and there was something about it that was very much aimed at this particular demographic that isn't always served well and I think Joe's that but taken to a different level in a different place. Yeah, that team needs to do more things that are more of this ILK. Perhaps by the year two thousand and one, when The Sucker came out, we had lived through what a decade of these cartoons and TV show adaptations for the big screen of various quality. I know that Deborah Kaplan also happened to work on things like the sequel to The Flintstones.

The first one was so bad that I never went back for the second one. She also worked on a very Brady sequel, which is a fantastic film. I was about to say, I will cut you if you're going to talk bad about either of the Brady Bunch movies. Oh no, the Brady Bunch films are amazing. Throw my tiki on you and see what happens.

And you had the high points like the Adams Family movies and I like the Beverly Hillbillies movies. But then you had just a whole bunch of absolute shit. I think it was right around the time this movie was coming out was when things like Swat and that awful mod Squad movie. So for as many high points as you had with these adaptations, you had the bad ones outweighed the night ten times. I would say, well, I think you have to commit when you're doing something like adapting a highly stylized property from twenty years earlier, thirty years earlier, whatever it was.

And so something like the Brady Bunch of movies prime example, which I think are both wonderful, but when those go wrong, then they're going to go really wrong because you have to be big in a movie like that. So I think that's also why some of those movies you're mentioning are just terrible or they're trying to be cool, and you can't be cool when you're making a movie like that. And I think it's something I like about Josie is that. Oddly enough, I don't think it was cool then. I think there's a lot about it that has age to where you watch it now you're like, oh, yeah, these styles are coming back today.

You could see where somebody would actually want to dress like that and maybe accessorized like that, And that itself tells you something when a movie has enough style that it does click twenty years later. Oh my god, twenty two years later, this is a twenty two year old movie. Geez, an existential moment for me. Sorry, it's really interesting to me that now far those if not than thirty years into this whole TV into movies, some genres at cinema. Right at the time this came out, WHEREI was withny properties had already been tackled, so that left like Richie Rech and those kinds of things, and then alim literal caname Josie and the Pussycats.

Which being's issue with this film is the marketing, because I think where people see it, they really went into how far Venni it is. But at the time this again lensil Archie comics super fan For those at home who can't see me, I'd have two archie comics store ads from the nineteen sixties hanging behind me, and this movie I didn't even know existed until about two thousand and four or two thousand five, So that's how quickly came them went. I just think that. But it's definitely a manster piece in terms of having shows turned into movies. I'll say something that I think is going to be very thematic throughout this whole episode.

The biggest reason I think you probably never even knew it was a thing, and Mike probably similar with you. This movie was aimed at girls. It was aimed at teenage girls, and especially then still now, but especially then. The pop culture in general has a really hard time with properties that are seemingly made for young women. And this was the height of it's two thousand and one.

So it's one of those things where it's, oh, this isn't for me, because it's clearly for teenage girls. But I wish I could think of good examples, But there were Transformers comes out, and it's not one of those immediately oh this is there for me, Oh it's from that of our because it looks dumb, or it looks like an action movie. Or this, But whereas Josie, there's just not even getting past a quick when you're thinking of do I want to see that? That was a movie that was just immediately color coded, pink and purple and all of that. Of all right, this just isn't at all for my demographic, and it's the way the world was at the time.

It's certainly the way it was sold and the way it was reviewed, and so many of the movies that this is adjacent to, I think, and obviously another one we'll talk about later, but even Romea Michelle is one that gets referenced within this movie. And it's another one that most men I know who've seen Romea Michelle are like, Oh, this is really cute, this is really fun. Why didn't I know about it for twenty years? Because I was aimed at young women. You weren't allowed to think it was worthy of you.

And I'll admit I was pretty unfamiliar with Josie and the Pussycats as a concept. I remember the Archies cartoon being on when I was a kid, but like the Archie comic book, and this is where Chris, I really hope you can school me a little bit. The Archie comic book. I always thought of those and the Harvey comic books and stuff to be like the starter kit for you liking comics, like getting your asp for the Froendly Ghost or Scrooge McDuck or those things like that's where I put the Archies. And I was never sure if the Archies were how can I put this like a real thing, or if they were like a fake band that somehow became a comic book.

Like I'm completely flummoxed when it comes to the actual history of Archie comics. The art team is where in the comics. Very recently through they jumped to the TV Any Morning Cartoons and when the show was done, it was very much inspired by what was happening with the Beatles, and there were so the monkeys because they were just like, we're going to have this band. We're going to have this cartoon show that utilizes the pre existing characters to Riverdale, which include not only Arching and Joseph, the Pusscats, but you know the Sabrina characters as well. You know, there's only big Archie verse out there.

And the TV show we incorporated songs like Sugar Sugar, and with the studio band that was led by produced by Don Kitterschneier and sung by Ron Dante and Sugar Shovers are being solid. It was actually the number of beings sold in nineteen sixty nine, the top single Aaron's their subsequently output. They had a flud minor hits. The Tugier to this day was like their biggest thing. Wilson Pickett covered it.

But the comics themselves, they were often lumped together with Farvey comics because these are Clearo Crookid's comics. There was a sophistication to the Disney comics thanks to people like Karl Barks and things like that. And there's also a real sophistication to Archie comics that you may not have realized if you just them and then moved out of the barva, which is what people did as young kids. But there's a real nuance in Archie comics. Do things like Little Archie, which were these very smart and melancholy having tales of the tragedy of childhood and them.

There's were great uniter comics done by people like Sam Schwartz and Harry Lucy and other Battery legends that standem's the best humorating in general, like I'd say it's up there with We're Roulder stuff and classic Mad Magazine stuff, and there's a lot of works of version to it and stuff. But because it was you know, you have to realize that the seventies and eighties where I grew up, comics did not have the cat show that they have now. So therefore people didn't really recognize them as an art form and they couldn't be more than just one thing, which was like a diversion for parents to give their kids, to keep them out five for a little bit. Because it's the nineteen seventies, the meetings and there's no Internet.

It was the iPad of the seventies exactly. Yeah, so there's a really rich sophistication to archie comics and everything that resident present in other kind of kids comics, with the exception of some of the Car of Dark's Disney stuff, and unfortunately, being the archie cartoon of the seventies, it put them on like a gravel platform. Successful because the music's spin off in the merchandising and all the great comics. The cartoon itself is abysmal. It's like some of the foundation which is not the greatest animation house it's some of their most terrible work in terms of volice acting and re used backgrounds that I founded this wouldn't be that wrong, but that was the wrong Saldary, Oh, no, I have a question where exactly did Josie and the Pussycats fit into the Archie verse.

The pussy Cats they interacted throughout on hers has changed to be Benner River and then they've been in another neighborking twenty back and forth the Raders. But the kind of bottom line is they're just friends of Archie's. Was it just again from not knowing briefly like seeing the cartoons a little bit that would rerun in the eighties, was it a okay, Archie is there and there's it's appealing to everybody. Was Josie and the Pussycats there to appeal directly to women or young women or girls? In that case?

That was it was very much born out of the Room's Right movement in the seventies. The actual cartoon that Hannah Barbanda did Room Daving with him from the Archie comics because they do it nineteen seventies mystery they posted put the schoolto template on these puttings for Josie and the Postycats, and in the second season the show, they launched them in the average space and the comics in the late seventies. Early eanies took leaving from the cartoon and had more adventure style story kind of solid war after but the ban is just like, We're going to have these three strong characters in Archie's Jersey Pussycats. Josie was in desertionam Zoo at the Pussycats. She exists in the Archie Comics universe for roughly five to ten years before they decided to pair her up with the Pussycats who music where she was just like a contemporary of Betty of Veronica for a while own kind of sorrow stories before they thorn the Pussycats.

Yeah, because I was going to say that the bad girl like the manager girl Alex Cabot, which is also the name of the one of the ads on Lawnutter Rescue, which is why I remember it. He so looks like a Betty or of Veronica, just with the skunk stripe. She has that great line in the movie I'm here because I'm in the comic and it's a Missy Pyle who looks like a cartoon and knows what to do with her face to be a cartoon character. She's so good, she really is. Yeah, I watched a lot of the Josie and the Pussycats in Space in preparation for this, and yeah, that was something after like about three or four episodes or like, yeah, and a lot of shared looks and a lot of shared talent from those Hanna Babera TV shows.

So I'm very surprised. I'm trying to remember if they showed up. I don't think they showed up in that one. There was a great episode of Mystery Incorporated where it was all of the mystery teams and their sidekicks, and I don't think that the cat in the Outer Space version was strong enough to be the sidekick or the little space alien that they pick up. So it sounds like I'm crazy the way that I'm talking, and you I'm completely understated every word you were saying, Oh, good, good, and that there was even a live action Josie the Pussycats before live action as in there were actually like women hired to be Josing the Pussycats or they came about after the comic book.

Correct, Yeah, well they tried to do a similar thing with Josie as a band that they did with Archieese and it didn't have as much success, although one of the band members did go in to become a star and I forget her name right now, Cheryl lad Yeah. So yeah, but they had I sin only had Roy double. But they've very much wanted to replicate the chart success of the rg's and it didn't quite ignite. They should have had the people writing the music for the movie write that music, because I love the music in this movie. The music is fantastic, and they seem to really go for people that were super talented.

I'm trying to remember all of the people that were writing songs for this I seem to remember they were all in real bands, and then they hired these folks to write these songs. And these songs are wonderful. They're catchy. They get in my head and I pum them to myself. And I think something also that they clearly took the time to do.

It is not the three actresses performing, but they did train them to where they could lip sync it well, where they could fake. I am not a guitarist or a drummer, so for all I know, Tara Reid is just flailing her arms, but to an untrained eye, it looks like she's playing the drums and it goes a long way and just all clicking. You're not thinking about how that's not Richly Cook singing, because for all I know it is. Yeah, I mean everyone from like Adam Duritz from the Count Crows to Kay Handling from letters to Cleo who did the veto, to the late grade Adam Strassenger who founds it wing. I believe you also wrote a Coro title song for that thing you do, that guy who was sp an enormous talent.

We rest due to COVID. But yeah, the ammunism pene on this is infankable. And there's actually and you don't know about you and if you don't sabin or lose there about it, there's that great Manda version of the soundtrack that's just beautiful doubt and it comes with a seven inch of ding jour that includes love it nice. Wow, it's and I mean I would say and get a rolling tenant with what's happening with Manda right now that it's a sort of beautiful vaneyball ruleas and in terms of any of this Devendon. That's awesome.

Back to Lover also, which I'm sure we'll talk about du jour because they are such a highlight. But I wasn't that aware of music at this time in the world. I've never been a big music person, So the music of the early two thousands, I don't know all of it, but I had friends that were big Otown fans. And back to a Lover to me is the adaptation of Liquid Dreams. Right.

It's that same idea of just this super catchy but also incredibly dirty and incredibly graphic boy band song intended for like eleven year old girls to be singing. But I think it's one of those things where it's probably both very easy and very hard to make a good parody song. And I think again, like the music in this, it's perfect because you have genuinely and that song in particular, it is funny, but it also completely sounds believable to what a boy band of that time would do putting out Yeah, back to the Lamitar, it's right up there with Let's do That from Raw carrd in terms of genre. If it actually talk about it's nears that start perfectly, and you know, I'm Sudden Rips has great music on its own, and that there's not in my music one else at our But I heard this, I'm like, this is catchy.

And then you use the lyrics in your ready are and that's what a lot of those songs were. If you go back and you listen to a little bit of in Sync and a little bit of Oh Town, and those were marketed at kids that were not yet having sex. And it's fascinating. Do your means hygiene? Does your means friendship?

Does your means family? Your definitely means crass possessions as well? What is it's the soup of the day that sounds good? I'll have that this movie is written so intelligently, and I don't think that we can understate that it is so well put together. And there are even some twists in here where I didn't actually see them coming the very first time that I saw this.

Surprise on me. You you could dismiss this movie and be like remember that scene in Wayne's World two where they're talking about not selling out and they just have all of the product placement contractor. No, I will not bow to any sponsor. Sorry you feel that way, But basically, it's the nature of the beast. Maybe I'm wrong on this one, but for me, the beast doesn't include selling out garth.

You know what I'm talking about, right, It's like people only do things because they get paid, and that's just really sad. I can't talk about it anymore. It's given me a headache. Here, take two of these, ah new print, little Yellow different. You can stay here in the big leagues and play by the rules, or you can go back to the farm club and roar.

It's your choice, yes, and it's the choice of a new generation. They took that idea, it feels, but they exploded it into ninety minutes and it is just amazing how hard they go when it comes to this product placement. It is this cinematic language of this movie. Oh, it is wonderful. It's beautiful just to look at Djoure's plane and to see all of the products in Djure's plane that it's Target logos everywhere, and Target at this time is trying to be that hip young brand.

I think there's still trying to be that trying to be this hip young brand. And you got your Bounce and your coke and your ivysape and just so many things just being shoved down your throat and it never lets up. There's not a minute of this film where it's like, this is a thing that just happens on this plane, or it's a thing that happens over here. No, it is everywhere that they go, even I think in Riverdale they're affected by all of this commercialism. I think my favorite is when the manager or the other Alex Cabot, it's towards the end of the movie, when he's really excited about something.

He's drinking red Bull and he's chucking it down and it's completely it's actually organic to the scene because as he's drinking it, he's really tense, but he also is holding it right in the camera, and as he's doing it, he just looks and he goes and by the way, this is really good. It's great because it is actively advertising without it being like because it is so threaded into every character's voice, it works perfectly. And it's reminded me a little bit because when I was googling around to try to find reviews from the time it came out, because that's what's more interesting to me than today. We all agree, yeah, this movie's great. But in two thousand and one, it was not that some critics got it some I don't know what it's actual rotten score was back then, but you had like one actual review that was saying, oh it is film dot com.

I've seen NBA games, or the advertising was more discreet, like I want to know what that person wrote about Starship Troopers when they saw it, because like, how thick is your head that you don't get that it is the Joe that's the most mentioned thing your reviews in this movie is but pro cruises, Yes, it is deliberately. Does do you think we weren't going to notice? I'm not sure it is terrible. I like when he complains about how the girls parents aren't looking for them. They're not twelve of them end this movie.

At I knew a lot of person who worships in the relative ships only were the beginner, and it's just like, wow, you really allowed understand this movie and it's a critic to the respect level of Inbert didn't that at the time. Certainly the rest of thorough criticism is going to the other. Then I had reveled it and how has been reevaluated throughout the years, and that people have had to do recognize that that's sitting create to do well. Understand is action one of the swartest things about them well, and it's not like a lot of those companies pained for republicity. It was the friend Maker v I do Right and it was again it's that tire of folks.

Yeah, but if you were a male critic over the age of fifty who walked into Josie and the Pussycats and you were probably given like a quick one pager on it starring Rachel Lee Cook from The Babysitters Club Tara Reid from American Pie, Like you're going into this movie thinking, Okay, I'm watching a movie made for teenage girls. Oh god, I have to watch this. This is the hard part of my job that I hate. And it's crazy that because I think in a way, something this movie does it's like almost a disservice, but it should have worked. It opens with jujuur.

It opens with the comic high point of this movie. I think that scene on the plane is so funny. It's establishing exactly what the tone is going to be. Venic shifts and it does go a little bit more earnest, a little more into these girls, their friendship, of their dream they're trying to get. But how did you watch that first scene and not say, huh, what do I have here?

I have something interesting. It's just frustrating because you know why, It's because people went into this movie thinking it was going to be dumb teen girl stuff and they walked out thinking that's what they got. And it's very sad. As soon as Alan Coming is presented with the tape with the subliminal messages by Less, the dumb one of the group, the Peter of the group, and when he goes into the cockpit and just goes take the chevy to the levee, I was like, oh my god, oh my god, this is fantastic. And then yeah, that guy in the parachute looks just like, why does your mean scrash for this?

They rely on montages in this movie so much, but every single montage tells such a story, like you have a beginning, of middle and an end. Every single time you have a montage, really well done filmmaking and to good music. All the lotashes are to the original music, and you should have a montage. You are making a movie. In part again, this movie I think is made for everyone.

But it also does something that I like, which is, since it was on its surface being made for teenage girls, it doesn't insult them and it does give them a lot. This is the kind of movie when I was thirteen I really would have loved. I was older when it came out, so I didn't get that aspect of it. But it does give you all of those things with even though it's being ironic about it, it's genuine about the characters being who they are, and that's something that other filmmakers I think would have gone a little meaner, a little more winking, and a little more but we know is dumb. Then this movie doesn't do that, which I appreciate.

There's a refensive especially with the pier segment. There's a signment in the movement to be like heny, we know Rocher's being served to you, you deserve better. And when we were discerning, and that's a stupids film for this do because it is I would say it was budding. And then in the scenes what the Hayten didn't exactly seem didn't it did not. I had a lot of things to put on and I must remember, of course, you were to give you a real out what he was getting until we were doing entity to say, oh, just do this.

I don actually respect I never really thought much affairs to Daily before this, respected him have any that he didn't it have Saise were about himself enough to be midless Phil. And everybody is giving their all in this movie, every performance from the du Jour guys who are on screen for ten minutes, but my god, they are fantastic, and just everybody's so recognizable. But man, Alan Cumming, I fucking love Alan coming, he is so good. And then him and Parker Posey. Parker Posey, maybe now people know how fantastic she is.

Maybe, but I've been in love with her since Party Girl and from the very earliest roles that I ever saw her, and she's just always been so great, and she was like the queen of the indie movies for so long in this Oh my god, she's wonderful. I love just her attitude. I love her her lisp that she occasionally gets those outfits. The list was not what the reveal was supposed to be. I can't remember if this is in the script or if this was something I remember even reading in Parker Pose's biography.

Or pressing book of essays. I was trying to find the part, but I couldn't. If memory serves, and I could be wrong about this, what I have in my head is that initially Lisa was supposed to be or Fiona was supposed to be revealed that yes, she was awkward, she wasn't cool because she was fat. Yeah, and then she got skinny and now that's okay. And I think it was Parker Posey's idea to be like, I think we should do something different.

What if I have a list? And there's a few things about this movie, And again this is true of most properties from this time. Remember Friends was on, like we had a very particular understanding of what was the worst thing a woman could be, and that was fat. And this initially could have gone in the like Monica flashback type way, and I am so glad it didn't. I'm so glad Parker Posi Baskly was like, oh, no, I can do a good list.

Let me do that. Thank goodness, because I think that would have me this like a lot of movies of this era where you're like, yeah, its great. Is it one thing that you just have to like let go of? How it's a really fat chamy. And still there's still like lines here and there in this movie that are a little bit like big Missy Pile is calling everybody fat.

There's jokes here and there that you're like, oh god, I just wish it weren't doing that, But it's what we were doing back then, and it's all we don't do it now, but now we know a little better than to do that, especially in a movie aimed at or presented as something positive for teenage girls. So I appreciate that change, if you will. There are some remaining lines like you were talking about Missy Pile, and some fur lines, and then just that weird competitiveness that Fiona has with Josie. How much do you weigh? I weigh three pounds?

Later it just like how she eats one chip. Oh my god, you must think I'm a pig and a god. It's her line readings and her weird voice that she just leans into, like it's one of those parts that I think you look at it and you say, nobody else would have made those choices. And that's something I love of what she can do when she is cast right in a movie. This is like right alongside starting girl and taking the screening to be in terms of I've got to hear parkt phosy per silences.

I wish that the deleted scene of her coming into the party was still in there, and especially because I think you get a little bit of this, but I think there's a little bit more in the deleted scenes. But to hear the orchestral version of one of the Josie songs that she's coming down the stairs with that amazing outfit with all the little like polka dots off of her shoulders. Oh, that move and makes noises. I love a costume that makes noise. That's like one of my favorite things to see in a movie.

Oh, I love it. Yeah, she's wonderful and I think that idea of the list. Apologies to our friends with speech impediments, but it was something that she carries with her rather than something that's in the past, like her potentially being heavy. That was a really smart thing that she's still there. And then same thing with Wyatt that he has the pot belly that he's now Binos.

We really went after Albino's the early two thousands, remember Cold Mountain. There was this whole period of time where a lot of movies were just using it as it kind of like split personalities or disassociative personality disorder. In the eighties, that was just one of the easy things we thought worked on film for a while and then we got in trouble for it. Yeah, you know, there was the firm. There was powder, Yeah, there was There's been a going all the way back to the Chevy Chase and Goldie Hawn movie where the we had the killer out by now.

Yeah. Evolution, Oh, it's an important thing in Hollywood. It takes time. Sometimes you might say that, like Albinos were the villain dujure the Yes, sure, I know down. Sorry.

The thing that really gets me with this movie is when I watch it multiple times and I see how clever things are in the background. There's that whole thing of why it comes in After Dashoura is dead and he comes into a record store and he's got their disc and he has the store clerk put it on, and all of a sudden you have people starting to say that is the new pink, right, And then all of a sudden, it's oh, orange is the new pink, and I want orange shoes. And when we get introduced to Fiona. Everybody around her is wearing orange, and it just it continues on, like things like jerkin and that's the new word. We're gonna say jerkin', and it just continues.

There's just all of these background jokes going on through the entire thing, so it's working on the multiple levels. So watching this film over and over again, you really get rewarded, which also feels like something kind of comic book like in itself. Of just this isn't so much I think visually done comic book style the way some movies do with different film techniques, but there is something about that where you do how specific images and colors that I feel might be trying to summon that feel. Yeah, and coming from the point of view of Archie Robert comics and the Joe's uni Plisiccast comics of the seventies, there were always so many background details and bags and things happening, and this reallym is definitely attribute to that in a subtle way too, And I appreciate that as that was like an extra level that as a fan of the comics I could appreciate.

I think if there's one joke that does not age well in this movie, mister movie phone. I still think it's funny, but that's because I talked to mister movie phone a lot in the early two thousands, you and me both. And it's just like one of these things from two thousand and one where I'm like, I don't know how many people watching this movie now are going to understand this. I need to ask young people that question. We're not gonna know.

It's like the AOL dial up sound to get up forgot to tech things that really cherities part of their popcortsure idea that weird saying we had the deal with. But yeah, it's completely asks you one, and I'm for you, and it asks you one in thirty eight and I don't know the thing now right. You know what though, you mentioned Wayne's World earlier and it makes me think of a very specific joke, and I think it's Wayne's World two when I think it's after they have the concert and there is the it's all litter all around, and there is the indigenous man cleaning up and he looks at the camera and there's a tear in his eye and Garthon says, Okay, then it'll clean it. I was born eighty too. I didn't get that joke.

I just thought, oh, it's so dirt, Like I thought it was a cute joke because they were talking about cleaning up glitter. And then I remember my dad saying, oh, you don't get that. Oh so in the seventies there was a commercial that's appropriate. I think this doesn't have to be a timeless move. There are aspects of it.

I got really excited, and I'm one of those people that I think, yes, there are those nineties things that do immediately perk me up, because I remember what it was like when my parents would get excited about sixties references and things, and yeah, when there's a Zema reference in any movie, immediately I just didn't be like, yeah, Ema, that's just then Vestagia itch, you know, simply like Cabinet to gen X. Maybe people that are familiar with Seinfeld reruns will know of mister movie Phone because I remember him threatening Kramer at one point, why don't you just tell me the name of the movie you want to see, Yes of Faith in the Youth. They learn anyone who's seen this movie is smart enough to look up mister movie Phone.

Anyone who in twenty twenty thirty is going to actively seek out Josey the Pusycats then rule I agree. I agree, well, I love that Eugene Levy, his little cameo in here is still timeless that people do know of Eugene Levy because of Shit's freak, and there's the generation before that that knew of Eugene Levy from things like American Pie, where it was really his role in American Pie was one of the best parts of that entire movie. I like that movie, but he in there, Oh my god. It was just such a new appreciation of Eugene Levy, and I go back to SCTV days, so it was great to see him. Who was supposed to be that part.

It was supposed to be Chris Rock. I don't know what happened. I think it was a scheduling thing. But the celebrity that comes out and is giving the educational video was initially Chris Rock, which I think is the greatest recasting because I just love the idea that on any casting sheet, when you're looking at oh no, Will Smith dropped out, who are we going to call? Oh no, Catherine O'Hara dropped out, We'll call Perkoposi oh no, Chris Rock dropped out.

Who's next on the list for me? Chris Rock type because it makes it even funnier for me because Chris Rock would have been of age, whereas Eugene Levy is an old man older now obviously, but he was an old man at the time, talking hip and talking to the government officials. Yeah, and had the girl, yeah, the girl. In the beginning, he just didn't fit in there whatsoever. It's like he had two left feet, which he does.

Based on the movies I've seen. The visuals in this are fantastic. I love the whole I was talking about the montages, but I love the montage when their album starts to go to the top and you get the billboard chart. And I didn't realize until I was rewatching it, and I think I was watching with the commentary on that that is a set. Part of it is computer generated and film tricks.

But then when it comes to them under that big number and stuff, it's all a set. I was like, that's amazing. The sets in this film are fantastic. Yeah, it's a smart way of doing that of them like literally climbing the charts. I will put out a deep love of Tara Reid in this movie and as one of those actors who got the wrong end of the stay in Hollywood because and again, this is one of those things that like time has been kind, we've reevaluated how we treated Britney Spears, We're doing that whole thing where we're looking back and saying, oh my god, why did Hollywood hate young women in the early two thousands?

And Tara Reid was one of those actresses who was hot, She was cast in a lot of comedies, She could play dumb incredibly well and probably made personal decisions that made her an easy target for gossip rags, and just her career was never what it could have been because she is I think of thinking of other movies like this, of Drop Dead Gorgeous being like a similar thing where you have a lot of young actresses who are playing kind of extreme types, and how most of those actors like went on like Amy Adams in that movie. Is what do I think it was Tara Reid in this movie where like she should have gotten more from this where you see that she could play lovably dumb so well and she's so charming in it, and it makes me mad thinking like what movies we should have had with her in those parts.

It's a really engaging thing for as our read's part. Yeah, it takes a lot to be the dumb one to know where those beats are for the comedy, because you could step onlines, you could come in too late, you could just not have the chops to be able to do that. Even just simple things like her with all of the signs and stuff, and when she has the one where it's conk if you love pussy Cats, and then the way that she reacts when the cars are crashing is just, oh, this is really good. And you have just so many of those great lines are like the look on her face when she when they're going through what people are thinking and they come to her and she's still singing if you're happy and you clap your hands.

If I could do it back in time, I want to eat Snoopy is lines is sit inma history. It really is. I've forgotten it until I just rewatched it again yesterday when that line he I just I'd forgotten it was there, And when she said, I just exploded because it's just so cute and funny and perfect of this character and something nobody else could say I had the prize of the movie. I was laughing so much and I just like rewinded. I'm like, this is not if there's one line to sew up, how unexpected Josie the pussy Cat says that kind of very I'm in tears, different surreal because of so Ringers, but it works in this But yeah, it's just it's that kind of really smart, weird humor that this movie has at times that is really unexpecting.

Remember what you would think this movie would be, even like weird little parts like the third person from Captain and to Neille, I love that. I love this, like sudden behind the music where we're interviewing the third member of the Captain in Taniel and just that they chose that band. I love Captain Tanielle Leve Will Keep Us Together was like my song when I was five years old. I just thought it was the best song ever. So it's just like, oh, cool, talk to me about Muskrat Love please.

Oh And the other thing talking about Parker Posey is that whole thing about how she says the quiet part loud that always gets me every single time. And that is a scene that I can imagine when you are directing it. When you are putting it together, you just you do it and you're like, if it doesn't work, it's just stops everything. I hope it works. You cross your fingers.

How do you know if it works? And you don't probably until you're in a screening room and seeing how it works. It does the thing that also is important when you're doing a joke like that, which is you go too long so that it becomes funny again. Oh yeah, and the guy that she's playing off against, I've seen him in so many things. I think he was in the good place and he's always good and stuff, and just even to see all the extras and stuff like Catherine Isabelle.

Yeah, there's so many good people just in the crowd. It's amazing. So it happened to be a film in Canada and the really two thousands. Alex m I was. I was a little hesitant about him just as far as like how he works in this movie.

But I do think that he's this symbol of purity from Riverdale, that he never gets tarnished and that he becomes a victim like Valerie in this another actress that I just can't get enough of. To have Rosario Dawson this Valerie and just that interaction between her and Josie is so good. And then that use Alan m as this kind of that symbol of what they used to be. He's like a walking bus pass. It works, I think because it was funny.

I was thinking the same thing that I was watching it this time, was it's one of the things that kind of sometimes brings the movie down a little bit because everything else is so up at a ten and very over the top, and then you have him and Josie often playing it very straight and playing it like this suite will they won't? They like hometown kids that are in love but can't tell, and it's one of those, and it's always there as a thing to make her take her to the different level. But then you get to their final scene together at the concert, and I was like, oh no, this totally works because when you get to they are now rock stars, they are performing and suddenly and he's there and it's really earnest.

But then it gets very funny because they are in the middle of this giant concert and she's just talking to him as if they are just connecting at home, and just even the way they were things like, no, I know you don't feel the same way about me. Wait, explain to me what you meant when you said that you don't think I feel the same way about you. It's so awkward and wrong that it works because it is then over the top by playing it straight. It's playing it straight in a big scenario that makes it over the top. And it's really I realized this time watching it that I'm like, man, I'm that smart.

It's really smart. Yeah, this whole movie is smart, and like I said, it's put together so well. The one twist that I didn't necessarily see coming was I didn't think it was less from the band coming back from Djure. He's the only one who wasn't probably worked like the other four actors. I think could only work one day.

Yeah, and yeah, when they are there quote unquote there in the body cast, but he's not, And I'm just like, there's no way that's seth Green was a busy man that time. Yeah. Yeah, no, I'm sure that the Breckenmeier and Donald Faison were not in those casts. The monkey might have been, though we don't it might have been. Yeah.

Yeah. Oh, and speaking of one other thing that is interesting, and I had to look at the dates to figure out when it all happened. But the Simpsons episode, there is a Simpsons episode that aired February. This came out in April of two thousand and one. The Simpsons episode aired in February.

I didn't do the research, but I had to imagine this was pushed back a little bit because of nine to eleven. But I could be wrong. It just feels like it's a movie that has plane crashes in it, and it was Oh no, it was before nine to eleven, wasn't it. Yeah, that was probably another reason why it got quiet for a while. But there was the Simpsons episode where Bart is recruited to be in a boy band and the boy band it's Nielsen, It's Millhouse, It's Ralph, I think, and they are actually pawns of the government who have subliminal messages in the music that is telling everybody to join the Navy.

It's a very similar story, obviously, just sure sheer coincidence. I am sure that weird thing that happens, like the deep impact over the cheer and again like how that always comes in choos I don't know. Two thousand and one was the year of pop music being used to tell subliminal messages by the government, but worth checking out. It's funny because whenever I hear the phrase I said the quiet part loud, I always think of Homer Simpson. There you go, makes sense direct tie.

They predicted everything right, isn't that the whole the series of memes? Pretty much? Unfortunately they predicted Josie and the Pussycats too. Who wants Early? So funny and it also I love a movie that ends on a the cat.

I like bloopers in a comedy when they make sense, and I think this is the kind of movie where Bloomers makes sense. And I love a see I love a movie that ends with just the cast dancing because I think it's cute and I find that very charming. It's very cute. And I do have to say the Blu ray of this is very well worth your money if you're a fan of this. They've got the deleted scenes, they've got the audio commentary.

I think there are like standalone music videos, if memory serves, there's a couple of making ofs. And it's such a time capsule too, because they're all like, they're all so young and it's Babyface Forsario Dawson out and around with Tara Reid, and it's just very cute. Yeah, it's super cute. Yeah. Just to think that this was Rosario Dawson had already been in Kids like six years prior, and to think that as we're recording this, Ashoka just had the trailer premiere at the Star Wars whatever the heck you call it, and I'm just like, she's still just folling through life.

Man. She's just there's no holds barred for this lady. She can do whatever she wants. She's one of those actors that I always imagine if because I've never seen her in person, I feel like she's somebody if you heels saw in person and just be like, oh, just to that very intimidating coolness, because I think wasn't even like the way she was casting Kids was that she was just like hanging out in New York and a casting director was like, Hey, are you an actor? Because you look like an actor.

There's just something like really cool about her that I completely buy her as a rock star because she looks like she should be a rock star. Yeah. And Rachel Lee Cook, who I don't think we've talked too much about In this episode, she does a phenomenal job, and it's just like, why do I not see more Rachel Lee Cook and things? Please? This doesn't make any sense to me.

She should be everywhere. She had a big career when she was young. And again I say a big career because she's and she's probably my age. She was in the Babysitters Club, she was in this she's all that like she had that like angenew thing going for a long time and then I think it was again one of those things were like nobody bound what to do with her. So she's worked steadily.

You skimmed through her IMDb every year. She had multiple things, but I don't know, I just never the roles or the projects that you you'd want to see him. I don't know. Put her in an Apple TV series. I'm sure she'd be great in one.

They make a million of them. We don't know about. I would love to see her have that Kristina Ricci. You researched Oh my god, why isn't she in Yellow Jackets? Partly it seems like someone went they would got to Jackets season Threeckets freak it at the one thing that I can say I'm really glad about.

We mentioned the ladies that played Josie and the Pussycats back in the seventies. I'm niy glad they didn't have to do the obligatory cameo in this movie where everything just stops dead for if you don't recognize these people, that's okay, but your parents probably do. And that's just so awkward every single time. And the ones that really get me are where you think it's an homage or cameo and then it ends up not being and you're just like, oh, that was just a weird decision on the part of the director to leave that in there for a while. Yeah, I think that's one of the benefits of the real life jose and Pussycats music group not taking off and they not being yeah, no need to give anybody work.

They couldn't do it. And then Josie and the Pussycats come back right in a different incarnation in that Murverdale TV show. They sure do. Yeah, and the honor. They're a huge part of the EULI seasons or whateverdaleld There was a spin almost of Overdale Lookout Kingny King that when I seed a season and Josie was the character on the moment and then the model bank.

They turn to chosing the Pussyplits characters for kind of rop where at the end of the episode they send them to salve ministeries in your world. So it is not very much an down that we're going to come along to the crime were really no touch, butts are naming it can totally differently very serious are on robot. They do a really this job. They cover a lot of curremoners on Roverdale that they've over downward. Three small words or pretend to mean lice were just a bumber.

I thought you need to shout out to this movie. All right, We're going to take a break and we'll be right back after these brief messages. Classically is a film Journey to the East, a curated streaming service offering the best of contemporary and classic cinema from Eastern Europe and Asia. Using coupon code Mike fifty, you can get Classic membership for just five dollars fifty cents a month, giving you the opportunity to sample award winning films, documentaries, silent masterpieces, classic comedies, and more. You could also get access to the Classical Journal.

Exclusive cast and director interviews, video essays and watch lists. Visit KLA s si ki dot online and sign up now to start your adventure in film. When the world is in trouble, when our future is in danger, we call upon one man. But when he's busy, he calls five girls. Columbia Pictures presents The Spice Girls.

All right, we're coming in their film debut Victoria, Emma, Melby, Jerry and mel c. They're ready for action, girl pal. They're dressed to kill, sh stirred, and thoroughly prepared for any encounter. It's a story of love. I think with boys you should be able to just wield them in ye and order them like a pizza and no cheese.

Compassion. It's really too hot in here. I need a fan and misunderstanding. When the speeding melon hits the water, there's Christmas but the crows. What did he say?

I have a clueless war this January? Would you like an order? No? I have one of these things. Make your choice.

I like the blonde one. No no, no no no. Sports. Rock your world and up your life with the Spice Girls. The Spice World.

Yeah we can they act blah blah blah, go power feminism. Do you know what I mean? We are back and we are not talking about Josie and the Pussycats, but we're turning to look at another movie that came out just a few years prior to Josie, which is not a prequel to Frank Herbert Stuone. Yes, of course, I'm talking about Spice World. Spice World the vehicle almost literally vehicle for the Spice Girls that came out in nineteen ninety seven.

It was directed by Bob Spears, written mostly by Kim Fuller, the little bit of extra writing by Jamie Curtis, and based on an idea by the Spice Girls. The Spice Girls, they were anomaly as far as you were talking about all the boy bands at the time, but there weren't. And as far as my memory goes, I don't know about Vanity six was already done, but I don't know if and Vogue and Destiny's Child where they were at Destiny's Child was around. When I think of female music of this era or female bands of this era, no doubt comes to my mind, just because that was what people I knew thought was cool. That was the epitome of the perfect woman to both girls and guys.

I knew at this era. I'm going to say I love the Spice Girls in a way I shouldn't have, because they were not aimed at me. I think what was beautiful about the Spice Girls was that they were unapologetic about what they were. It was no secret that they were a monkey's like band of having been assembled and auditioned, but they were in different parts of doing the work. I think Jerry Hallwell wrote most of the music are good chunk of it, And when they came out, it was a sort of alternative to cool music.

It was bops. It was just catchy. It was yes, it was auto tuned, but it was beats that you could move to and dance to, and there was like perspective behind it. Everybody rolls their eyes at girl Power, but in a way, it really was what they were trying to do. It was about them being very confident in what they were and who they were.

And yes, you boil that down to I'm the sporty one, I'm the posh one, I'm the cute one, I'm the redheaded one that we never quite figured out what I am, so in this movie, I'm both the smart one and occasionally the sexy one. I don't really know, but like all that being said, I think again, this is another thing that has been reevaluated quite a lot over the years. Spice World came out. I was sixteen when it came out. It came out in the January of nineteen ninety eight in the States, and my experience with the Spice Girls was somehow I ended up like one of those lazy days where you had VH one on and my older sister and I watched three hours of Spice Girls stuff.

There was like a documentary and interviews, and by the end of those three hours, we've looked at each other, We're like, they're fun. Right, this isn't cool, but it's really enjoyable. It was a pure guilty pleasure and we went to see it by sixteenth birthday. My sister's I'm taking it. We're there's a Spice World.

We go in that movie theater. There were three sets of people. There was my sister and I who were there like ironically but genuinely were enjoying it. There was the target audience, which was a mother and like her ten year old daughter, and there was a bunch of college guys who were a different target audience because they were there because the Spice girls are hot. And I think all three groups were incredibly satisfied with the movie, but that did not represent a large enough chunk of the audience for this movie to actually make any money.

I feel like, Emily, you forgot the one rope this movie was targeted too that I fall into, which is the goofy god Rad. Yes, you're right, You're right. I did, And this movie I'm gonnare' sa balace on big there on snob who's stuck in nineteen ninety two, and I'm sure of shoe. It's medicine everything but spotice up your life. It's a really ship.

That's alid. He's let me say, Prince, either he's dropping on soil or spice girls he's gonna dream about. I was up in the way wearing like a slut and like I went to the over arding them. You say, I lived in by the time of my life. It was just there were substandary rings and they're doing to the kind of with the sound pretension of the bright pop the battle your ring system and I look by ring says there was one chanter and balance to that right is in on the grounds were Spidye Girls at the real they it should have said, I'm just so much shorter, but anything it needs to.

It's this incredible. It's probably a new interview with with Kurt Linger and I believe it's Sarah, it's well being. I'm the word She's said, No, it's about girl. Curtly and mockingly says, I'm sure it is. And then she and we found scary spy says ORNs about it was just open.

Sorry you tell don't take your anything. Kurt Loaders shout yeah, And you watch this movie today and they are one hundred percent like they're feminists. They dress how they want, they act how they want. They are not intimidated by people. They are not sacrificing anything for the relationships in their life.

Their relationships are their friends. It's glorious. I believe them. I wish in real life like the band didn't and then come back, but that time didn't. Back times sure Metal Spice Girls meant to bubble, but yeah charming.

So when this movie was coming out, it was just so oh okay, yeah a movie, okay on there. So for me, I totally missed the Spice Girls like I. Of course you couldn't escape Wannabe that was everywhere, and even with two Becomes One or whatever. So there are a lot of songs that I heard, but I really wasn't paying attention to music starting in about April of ninety four, so I went for a while without knowing anything. And then by the time this movie came out, I was twenty seven and going through a divorce, so this completely passed me by.

It wasn't until years later that I finally saw it on cable. It was like, oh, this is delightful, this is really good. Like I missed out on Josie and the Pushcats the first time around. It wasn't until years later where and I think even more recent than what you were talking about, Emily, So like probably twenty twenty, maybe twenty eighteen at the Yeah, so I really can't to a light. They had a resurgence.

Was it the that was back? Was it the twenty twelve Olympics, twenty fourteen Olympics. They they had a little comeback, And again it was enough time that I think too. A theory of what happened was the people that were Spice Girls fans back then were a little embarrassed about it. We knew it wasn't cool to like the Spice Girls, but it was still something that brought joy.

And now, twenty years later, me as a forty one year old woman, can say, I care I like the Spice Girls. Here's why, and I'll befriend them. And I'm able to articulate it now, whereas back then, and my god, if you want to go down a bad rabbit hole, go to routen Tomatoes and find their top critics reviews from when this movie came out, and you will want to stab your eyeballs with the sharpest sticks you can find. I have a list of them, if you'd like me to read any of them, So let's see. Okay, here is one from the Washington Post.

While Busty Ginger looks like a reform stripper who's at the buffet table too long create a fat joke in a movie review aimed at teenage girls, Bosh Spice is sleek and slim and clearly destined for the next James Bond film. Oh god, okay, here's CNN. They're all big Max and push up bras. To me, to be honest, I do remember that scary Spice is aptly named, what with her hellish resemblance in voice in person to Downtown Julie Brown. Okay, so we have erasedist review.

That's cute, and then here's my favorite one. I think this is also the CNN. Okay, half the folks who think I'm being too hard on this movie haven't challenged themselves since the last time they tried to parallel park, So how can they pretend that this thing is some sort of dunderheaded aberration. Go to the video store and check out the dust that's gathering on the copies of Citizen Kane, Red River, Bonnie and Clyde, and Lost in America for that matter. It's sure is hard to get your hands on Dumb and Dumber, though, isn't it.

It's buffed and polished and predigested for the drooling preteen. The ladies like to hold two fingers aloft, which is either a cry for peace or yet another reminder of just how many breasts they have. Oh God, and this wasn't like so dude in his basement typing out a review That was CNN's official review of Spice World, a PG rated movie marketed towards young girls with no sex in it, with no violence in it. It was a cartoon about this girl group who were friends, and it's a movie about them being friends. And to every person writing or review it was all about their pushup pras.

It's just abhorrent and just really does put you back in the time of My God. We were we can talk about a lot of periods of American cultural times when we were awful to different demographics. We were really bad to young women in this era. Yeah. Unfortunately, there's a lot of reasons why both of these movies that are cut being gardens are in this episode linked together.

But that's ther thirtuar one is just now things were marketed towards young girls, and how like the negativity that we're just sinking at. These people are so padre like Christ, They're just Wow. It's just another reason why I'm not a big fan. Yeah, there's one more from the Chicago reader that I think also speaks to something very specific about what they thought these characters were supposed to be. A pregnant friend wants them to be Godmothers is meant to represent their estrangement from social and family lives, but the device just draws attention to the fact that the group's appeal is based on something antithetical to their maternal instincts.

But they're not women because they're not mothers. Wow. Wow, if that doesn't make you a Spice gross fan, because then you're immediately like, I got to defend these broads. My gosh. Yeah, there's so much clear hate learns women in those or venoms that it's just it's disgusting.

Wow. Yeah, really disgusting. I'm so lately everyone here is a fan of them and this because now we can try to get her to the front acts limited to another. Yeah, that's some Don Simon level. Pretically, that's right there, Emily.

I think you really kneeled that when you said this is a cartoon movie, because the characters do feel very cartoonish, and I could see this being adapted as a cartoon very easily. And you get those jokes like basically their tour bus is the tartis right, because there's just so huge inside, but yet it doesn't have a toilet. Yeah, has a shower, but not a toilet, right. The Brady Bunch House, we talked about the cast. When we're talking about Josie and the Pussycats.

The level of talent that's involved in this from all over the place. You've got Richidie Grant as the manager, Alan coming again in this as the embedded reporter who reminded me of Abba the movie. You've got Meat Loaf as the bus driver, George Went and Mark McKinney as two filmmakers. You've got Roger Moore as the shadowy man behind the scenes. I love Roger Moore in this so much.

I love the gag of just the animal changing of just a cat and then finally a pig. It's just the dumbest thing and it makes me so happy, the self aware it is of Roger Moore and his performance in this. It's beautiful before Oh yeah, Barry Humphries Dame Edna herself and here as this newspaper editor and Richard O'Brien just like where did you come from? Man as this amazing paparazzi and doing some of the best gags since the Ali Jean movie. It's just this amazing yeah, like the Karents is stacked.

Oh but then there's like enough George Road and Mark or Kenning you are also in the which you mentioned, and it's just so that's you know, I remember how British Artium. It's just felt about there was two meaning in there, because I don't know at the time how well kids in the hall were. Okay, I speld cheers. I think it's just it's so random that we're both in it, like I can do it, but literally British even icoic paper being in the stilt. But then the news to it's a it's I love that.

But Him's just that's a really strange flashing story. Those are strange words, is to me. When you get Jason Fleming also showing up in here, one of his earlier roles, and if you don't know the name of the face, you've seen this guy in so many things. I just was rewatching from Hell and of course he shows up, and there the little cameos in here, Bob Geldolf and the whole makeover. Yes, Stephen Fry.

Yeah, it's just amazing this cast. And they know when to really lay it on thick and they know when to back it off. Because the Spice girls, for all intensive purposes, they're not actresses, but they do a phenomenal job in this. They're great. Yeah, I think some are better than others.

I think the movie kind of understands who can carry what, but for what they're called on to do. And for me still I remember thinking this when I saw it over twenty years ago now walking around being like Victoria Beckham is hilarious. Just everything she does. It's just that thing where you just you have a very specific thing you do and you do it the same way every time, and every she makes me laugh the most in this movie. There is in real almost affletelessness, if that's the proper road to their perflorance system here, and I think a change this degree that it was the thing that we're really exciting mean about this movie is that bout of spirits directed.

It were directed with celebrity Towers series. I think it's the second season of Valdy Towers and the first, if not the very first, but maybe the first couple. I have absolutely fadlar theories. So then that is a legitimate broiditch conomany director. And that's when you always said this kind of I've heard this being compared to carry on films in terms of like joke milage, but it doesn't have that the weird out of date yess that the carry on films had, but it does have that kind of like joke curring it speed to it.

But I think this Recain was really unwilling to a kind of snapshot of what life and British pop culture was like in the nine and it all seemed to get absolutely succeeds in that respect and as a resiliently it's dinging the timeless at the same time. Yeah, it's funny because it is obviously very nineties, but it doesn't feel specifically nineties, And part of that might be because it is pulling so many cameos from actors better known in the seventies and eighties, and the other part might just be because it's really British. So there's a lot about it that feels not like my nineties, but probably was British nineties. I think if you looked at it, you would clock the year, but maybe not as easily as maybe Josie, which I think feels very two thousand and one.

I honestly thought these movies were released closer together. I didn't realize there was a four year gap because I was just like, what was this weird thing with Alan Cumming being in these two movies in the same year, and it's no, that's not right. That is not right. Yeah, and this it didn't do well. Right, it wasn't a total bomb.

I think it probably did well better in Europe than in the States. I don't know that there was ever a plan to do like a Spice World two, although I feel like it could have done like Away's World two thing and actually maybe even been better. Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. And yeah, the Spice Girls were not treated very kindly in the US. But I will tell you budget of twenty five million, box office of one hundred million, but it doesn't break it down into which country gave what.

So yeah, because I remember it being gone very quickly here. Yeah, I think it was considered a bomb in the States. And it came out in the end of January, which is typically the time that you dumped movies, although for me it's always like the best time of the year because that's when all the terrible horror movies that are actually good come out. But I guess it must have been a thing where internationally, and I think not even just England, I think a lot of other parts of the country really loved the Spice Girls. And why would you Appair Delight.

This was like one of those movies that was really big in Japan. I could see that. Apparently there's a scene that we've never seen from this movie that Gary Glitter had a four minute cameo and he was found out about the child pornography right before it came out, so they went ahead and deleted that from the print. And though they sang I'm the Leader of the Gang, which is a Gary Glitter song, but they just excised him right out than the movie. Interesting.

Yeah, in that regard, it's interestingly that Jim Saddle isn't in this movie here that even him a similes spill little figure in British pop culture and doc would have been weird to just stand there remain the ear e. This seems like the sort of thing he would pop up then, which fortunately he didn't. Oh yeah, I wonder I didn't look too much up because there's no there still hasn't been like a big DVD release of this. I have a VHS of it somewhere that I thankfully didn't throw out because it's very hard to find. It deserves I want a ten hour documentary about it.

I always gathered that this was made pretty quickly, because it does feel like, as much as it is trying to do a day in the life, there is something missing tying everything together. It just it seems like this is a case where it's like they had to strike where the iron was hot. The nature of a pop band like this was that it was only going to be popular for so long, so you have to get the movie out quickly, and it just it does feel like there is at a certain point you realize, other concert tonight, we have to get to the concert. But that's like halfway through the movie when suddenly it's the day of the concert, and there does seem there could have been one more pass at a script that just turned it into that day or set it up to where it was a clear line.

And there's something very charming about the fact that it is mostly standalone scenes that I'll die together, but some of like all the George Wentz scenes, you can tell they filmed all of those in a day. They're all the same backing and everything else, and it's just one of those I love that it is what it is. There's a part of me that's no, but if I could go back in time and meet Snoopy and after I met Snoopy, I would then say, Tay, guys, can you just delay filming for a month and really work on that script and see what else we could do, because I think there is a way this was not forgotten. I think a lot of people think of this movie fondly or say I should go back to that. But I feel like one of the reasons it hasn't had that full on reconsideration is that it's it's really fun, but it's still hard to tell somebody who isn' in the mindspace for us that like to defend it as no, it's actually really good.

I don't know that it is really good. I just think it's really fun and does what it wants to do. I wish you just wanted to do it a little bit more tightly. That's it. Everything you said there is just so excellent because you really insisted this really and then in that it's felt lets that had it.

We're missing something in the editing. I think a major sequence that was kind of up towards the d see it kind of the war room funerals. So when you said the thing about going if have a loan to your Venien chesses, yeah, rooms Reliefs are released again, where's the commentary track? Well, thing, because I do believe that there's enough people who are on the stairs would buy this evening in the time of drenaling physical media. If you are Ruins, Solid Brewery, Relase or God for Siverta, that's sen's a bit about it.

Run it'll be really interesting thing to put out there. But it's on this there is I'm not even they've said there, which is a route equal in the script that since you makes so pennant, yeah, if they if they do pause, yeah, I don't know the sign of it right back that you Yeah, absolutely, I think, especially when you watch it so close to Josie, which is that Josie is like perfectly tight and knows exactly what it's doing, and like this, you're like, oh, this is like the movie that Josie almost was if Josie didn't have a little more time to get to where it was. Yeah, Ali moved draft Asser send with the West Tramp Trampson background. Truly, I don't I don't forget. Ministering sounds like an idea of the future for me.

The Spice girls, I think, are all friends again and this is the twenty fifth anniversary, they should put it out there. Yeah, because apparently the twentieth anniversary edition was released back in twenty eighteen and it was an Australian release, so what that's Something is up with that? Maybe is it like, because it's not all their music, even their music might be owned by multiple because I think that was part of what drove Jerry away at one point. I think was just some of the songwriting and credit and all of that. I don't know if there's any of that left.

Apparently all of the songs that were spice wirl songs in here were being written while the movie was being done. Because this is their second album. It's called Spice World, but it's all one word and then the movie is Spice World two words. I keep getting confused, and if this is two words or one word, thank you, that explains it. Yes, that is why.

And they didn't have songs yet, so they were writing and doing this at the same time. The pressure on them, just the pressure overall, and especially because they were British stars, so you got those fucking tabloids and all the paparazzi over there. Oh god, the British tablet and I'm sorry not to offend any British people, but British people, why are you so sessed with women's weight, even more so than Americans? But they're like just that whole thing, and just to have been a young because they were young. I'm sure they were all a little older than they probably were presented as initially.

I think that was always a thing of Jerry halliwell, was a couple of years older than the rest of them, but still they were in their twenties, they were early twenties, they were babies, and they were just being thrust into paparazzi taking pictures of them at the worst angles and calling them fat and then telling them they had eating disorders and that they were bad examples for little girls. And that was a whole other thing. And I was trying to figure out because I thought there was a connection here. I don't know that there was, although there probably isn't a bigger cultural history because they were marketed towards young girls. That was the idea, and some of their songs are about sex, but they're also again they're not offensive, they're all positive, they're all about taking charge.

They're actually good songs for young women here. But there was a lot of oh, and the way they dress. Of course they're dressed like this because this is the way you expect young women to dress at this time. And I was trying to like plot when Brat's dolls came out. Remember the Brat's dolls, they were like Barbie, They're like ll dolls.

Now. Yes, they were like presented as a younger with the big heads and the big eyes and like even tinier clothing, and it felt in some ways like when I looked at I remember the Bratstall, was like, oh, is that Spice Girls? Because I have Spice Girls dolls somewhere around here. I thought it was like a Spice Girls doll, realized it wasn't, and that you had this sort of age where you started sexualizing young women but also punishing them for it and telling them they were terrible for doing that. And I don't think the Spice Girls in any way started that.

I think it was just one more on that path to culture deciding how they felt about it, and it just got a weird little stepping stone there. Really interesting to look at one of the producer's careers, Barnaby Thompson, and just to see you were questioning as far as the popularity of the kids in the hall. The movie before this that he produced was Brain Candy. Yeah, before that, Tommy Boy, before that Lassie, before that Wayne's World. Two Cone Heads, Wayne's World.

It's an interesting career because we have mentioned Wayne's World quite a few times during this episode. There's an alien connection with the aliens scene in this movie, which I think is adorable. I will admit before our shad List movie, I showed a video and it's for Spanish of your Life, which is I'm a Bully Sidrad. I was like, is Lewis before I'd seen a trailer? Really any I'm like fans realist, minignant a moment you go to space like Tomorrow, Yeah, because I actually have Tomorrow.

Like most franchises, it takes them a couple of installment plans to get the space. And had they done a Spice World too, it could had to be Spice World two. Out of this World, it writes itself, and then they go to space. They're playing a concert on them for a galaxy and that's the whole thing. And it's Richard Y Grant like with a helmet and like he keeps fogging it up.

Because he keeps getting all and he's trying to smoke in the helmet. Oh, come on, Hollywood, he must the money and make this film. People demand it. Richard E. Grant.

I mean, he's always been good, but there are certain roles where it just shines. And yes, he is so good in this movie. And apparently he did it because like he had a teenage daughter who was like, Dad, you need to do this Spice World movie. And he was like, all right, and he did it, and his daughter came to set every day, and I remember there was it was an oral history or just like an article about everything Spice a couple of years ago, probably for the anniversaries, and he was talking about it, and it sounded like he was still so fond of everything that some of his daughter stayed in touch with the Spice girls. They would text each other years later, and just all of that where I like, when you watch a movie that is goofy and fun and you realize, oh no, and they had fun making it, which and it shows on screen, which I appreciate.

Yeah, that's always appreciated to know those stories are just like oh yeah, no, they really got along or they became friends after this Oh that's too sweet. Just to go back again to the Bob Spears thing, just because I mean, I can't emphasize enough now as like a British comedy nerd, the fact that they got here and which was it? It was it was a really real get because this was a hard purntu on the movie and he was prod asking the absolutely fabulous at that. Probably then you know who's having direct its comedy and I think he really knows how to under worship performances out of people. Yeah, it's a really good point because he's directing five women who are not film actresses, who have to own that screen and have to be likable and have to have a joke's land when they are not comedians, and he does an excellent job of getting those performances.

Says edything can only go so far right. Obviously, they're all extremely talented talent in singing and pro ferry does not necessarily or relap into doing comedy right. And I mean the preferences is like aga mad brudens Is. I always go back and with my favorite past girls, that's a chance to have been. But they're all done film here shoot that some stuff with facial expressions and stuff, but that's really in the next level.

And I think that part of that is being coached properly, and part of that is just natural Billy, and I think the fact that there's camaraderie and fine in the Sensor. You have to think about them at this point in their career in their lodge to be like, what's going to run here? And you get a chance to get really serious about it or have phone with fit and I think they're really on forward with it and that finished product. Yeah, not to bombs out, but anything we can do to fix this currently an IMD B do you know what the rating out of ten is for Spice World? I'm here like three one.

It's three point six out of ten. Oh, I'm not any game and we've discussed this episode. I'm not a critical guy. I'm not a lego rotten Tomatoes guy. It's just like, but people do not make fun And then Citizen Trains of the Road exists and the Red Words exists, but you know what the Spanisher runs plus cows.

Would you like to know what transformers of Michael Bays two thousand and seven's transformers have on IMDb? I'm there's a seven. You're exactly right, seven point zero. Yeah. Of course, of course the score of Spikes World.

You were shouting out the director earlier, and I wanted to shout out the writer, Kim Fuller, who he's just done so many things over the years. Worked a lot with Lenny Henry. He was all the way back on the original not the Nine o'clock News, so he worked with a lot of the folks from there. He wrote a movie that Mouse Smith directed, who worked a lot with Tracy Ullman, so i'd episode yeah, and he wrote from Justin to Kelly. I'm sure he was high because it was probably like, hey, you can do this.

You did Spice World, you have two weeks, can you do it? We're gonna film it in one week. So yeah, I can't blame him for that. And it seemed like something that I would have seen that I have not. I haven't seen the yet, either that or Glitter.

I've actually never seen Glitter, which is shameful for me to say out loud, because it, by all means I should have. From Justin to Kelly is a movie that people probably think Spice World is. The people who do watch Spice World that were like, oh fuck, three point zero on IMDb. That's more what from Justin Kelly is it is a three point six movie. It probably has a higher rating than that, though I'm curious it was written.

You could tell it was filmed very quickly, with very few actors who were ever in front of a camera. It's one of those where you were like, this is like actively uncomfortable because you feel bad that everybody here is contractually obligated to do this and nobody wants to. But if as a thing, you have to give it a go at some point, I need to take that plunge one of these days. Well, if you do an episode, I'll come back for it for you. I would do that.

Wow, that's a sacrifice. I would absolutely watch that. What is its rating? Oh, one point nine, which is one of the lowest ratings I've ever seen on IMDb, So that has got to be probably on that list of lowest. Oh wow, what an era?

You want that era? You want to early do thousands? You will find it in that movie. I want to thank my co host Emily and Chris for joining me. Emily, what has been going now with you?

Ma'am? I co host The Feminine Critique with the wonderful Christine make Peace, who's been on this show many a time. We cover movies, we do a lot of different discussions. The last episode we put out I'm actually really proud of. We did an episode that was all about us calling out our five scariest movies of all time for us personally, so going into what actually makes us scared and what movies have tapped into that of different eras and ages, and I think it was a pretty fun discussion.

And Chris, how about you. I'm still doing The Sci Fi Explosion, which is a comedy video show that I do online at twitch dot tv slash sci Fi Explosion, The Expludence the wackiest moments in science fiction history, things like the music video for Billy Oceans, letterd Burley, things, Pascal's the video for Space of Your Life, and most of them is just an exploration if I work the sci fi brorl of the seventies and then he he's looting up to has impacted every aspect of our liners. And I'm just write the introduction for a compilation of last comics from Archie, which he can buy us stewares. It's just one of and it's a little collection in it, but you can find another with so sure media on the stouts and Hanlets sci Fi Explosion.

Thank you so much guys for being on the show. Thanks to everybody for listening. Thanks especially to our Patreon community. If you want to join the community, visit patreon dot com slash Projection Booth. Every donation we get helps the Projection Booth take over the spice world.

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