Josie and the Pussycats is a 2001 comedy released by Universal Pictures and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was directed by Harry Elfont and Deborah Kaplan, and starred Rachael Leigh Cook, Tara Reid, Rosario Dawson, Parker Posey, and Alan Cumming. The film is loosely based upon the Archie comic of the same name, which had also been adapted into a Saturday morning cartoon by Hanna-Barbera in 1970.

Plot

Wyatt Frame (Alan Cumming) is a record executive, working for record label MegaRecords. The label, headed by the trendy and scheming Fiona (Parker Posey) pumps out pop bands and, through an arrangement with the United States government, get teens to buy their records and follow "a new trend every week" by putting subliminal messages under the music. These messages change weekly; a fill-in-the-blank phrase of the film is [Blank] is the new [blank], such as Orange is the new pink! The Government's motive in the scheme is to help build a robust economy from the "wads of cash" teenagers earn from babysitting and minimum wage jobs. When a member of Wyatt's wildly successful boy band, Du Jour, uncovers one such subliminal message and, with innocent concern, asks him about it aboard Du Jour?s private jet, Wyatt parachutes out with the pilot, leaving the plane to crash.

He lands just outside the town of Riverdale, and desperate for a replacement for Du Jour, he meets Josie (Rachael Leigh Cook), Melody (Tara Reid), and Valerie (Rosario Dawson): the financially struggling The Pussycats. He offers them a lucrative record deal and flies them off to Hollywood where they are renamed Josie and the Pussycats. All goes well, with instant popularity for the band until Valerie gets frustrated that the focus of the band is not on them as a whole, but rather Josie. Melody, too simple to notice the attention Josie receives, uses her uncanny behavioral perception and becomes suspicious of Fiona and Wyatt.

Because of these suspicions, an attempt is made to kill Valerie and Melody when they make an appearance without Josie on the MTV show Total Request Live. Meanwhile, Josie is brainwashed by subliminal messages in a new demo CD to try to push her into a solo career. Valerie and Melody survive the attempt on their lives and return to their hotel to discover Josie intent on a solo career. After a fight with her band mates, Josie realizes that the music influenced the fight, and she goes to the studio to investigate the CD that she was given. Her suspicions are confirmed at the studio, but she is caught by Fiona.

MegaRecords have organized a giant pay-per-view concert, whereby it is planned to unleash their biggest subliminal message scheme yet. They try to force Josie to perform on stage, otherwise Melody and Valerie will be killed. The surviving but badly injured members of Du Jour, who were thought to be dead, appear just in time to help the Pussycats. In the resulting fight scene, Josie manages to destroy the machine used to make the subliminal messages. The message is revealed to be one that will make Fiona popular. Her poor self-esteem began in high school where she talked with a lisp. Wyatt exclaims "Lisping Lisa?" and reveals that his appearance is a disguise - that he went to the same high school as Fiona, but was known as the albino kid, "White-Ass Wally". The two fall instantly in love, and are arrested by the government for crimes against the youth of America. The MegaRecords subliminal message program had been scrapped because the government decided to use movies instead.

Josie, Valerie, and Melody go on to perform the concert, and for the first time, the audience is able to judge the band on its merits, rather than be subliminally persuaded to like the band. The audience roars their approval as the film comes to a close.

Cast

• Rachael Leigh Cook as Josie McCoy, the red-headed co-founder lead vocalist, guitarist, and band leader.
• Tara Reid as Melody Valentine, an absent-minded blonde who co-founded and drums the Pussycats
• Rosario Dawson as Valerie Brown, the Pussycats' headstrong songwriter, bassist and backup vocalist
• Alan Cumming as Wyatt Frame, a conman who is Du Jour's manager and is the cause of their ultimately demise
• Parker Posey as Fiona, the MegaRecords CEO who orders Wyatt to put subliminal messages in Du Jour's songs
• Gabriel Mann as Alan M., Josie's boyfriend and the band's roadie
• Paulo Costanzo as Alexander Cabot, the band's rich, temperamental, and snobbish manager
• Missi Pyle as Alexandra Cabot, Alexander's talentless and demanding twin sister who is chasing Josie's love interest, Alan
• Tom Butler as Agent Kelly

Cameos

• Alexander Martin as Les (Du Jour band member)
• Donald Faison as DJ (Du Jour band member)
• Seth Green as Travis (Du Jour band member)
• Breckin Meyer as Marco (Du Jour band member)
• Carson Daly as Himself
• Aries Spears as Carson's henchman
• Eugene Levy as Himself
• Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds as The Chief

Production

In line with its theme of subliminal advertising, the inordinate degree of product placement in the movie constitutes a running joke. Almost every scene features a mention or appearance of one or more famous brands, including the likes of Dreamcast, Motorola, Starbucks, McDonald's, Sega, Target, Aquafina, America Online, Pizza Hut, Cartoon Network (which has aired the cartoon series on many occasions), Revlon, Kodak, Puma, Advil, Bounce and more. None of the advertising was paid promotion by the represented brands, it was inserted voluntarily by the filmmakers.^[1]

Reception

The film grossed $14,300,000 at the U.S. box office; however, its budget was an estimated $22,000,000, resulting in a domestic box office loss.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack was released April 10, 2001 by Universal Records, the day before the film was released. The songs in the film were actually performed with Kay Hanley, former singer for Letters to Cleo, as the singing voice of Josie^[2]. Rachael Leigh Cook lip synched to the songs in the film, and according to a documentary that accompanied the DVD version of the movie, the three lead actresses sang backup vocals on many of the songs.

1. 3 Small Words - Josie and the Pussycats
2. Pretend to Be Nice - Josie and the Pussycats
3. Spin Around - Josie and the Pussycats (written by Adam Duritz)
4. You Don't See Me - Josie and the Pussycats (Duritz)
5. You're a Star - Josie and the Pussycats (Duritz)
6. Shapeshifter - Josie and the Pussycats
7. I Wish You Well - Josie and the Pussycats
8. Real Wild Child - Josie and the Pussycats
9. Come On - Josie and the Pussycats
10. Money (That's What I Want) - Josie and the Pussycats
11. Du Jour Around the World - Du Jour
12. Backdoor Lover - Du Jour
13. Josie and the Pussycats Theme - Josie and the Pussycats

Trivia

• The PG-rated version is in Fullscreen format only and contains these scenes:
  • Melody is holding a sign that says "Honk if you love Pussycats."
  • In one scene there's a cardboard figure of Ulala from the 2000 Dreamcast game Space Channel 5.
• The DVD features several deleted scenes, including a much longer introduction to Fiona at the MegaRecords party.
• Carson Daly faces Melody in a hostile confrontation, during which he comments that if circumstances were different, they could "totally date." At the time the movie was filmed, Carson Daly and Tara Reid were engaged in real life.
• Du Jour is French for "Of The Day," a comment on the late nineties revolving door teen pop groups.
• While in the private jet, Alexander asks his sister why she is flying with them, and she breaks the fourth wall in her response, "I'm here 'cause I was in the comic book."
• At the very end of the film, after all the credits have rolled, Mr. Moviefone says, "Jerken!"
• Outtakes are shown while the credits are rolling.
• The MGM lion morphs into a screaming fan.
• A cover of the original Josie and the Pussycats cartoon theme song plays during the end credits.
• In the version of "Josie and the Pussycats" released outside North America, the Universal logo transforms into the tongue stud of a screaming fan. (Universal's logo comes before Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's on the American prints; internationally it is the other way around.)

References

1. ↑ from DVD commentary
2. ↑ Letters to Cleo ::: News

External links

• Official site

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