Josie and the Pussycats (film)

Josie and the Pussycats
Directed by	Harry Elfont Deborah Kaplan
Written by	Harry Elfont Deborah Kaplan Dan DeCarlo (characters)
Produced by	Tony DeRosa-Grund Tracey E. Edmonds Chuck Grimes Marc E. Platt
Starring	Rachael Leigh Cook Tara Reid Rosario Dawson Alan Cumming Parker Posey
Cinematography	Matthew Libatique
Edited by	Peter Teschner
Music by	John Frizzell
Distributed by	Universal Pictures International: MGM (through 20th Century Fox)
Release dates	April 11, 2001
Running time	98 minutes
Country	USA
Language	English
Budget	$22,000,000 (estimate)
Box office	$14,252,830 (domestic sub-total)

Josie and the Pussycats is a 2001 comedy film 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. While the Cook, Reid, and Dawson lip synced to the songs in the film, they were actually performed by former alternative rock band Letters to Cleo, with Kay Hanley as the voice of Josie. The film is based upon the Archie comic of the same name, which had been adapted into a Saturday morning cartoon by Hanna-Barbera in 1970.

Plot

Wyatt Frame (Cumming) is a record executive, working for record label MegaRecords. The label, headed by the trendy and scheming Fiona (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 (Cook), Melody (Reid), and Valerie (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 life and return to their accommodation to discover Josie intent on a solo career. After a fight with her bandmates, 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 DuJour, 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.

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 Motorola, Starbucks, McDonald's, Sega, Target, Aquafina, America Online, Pizza Hut, Cartoon Network, Revlon and more. None of the advertising was paid promotion by the represented brands, it was inserted voluntarily by the filmmakers.

Cast

• Rachael Leigh Cook as Josie McCoy
• Tara Reid as Melody Valentine
• Rosario Dawson as Valerie Brown
• Alan Cumming as Wyatt Frame
• Parker Posey as Fiona
• Gabriel Mann as Alan M.
• Paulo Costanzo as Alexander Cabot
• Missi Pyle as Alexandra Cabot
• Tom Butler as Agent Kelly
• Alexander Martin as Les (Du Jour band member)

Donald Faison, Seth Green, and Breckin Meyer have cameos as the members of the band Du Jour. Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds also makes an uncredited cameo, appearing as "the Chief", supposedly the lost third member of the 1970s group Captain & Tennille. Carson Daly and Eugene Levy also make appearances in the film, playing themselves.

Reception

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

Trivia

• The MPAA gave Josie and the Pussycats a PG-13 rating, "for language and mild sensuality". Archie Comics was not happy at the rating, and went so far as to post two disclaimers on its website: "Heh, Josie, PG 13 -- say it isn't so!! What's up with that?!?" and "Astonished Alan M. exclaims, 'PG-13 -- Not My Cats!' (written from the perspective of Josie character Alan M.). When Universal released the film on video, it, at Archie Comics' request, had a PG-rated "family friendly" edit of the film released alongside the theatrical version. The differences between the two are minor, consisting of dialogue changes (to remove harsher PG-13 level language) and a few double entendres (both in the dialogue and on screen) revolving around the word "pussy".
• Carson Daly faces Melody in a hostile confrontation, to which she 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," most likely 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, "Because I was in the comic".

External links

• Josie and the Pussycats at IMDb