March is upon us for another year, which means, as always, I break out the baddies. Because I’m apparently something of a masochist, I’ve decided to see how quickly I can bring down my mood from a good event thanks to the movie I’m watching.
Early reports via From Justin to Kelly, the American Idol movie from 2003, show that this will be very successful. Sigh.
The Good Event: I just gotten back from getting sushi with friends. I love sushi, especially the unagi from Wasabi, so both my stomach and I were feeling really good. 88 minutes later, not so much.
Just how bad is From Justin to Kelly? Set in Miami during spring break, it’s like Grease: The Next Generation acted out by the food-court staff at SeaWorld. Justin Guarini, cast as the cool-dude ”mayor” of spring break, spends the entire movie getting his text messages crossed with nice girl Kelly Clarkson. He may, in other words, have missed nabbing the crown on American Idol, but he’s still chasing after the winner. You could say that the beach-blanket imbecility is no worse than what we got in ’60s musicals like Where the Boys Are, except that Connie Francis didn’t sing as if she were selling passion by the yard.
- It feels vaguely racist, but in the way of human versus non-human racism. Alexa, the blonde girl in the movie, is so mean that you feel as if she’d start screaming the n-word at Kaya if it weren’t for Kelly being there to take her anger.
- It gets characters and logic right. People in the movie don’t understand how technology works, as a dispute created via text messaging is never addressed, even though both Kelly and Justin have cell phones.
- It gets the entire concept of Spring Break wrong. Nothing says Spring Break like having a whipped cream bikini contest that consists of putting whipped cream on a bikini.
- It gets clothing wrong. Perhaps Kelly Clarkson was feeling self-concious. That doesn’t excuse anyone from wearing mom jeans or shorts with mens’ ties on them.
- It gets working wrong. Waitresses are allowed to have a week long vacation? I thought that was called unemployment.
That said, if the writers were going for sociopathic characters, then they nailed it with Justin. Because if he’s managed to sleep with every girl in Miami (as is implied by one of his friends), then he seems to have no problem living as an STD contagion. And AIDS. And a yeast infection. So there’s that.