Deborah Kaplan and Harry Elfont’s effervescent pop-culture satire Josie and the Pussycats didn’t connect in 2001, perhaps because the idea of another TV-derived prefab cash-in kept audiences away. That’s too bad — the movie’s an inspired send-up of the hucksterism it in some ways represents.
Rachael Leigh Cook, Rosario Dawson and a sublimely ditzy Tara Reid are just another hardworking garage band in Riverdale, U.S.A., when red-hot boy band Dujour disappears in a plane crash (thus sparing the world their coded ode to anal sex). At this point, the movie spins an elaborate (but not farfetched) conspiracy theory involving the corporate enslavement of teens, and it names names — the oppressive, inescapable product placement becomes a great running joke. (Walking into the theater lobby after watching this is like wearing the glasses from They Live.)
Alan Cumming and Parker Posey are the preening-peacock villains; the cotton-candy punk-pop soundtrack was expertly crafted by Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds, Fountains of Wayne’s Adam Schlesinger and others. It’s The Belcourt’s swell midnight selection tonight and Saturday. Below, the trailer.
