JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS
/
2001
DIRECTOR: HARRY ELFONT & DEBORAH KAPLAN
CINEMATOGRAPHER: MATTHEW LIBATIQUE
WRITER: HARRY ELFONT & DEBORAH KAPLAN(writers)/ RICHARD GOLDWATER, DAN DECARLO & JOHN L. GOLDWATER (characters)
BUDGET: $39,000,000
GROSS: $14,866,015(worldwide)
Josie And The Pussycats is a film that I think could have appealed to two very separate audiences but instead just ended up getting lost to both.
The most obvious audience for the film is the teen movie crowd, being that it deals with boy and girl bands and the whole crazy teen pop music industry. However, the film is also quite a good - and unexpected - satire. A very funny satire on the teen pop music industry with the basic premise that for years the record industries have been inserting subliminal messages into music turning teenagers into unsuspecting purchasing zombies and killing off any band that figures out their scheme. And Josie and the Pussycats are picked from obscurity by an evil manager to be the next pawns in the industries plan.
What might have made the film hard to position was the fact that the Josie And The Pussycats IP comes from a television series that aired from 1970-1972. Which means that when the film came out, the people that would’ve been most familiar with the show would’ve been in their 30s (and older) - definitely not the audience the advertising was geared towards.
The performances are also good all around, from Allen Cumming to Parker Posey, Rachael Leigh Cook and Rosario Dawson. Then there’s Seth Green and Breckin Meyer who play two members of the Backstreet Boys-esque band 'DuJour'. The scene when they’re all arguing about a magazine cover photo of the group and who is allowed to do what facial expression is hysterical - as are the overtly sexual lyrics to a couple of the songs they perform.
Josie And The Pussycats went bust at the box office back in 2001 and was quickly forgotten. Partly I think, because many assumed it to be just another standard, by-the-numbers teen movie, when it’s actually much better much then that. This is one worth going back to if you ignored it when it first came out.