Product Description

The high energy story about three newly discovered small-town musicians who get tangled up in an evil plot to control the youth of america. A psychotic studio executive is manipulating the lucrative teen market by mixing subliminal advertising messages into the music of her bands. Studio: Uni Dist Corp. (mca) Release Date: 06/01/2004 Starring: Rachael Leigh Cook Alan Cumming Run time: 99 minutes Rating: Pg13 Director: Harry Elfont

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #13977 in DVD
• Brand: Universal
• Released on: 2001-08-14
• Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, DTS Surround Sound, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, French
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 98 minutes

Amazon.com
"Oh my God, I'm a trend pimp!" cries rocker Josie McCoy (Rachel Leigh Cook) when she discovers that she and her best friends Melody (Tara Reid) and Val (Rosario Dawson)--collectively known as the Pussycats--have been recruited in a plot to brainwash America's youth into a frenzy of mindless consumerism. Unbeknownst to the Pussycats, subliminal messages in their chart-topping hit "Pretend to Be Nice" are forcing kids to follow the latest prefab trends as if their lives depended on it. Josie's going to be the Next Big Thing, and to her manager (Alan Cumming) and Megarecords mogul Fiona (Parker Posey), the other Pussycats are expendable baggage in their scheme to dictate the cool quotient of teenagers everywhere.

Shrewdly concocted by codirectors Harry Elfont and Deborah Kaplan, this wildly comedic update of the Archie comic book (and early-'70s cartoon show) is a deliriously entertaining assault on pop-cultural flotsam, with a disposable boy-band (aptly named "Du Jour") and cross-product marketing ploys that perpetuate blind conformity among gullible teens. Blatant product placements dominate virtually every colorful scene as Josie gamely embraces the cultural blight it claims to criticize, but this isn't Hollywood hypocrisy. Elfont and Kaplan willfully bite the hand that feeds them, and they're having loads of fun while advocating independent opinion. Cook and her pals are more honestly sexy than Britney Spears, and they make genuinely catchy music (although Cook's vocals were dubbed). It's pure fluff, but Josie and the Pussycats was conceived in such high spirits that it's hard to imagine how it could be improved. Even the obligatory end-credit outtakes are utterly irresistible. --Jeff Shannon

From The New Yorker
A teen movie that's something of a put-on. A milquetoast record promoter (Alan Cumming) and his bitchy boss (Parker Posey) implant messages in pop songs which tell young America which clothes to buy and stars to like (e.g., "Heath Ledger is the new Matt Damon"). Into their clutches stumble Josie and the Pussycats, of Archie Comics fame, and, thanks to subliminal suggestion, the band's songs soon top the charts. Throughout all the major-chord fun, the writing and directing team of Harry Elfont and Deborah Kaplan continually wink at the audience. Corporate logos (Starbucks, Target, Revlon) are pasted everywhere; a rebellious record-store employee gets kidnapped by an MTV van; the Manhattan skyline is accessorized with supersized McDonald's arches. These games are fine and frequently hilarious, but they spring from a one-note cleverness; what could have been a lark becomes another hollow display of irony. -Michael Agger
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Great movie for a Sociology class
One of my students recommended this movie for my "Advertising and Society" sociology class. I cannot personally identify with this movie, I would not watch it just to watch a movie, but to explain concepts, and theories, and critiques, and paradigms for the advertising class, this is really perfect. The constant, in-your-face display of brand names is phenomenal. Students will identify, after a few minutes, all the "hidden" ads contained in our environments; they have a great time with the teenies who decide that one color is out, and the other is in. When watched in conjunction with a good textbook (such as Twitchell's ADCULT USA), it is blatantly apparent that indeed, advertising is culture, and culture is advertising. What a great movie to show for this class. I highly recommend it.

SocProf

(3.5): A Zoolander for Young Girls (and Boys...)
I'm not sure whether this movie came out before or after Zoolander, but it certainly shares many things in common. You have your Derek Zoolander type character(s) embodied in Josie and the Pussycats themselves, who were discovered out of nowhere by a music agent who needed a new band to act as a front for the music industry and its use of subliminal messages to get young people to consume products and buy into every fad alive. It really is a good set-up and one that is a great modern reinterpretation of the original Archie Comic (I would have loved to have a cameo of Archie and his friends). The movie follows a one week or so change of fortunes for Josie and their friends as they go from playing at a bowling alley where they are each paid $5 to be ignored by old men bowling strikes to being number one on Billboard. All the while, they are being used to make money. Of course, we have the classic fight between band members and ultimate redemption followed by the chance to play for real, without the subliminal messaging in front of thousands of people. And of course, sprinkle in some love and a moral or two. It all adds up to a relatively entertaining movie from the decade that spawned the "teen movie." Unlike some of the others, this at least has some redeeming and touching moments and I think it will definitely appeal to a younger audience.

Smarter than you would imagine
At first glance, "Josie and the Pussycats" looks like yet another brainless movie aimed at 12 year-old girls. In fact, it is a very clever satire of the whole teenage pop-music industry. The plot centres on an "evil" organization (led by Parker Posey and Alan Cumming) that is hiding subliminal messages in pop-music in order to get teenagers to buy things that they don't really want, with girl band, Josie and the Pussycats (Rachel Leigh Cook, Rosario Dawson and Tara Reid), becoming unsuspectingly involved in their scheme.

In many ways this film reminded me a lot of "The Brady Bunch Movie" in that both of these films are films that don't take their subject matter too seriously and don't underestimate the intelligence of their audience (and are all the better for it). Both films are also filled with an ample supply of jokes (which are very funny) and "Josie and the Pussycats" has the added advantage that the songs that the Pussycats play are actually worth listening to (I also own the soundtrack and love it). The only drawback of this film is that there are too many musical montage sequences, particularly in the first half of the film, but that's just a minor matter and would not stop me from re-watching this film.