Enter the Nightmare-Fueled World of "Josie and the Pussycats"

               Once upon a time, in a world of soda fountains and family-safe shenanigans, there was a boy named Archie. Archie is and was the star of “Archie Comics,” a deeply mismanaged funny-book targeting (it seemed) the same demographic as Bazooka Joe. Over the years, Archie has had countless spinoffs, including Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Afterlife with Archie, and the inexplicably amazing Archie Vs. Predator. Today we’re going to talk about the least-known of the spinoffs, the 2001 Universal Studios blunder, Josie and the Pussycats.

               “Hold it, pal,” you say, lowering your croissant, “ain’t this a literary blog? Where the hell’s the literature?”

               Well, yeah it is. But your Loyal Writer is finishing up the second draft of a novel and he’s a bit tired, so a reaction-post about a pre-teen pop parody is about all he can do right now. Okay?

               “Fine, but... Aren’t you worried you might alienate readers who come here for high-quality, intellectual stimulation—”

               Hey, relax. I know what I’m doing here. Besides, this movie has Alan Cumming in it. And the Illuminati. Everyone loves those two things specifically, right?

               “Actually…”

               Ah, shut up and eat your hypothetical croissant.

You can feel the obscurity seeping out of every pixel, can’t you?

               So, Josie and the Pussycats. This movie was based on a comic of the same name published by Archie Comics. Josie and crew were pretty popular back in your parents’ day, and even had their own cartoon. Which is weird, given that her gang… doesn’t really have much personality. Don’t blame Josie, though: they’re not allowed to. They needed to be inoffensive in the way 60’s cartoons had to be: vacant-eyed, eternally cheerful, and ready for family-friendly adventures every Saturday morning.

               Also, they went everywhere dressed in leotards and cat ears. That’s not weird. Why would that be weird at all?

              

               … Okay, I lied. It’s super weird.

               Josie and her pals were mostly forgotten by society, until in 2001 Universal Studios decided to resurrect them for a quick cash-grab. What they expected was a paint-by-the-numbers, predictable teenage adventure with photogenic stars, which might net them some profit. What they got was a huge financial flop with embedded warnings of corporate greed, world-spanning conspiracies, and subliminal messaging. Understandably, there were no sequels.

               Which is kind of a shame, because it’s a good movie in a vapid, early-00’s kind of way. Josie came out in April 2001, so I’m not surprised it’s been forgotten—a year later we were pushing Freedom Fries and watching George W. waddle into a quagmire. But Josie deserves to be remembered for its surprising, inexplicable, and wholesale rejection of consumerism.

               Josie opens with an N-SYNC style group playing to a crowd of cheering teenagers. We see already this is a rough world to live in: without a Nick Carter or a Timberlake to crush on, the teens of this universe must settle for Seth Green, Breckin Mayer and… Donald Faison? What the hell are you doing here?

Run, Turk, run! You have an amazing sitcom career ahead of you! Don’t get affiliated with this movie!

               The movie proceeds to mock its own boy-band relentlessly. This is a tongue-in-cheek nod at stupid fads which Disney has also done, and it’s all fun and games until Alan Cumming figures out the boys are getting wise to subliminal tracks in their music. And he proceeds to kill them. Yep, he parachutes out of the plane and it crashes. We aren’t treated to a gruesome explosion, but presumably it happens off-screen. Damn!

               Having crashed this plane with no survivors, we are then introduced to Josie and her bandmates Melody and Valerie. Josie is heart-sick over the “cutest boy” in Riverdale, a knockoff Cobain type who’s apparently allergic to shoes. Shouldn't Josie’s unrequited love be someone with a job? Who doesn’t sing about truck engines? Whatever, la vie boheime, I guess. We’re also introduced to Josie’s shitty manager and his sister, who are only characters because the movie needed more SUPER ZANY and MAD GRODY behavior, because that’s what brings kids to theaters.

Damn you, focus groups!

               After the weird 90’s nostalgia-bomb that is Josie’s house, we snap back to Alan Cumming as Wyatt, who--we feel obliged to remind you--is still a murderer. Our murderer is looking for a band, and wanders into a mall. Things get terrifying real fast.

Wyatt tells the mall DJ (because it’s 2001, and they have those) to play a new track from the band he turned into jerky. The DJ does, and the mindless consumers around them are re-wired to want new stuff. Yeah, seems legit! He also gives some random Biff-looking teen spontaneous alcoholism. Hooray for capitalism! (Not pictured in this clip: An edgy goth girl rejects his subliminal message and is dragged into an unmarked van, faster than a Saudi professor acknowledging the existence of Yoda.) By this time it’s clear: Alan Cumming is an actual supervillain. All hail our snarky new overlord?

But wait: the conspiracy goes deeper. Wyatt picks up Josie and co., since he needs new musicians to replace the ones he burned alive, and Josie is skeptical. But her band-mates are totally down! so they fly to the big city! With Josie’s beau! What could go wrong?

Sweet Jesus.

So… THAT’S a thing, I guess. The movie has neglected to mention until now that NYC, Riverdale, and possibly all of America are slowly becoming Mega-City One. Corporations own the city skyline, the local decor, and quite possibly the air. How edgy! It’s almost like the movie is trying to tell us something, about reckless consumerism.

I wonder what they’re getting at?

Our heroine and her crew are deluged with luxury, but all is not well. A stalker keeps leaving them warnings not to trust the record label, Wyatt’s auto-tune machine turns their vegetarian into a Big Mac lover, and we’re given a back-stage pass to the inner workings of a pop-music conspiracy. It’s led by Wyatt’s boss, villainess-slash-fashion-abomination Fiona (Parker Posey.)

“Could you at least TRY to look menacing for this scene?”

In true teen-movie fashion, the antagonists are more bumbling than terrifying, but they’re also selling mind-control headphones to the U.S. government. And they’re doing all this in the name of “stimulating the economy.” Don’t worry, they’re job creators, it’s fine.

By now we’re in maximum anti-Wall Street territory, smuggling as many Marxist undertones as our humble Universal kids’ movie can abscond with. The characters are constantly surrounded by branding, which has double-duty both advertising to the audience and reminding us how annoying it is to be advertised to—and this was back in 2001. I can only imagine the horrors a modern Josie reboot might bring us. Mind-reading Pandora ads? McDonalds-sponsored extra stomachs? Man, I’m glad I don’t live in their universe. Or do I? Maybe I’m being mind-controlled right now! Maybe we all are! My third eye is opening, I can see Hypercubes! Must… build… tinfoil hats! 

Speaking of mind control, the use of the band’s cat ears (as a subliminal messaging vector) is a clever little commentary. “The Man” has taken Josie’s endearing gimmick, and turned it into a soulless money-making machine. Her music itself is then remixed and used to turn her into… well, kind of an asshole. She drives her friends away by acting like a diva, because the psychologicalfallout of wealth and fame is hard to unpack inside one hour and thirty-eight minutes. It’s easier to just say “Josie’s an asshole now, because of magic headphones.”

Schizophrenic personality swaps and BFF-breakups ensue. All standard Disney Channel fare, but it leads us to the best moment in all cinema. Because there is a scene, in this movie, where Carson Daly turns out to be an assassin working for the New World Order.

Did we mention this movie is for kids? The Pussycats provide valuable role model material here, by beating the shit out of their aggressors. Then they run to tell Josie and not the police, for… some reason. Josie, of course, isn’t having it, because she’s a Lizard Person now, and is helping the Masons erect a giant Xenu-pyramid beneath the World Trade Center. (No, none of that actually happens, but it wouldn’t be much of a stretch at this point.) 

Everything gets wrapped up in the climax with PG-rated convenience: the villainess turns out to just be looking for love, the mind-control scheme is derailed, and the U.S. government confiscates the cat-ear headsets, probably for use at Guantanamo. The dead band turns out to be alive—horribly maimed, but alive! They even get triumphant background music.

"After getting their skin cooked off, Du Jour's music improved considerably, and they put out a rustic folk album."

Everything is neatly resolved, with no loose ends at all except for… wait. The "Archie" universe is still run by corporations treating people like puppets. That hasn’t changed one bit by the end! This isn’t a resolution at all! But Josie and the girls get to sing a rebellious rock song about love, so... maybe that’ll fix their dystopia somehow. I don't know.

While soaked in post-90’s wholesomeness, this is the rare kind of kids’ movie which serves as a commentary on itself. And despite bad reviews, it's genuinely funny, with absurdist gags throughout, and Alan Cumming doing his best Atlas, carrying the entire movie like a boss. Parker Posey also deserves an honorable mention, for her creepy junk-food-addicted, gender-role-enforcing CEO. Really, the only REAL villain in this movie… is Capitalism. Yeah, that’s right, I said it. Open your eyes, sheeple!

And that wraps up my (hopefully) only interaction with the ridiculous Archie universe. Thank God I’ll never have to interact with this cornball cast again. Wait... What’s that, on the horizon?

Could it be? It is!

Another weird Archie-themed reboot, that NOBODY asked for!

               Oh, I gotta check this one out. See you guys in a few weeks.

Movie Review: "You've Got Mail", and the Infinite-Tom-Hanks Conspiracy Theory

                Sometimes I miss the 90’s. Not in a waxy, nostalgic way, although that was the period I grew up from a grubby child into a grubby adult. I miss that era in a “the world was marginally less screwed back then” way. It’s nice to look back and think at one point, the most racist person in U.S. politics was probably Newt Gingrich (remember him? No? Good, be glad) and for a brief period, reflect that people actually cared about “Crazy Bones.” What a strange and magical time.

                But there are some things from the 90’s that are very rightly forgotten. Time has rolled over these pockets of evil, steamrolling them into the grease-soaked tapestry of American history. Depressing headlines like the Unabomber, scandals like the Clinton affair which seem quaint to us now, have all faded. But the 90’s serves as a cage for a darker power, an insidious evil that history can never truly erase: Tom Hanks romantic comedies.

                “What?” you might say. “But I loved those!” Sure you did. And that’s fine. But you don’t understand, man. You don’t get it yet. You haven’t seen these movies like I’ve seen them, okay? Let me bring you into my world. Let me show you the face of pure evil.

I didn’t have much cable growing up, so when I discovered Tom Hanks romances were a big deal, I was curious. I’d seen Castaway of course, and Forrest Gump, but that’s about it. Recently went back and watched You’ve Got Mail, to find out what I’d been missing living under a rock all these years. 

What I found was pure nightmare fuel.

             Let’s revisit this movie together. Let’s explore the terrifying, cosmic implications of a world where screenwriters have decided your reality, where Tom Hanks is the only romantic partner you can be with due to cruel fate and lazy screenwriters. Let’s dive into those oily folds under Tom’s weird chin and see what we can uncover.

                Here’s the trailer.

              

                Cute, right? Pure, mid-90’s, “New York is so cool and trendy I hope nothing bad happens to us lol” chuckle-a-minute romance. The email plot is adorably dated, and “Joe and Kathleen” seem like fun, quirky people. Maybe a bit too quirky. You can see the bare bones of the “manic pixie dream girl” archetype in Meg Ryan’s Kathleen, a book shop owner whose nail-biting illicit romance with someone on the new-fangled Internet is bound to cause havoc. And even in this trailer, something in Tom Hanks’ monosyllabic “Joe” seems a bit off. He’s clearly a fun-loving guy, and very quippy. There’s a frame of him riding in a go-cart, playing with some kids you assume might be his:

            

“Oh, Tom Hanks, you scoundrel, you’ve done it again,” you smile as “Mr. Postman” plays jauntily in the background. “There you go, winning audiences’ hearts and minds again, with child-like glee and a twinkle in your—”

                “But he can’t possibly be the Rooftop Killer,” protests Meg Ryan to Steve Zahn, mid-trailer.

                … W-wait, what?

                Let’s dig into the movie. Already a kernel of subliminal unease has nestled deep in your belly, but you ignore it, bury it; you’re just here to have a good time, get a couple laughs. And at first, it seems like that’s all you’re going to get. The opening setup between Hanks and Ryan is a boring montage; their email relationship is shown, and their real-life bookstore rivalry set up. By now you’re probably asking “What the hell is a bookstore?” Well, sonny, long ago there were these physical book shops, and they sold real books, and somehow they made actual money and were profitable. Those days are long behind us now, but the skeletons of titans like Barnes and Noble and Borders Books (I know, too soon) still litter our nation, rotting and festering. And in this world, Tom Hanks runs a very successful “bookstore chain” called Foxbooks, with his best friend, Dave Chappelle—

               

                Really? Dave Chapelle? In what timeline does a great comedian and the living hunk of beef-flank known as Tom Hanks become friends? Let’s just put that aside for now. Trust me, we’ll be coming back to Dave Chapelle in a BIG way. He’s the linchpin here. He ties it all together.

                For now let’s watch and have a sensible chuckle as Meg Ryan and Hanks bounce off each other. Oh look, they’re both with significant others they hate! Okay, that’s a bit sad, but kind of funny. Oh look, Tom Hanks has a couple of little kids as his “aunt” and “uncle” because his ancient grandpa banged a twenty-year-old! That’s… Wow, how zany, how crazy is that? It’s definitely not creepy at all. Nope. Not even a single bit.

               

                Okay, it’s a little creepy. And note how Hanks—excuse me, Joe Fox—starts off his very first meeting with Kathleen by lying to her. “It’s just Joe,” he protests as his little “uncle” tries to give the game away by spelling F-O-X over and over. The pattern of deception will continue for the rest of the film.

                Things progress in usual rom-com fashion: Joe and Kathleen continue bonding through the titular emails, baring their souls to each other, “on-line!” Scandalous, right? Not really. This concept wasn’t novel in 1998 when the movie was released. We’re always one “information superhighway” away from the movie collapsing under its own dated weight. But the implications of their bonding—both of them are in a relationship when their “friendship” starts moving really fast—are both morally dubious and saucy enough to hold our interest.

                But then things start to get weird.

                Joe and Kathleen go to a book…event… thingy, where they see each other and Kathleen realizes he’s a Big Corporate Jerk (TM.) Here’s a chance for Hanks/Joe to redeem himself: He could apologize for his earlier lie, and begin his redemption arc. But no, he shits all over Kathleen’s bookstore, insults her as a person and for liking Pride and Prejudice, and stands idle as his own girlfriend flirts with Kathleen’s hipster boyfriend. He later breaks up with her after spending five minutes in an elevator with her, presumably the first time he's ever actually listened to her speak. We begin to understand Joe has issues relating to others. What we don’t realize yet is that Joe is Satan himself, incarnate.

                We will learn, though. By God, we will learn.

                What you need to know is this: 90’s Hollywood was just a slightly less coked-out version of 80’s Hollywood. Even though the whole “corporations are evil” thing was well-established, in 90’s movies, rich people could do no wrong. The wealthy were at the top of filmmaking society, and it would have been rude to lambast them. Also, in the words of Ronald Wright, everyone else considered themselves “temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” Fact two: Tom Hanks was a golden boy back then. He was right up with Robin Williams and Jim Carrey, in the “zany endearing funny guy” category. The combination of these—Tom Hanks the golden boy, and his wealthy-white-male-character in a 90’s movie—becomes basically unstoppable. He’s a narrative Super Saiyan. He rolls over other characters like an M1 Abrams rolls over sand-castles at the beach.

                Joe goes on to mentor Kathleen in the art of the put-down via AOL, not realizing he’s empowering his enemy. How Shakespearian! This is where Dave Chapelle comes in. Oh Dave, you beautiful bastard, thanks for being in this movie. You are the only thing saving my sanity from Tom Hanks.

Chapelle’s scenes are a breath of fresh air, because he acts as Joe’s moral compass. Observe him trying to get Joe to have basic humanity:

             

                “You don’t feel bad putting her on welfare?” No, Dave. No he doesn’t. Because he’s Tom Hanks. And he's an uncaring monster.

                Now, a few things seem off about this scene, and I’m not talking about the cam-rip quality either. Why is Chapelle friends with Hanks’ character anyway? Presumably, they work together—there’s a line later about Chapelle running the Foxbooks outlet “like a well-oiled machine.” But we never see how they met. They don’t seem to interact much outside the gym and at work: they never get shots at a bar, or play golf, or whatever it is rich people do with their friends. In fact, we never see Chapelle talk to anyone but Hanks, throughout the movie.

                He also doesn’t touch anything.

                Or appear in scenes without Hanks.

                Wait a minute.

               

                Oh my God. OH MY GOD! It’s all starting to come together! Joe’s abusive behavior, his dead-eyed stare. His conspicuous lack of any real friends other than Chapelle. Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve stumbled across the first enormous clue to the Hellraiser puzzle-box that is You’ve Got Mail: Chapelle does not exist. He’s Tyler Durden, he’s Harvey the Rabbit. He’s Joe’s imaginary friend.

                Once you realize this, everything else starts to fall into place. At no point in the movie does Chapelle interact with anyone other than Hanks/Joe. No one ever interacts with him either, not even to say hi. Which is very suspicious, as he’s the manager of a huge bookstore and there are several scenes in which he’s in that bookstore. Finally, in the gym scene, people turn their heads to stare at Joe. “Of course they do,” you say, your voice shaking as your mind begins to unravel, “it’s because he’s pissed at Kathleen. He’s being loud and abrasive. Typical Hanks stuff.”

                Wrong. They’re staring at him because he’s talking to himself. Wake up, sheeple!

                The rabbit-hole goes even deeper as we watch, helpless to look away, helpless to stop the emotional carnage. Joe learns that Kathleen is his online paramour, via contrived plot events. Okay, here’s his chance: time for him to open up to her IRL, yeah? Maybe apologize for ruining her bookstore’s business and give her a loan or something to foster good old capitalist competition?

                Absolutely not. He agrees to meet with her and then proceeds to dupe her and torment her psychologically, turning her existence into a horrible farce as her business dissolves, her friends disappear from all future scenes and the sweaty-faced goblin known as Tom Hanks capers around the ruins of her life, cackling.

                You have to see this shit to believe it (and bear with me, because Blogspot doesn't play nice with "timed" YouTube URLs.) Specifically, check out this scene in the diner, the first time they’ve met after Joe’s discovered they’re secretly Internet pals, and after he’s roundly mocked her for planning to meet an anonymous “friend” with a rose and a copy of her favorite book. She drives him to the next table, goes to get out her hand mirror to touch-up, and…

                Oh no. No, NO.

                ... AHHHH!

               ....... AAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!

                Dude, what the fuck?? As the movie progresses, Hanks progresses further and further away from being a goofy rich playboy and more into looking like a psychopathic stalker. Here he is forcing his way into her apartment after she specifically asks him to leave:

                Joe Fox? More like Joe Bates.

                Dude, no! No, dude!! Consent is a THING, Tom Hanks! No means NO! Also, you’re always sweaty! Always! No woman would even want to even be NEAR you in temperatures over thirty degrees Fahrenheit, which I have to assume is your normal body temperature because you’re a terrifying cold-hearted lizard person!

                Here he is knocking on the window of a café she’s in, ostensibly because he followed her there:

                "HELLO, CLARICE."

                And here he is lurking in the depths of the creepy bachelor boat he’s living in, gloating over his laptop like a high-tech Buffalo Bill:

                "These machines let me monitor her heartbeat as she sleeps."

                Really, this series of clips summarizes everything you need to know about “Joe Fox” in this movie, but then you guys wouldn’t get to watch my sanity unravel from viewing this turd in action, would you? Listen: Joe is a dead-faced, calculating creeper who continually harasses Kathleen for the rest of the runtime. Here he is totally fucking with her after Kathleen, now single because of the wedges Joe has driven into her life, has dared to ask if he’s married or not:

                "Ha ha, watch me destroy her self-esteem until she wants to be with me! Isn't this fun?"

                Is it all coming together now? Is it starting to click for you? IS IT??

               

                Okay, so maybe I’m over-analyzing this. Maybe I’m reading too deeply into what is really a sweet, well-intentioned film about a rich book mogul slowly convincing (read: coercing) a woman into being his girlfriend. The fact that he plays psychological mind-games on her is weird and unforgivable, but maybe there's a deleted scene where she slaps him for it, or at least gives him a taste of his own medicine. Maybe. Oh, and for the whole movie, I’m supposed to accept that Meg Ryan's character is somehow dumb enough not to realize until the final scene that this gas-lighting, boat-dwelling lunatic is messing with her, playing her like a damn fiddle. It’s maddening to watch: you feel like you’re going crazy. “How did people miss this?” you scream to the uncaring skies, tearing at your hair. “Tom Hanks can’t even act! He just walks around being Tom Hanks!” Your mind reels, rejecting the reality of the film.

                Because doing the alternative—deeming Joe’s behavior acceptable—just doesn’t sit right. I get it, this was a different time, these things were seen as romantic, even if you can practically hear Joe sharpening his skinning-knives in the background. SHHK, SHHK. But I like to think we’ve moved past that and can leave this movie safely in the past, where it be… wait, what's that? There are MORE movies like this? How many more? And how many of them star Meg Ryan?!

               

                This… this goes far deeper than I imagined. It’s like a Tom Hanks multiverse, where no matter what she does, Meg Ryan is never safe from the sweaty palms of Joe Fox. The mind games and the forced romances unfold again and again, across infinite timelines, an endless fractal-construct of cherubic Tom Hanks faces slowly spiraling through time and space. What was wrong with the nineties? My God, what did we unleash back then?

                Tune in next week, as I over-analyze Joe Vs. the Volcano!