Burlesque (2010)
TPTB tried to forge a camp classic movie. They failed despite this film having Eric Dane, a scary skinny Christina Aguilera and hoochies who look like drag queens singing badly to a transfixed crowd. This film is antithetical to joy. There is strobe lightening, Cher and her voice that could strip wallpaper, identical looking guys, slurred dialogue delivered through over-booted and surgically stretched faces and everything is teeth, tastelessness, utter vulgarity and prurience. There are no concessions to logic and was this crap intentional?
Best Lines:
“I will not be upstaged by some slut with mutant lungs!”
“I quit!”
“I’m glad!”
“I slept with Vince the night after your honeymoon!”
~
Veronica Mars (2014)
She thought she was out.
The Kickstarter funded follow up to the cult TV show that was cancelled back in 2007. There is a snaky summation of the series to start and mutterings about class war and then we meet Veronica (Kristen Bell) in New York and we learn what became of her after the show ended. She transferred from Hearst to Stanford, got a BA in psychology and then went to Columbia law school and is about to take the bar exam. She has a job interview at a prestigious law firm with a prospective boss (Jamie Lee Curtis). Has Veronica learned not to be disruptive and spew envy and scorn everywhere? No. She’s dating Piz (Chris Lowell), who works in radio. Neptune High is having a 10 year reunion but Veronica won’t head home for that. Instead she heads home because pop star Bonnie (aka Carrie Bishop) has been murdered and Logan is a murder suspect again. Somehow Logan got Veronica’s number and asked her to help him as the greasy looking Sheriff Dan Lamb (Jerry O’Connell of ‘Scream 2’, ‘Sliders’ and ‘Stand by Me’) declares him guilty.
Logan (Jason Dohring) is in the navy (despite his rap sheet) and yet NCIS and JAG are nowhere to be seen. Logan poses in his ill-fitting, creased uniform. Veronica admires him and mocks the original Sheriff Lamb despite the man being nearly a decade in his grave. The local cops are feeble and collectively corrupt. Keith still lives in Neptune whining about how it has all gone to hell.
Mac and Wallace still live in Neptune and Veronica is still a reliably bad user friend to them. Logan is still friends with Dick (Ryan Hansen), who hasn’t changed at all. Veronica backs Logan to the hilt ruining her relationship with Piz and her law career as a result. But who cares? Logan is not the obligatory psychotic jackass anymore, he is milder now. Also because this is a movie, people get sweary. Backup the dog is not seen or mentioned. Did he die?
There are numerous call-backs to the TV show, an 09er bar, flashbacks and Veronica deciphers the mystery herself because the cops don’t care. Keith (Enrico Colantoni) reiterates the way Veronica is screwing her life up. Veronica never listens and throws away Piz and her future. How Bonnie/Carrie was a pop star is a mystery as her videos looked cheap and her songs sucked and her voice sounded like a malfunctioning Hoover nozzle.
The gang go to the reunion, which is a disinvitation to fun for them. There is a memorial to various dead students and oddly enough Lily Kane and Cassidy are not mentioned but Carrie’s best friend Susan Knight is. Veronica shows off how susceptible she is to being petty as she causes a fight and punches Madison. Gia (Krysten Ritter of ’Breaking Bad’ and ’Don’t Trust The B---h in Apartment 23’) is rakish, Weevil (Francis Capra) is married, Madison is not cognisant, Veronica jumps to conclusions and Celeste Kane now divorced from Jake shows up to change one character’s life. Corruption flourishes.
Deputy Leo now Detective Leo (Max Greenfield) pops up as the intransigent Veronica insists on dispensing justice herself. Vinnie Van Low (Ken Marino of ‘Reaper’) who is still sleeveless with slicked back hair and a porn addiction shows up to be sleazy. Didn’t Vinnie Van Lowe become sheriff at the end of season 3? James Franco has a cameo and Veronica decides to be a PI for good. Keith gets into a ridiculous ‘accident’. Veronica’s life choices are at variance with sense. The LoVe pairing rears its ugly head again. There is rampant product placement and Veronica’s aversion to caring about rape victims pops up again. Old sins are uncovered, there is death, a bad guy is revealed and Veronica embraces a low rent life in Neptune with Mac as her secretary. Weevil rejoins the PCHers and the status quo is restored as Veronica resolves to be trash. This was good, even if Veronica’s subsequent choices are dumb. Thankfully the Veronica in the FBI plot never came about. Now that would be ridiculous. But making the fans pay TPTB to make this movie was not a transformative thing.
Best Lines:
“Seedy beach town of Neptune.”
“It ruined friendships and relationships.”
“I need your help Veronica.”
“He almost never gets charged with murder.”
“I’m the only one in this room who does not have a sex tape.”
“We found her hiding in Carrie’s closet a couple of months ago.”
“It was an iniquitous hellhole when you left.”
“Keith Mars. Bailing his daughter out of jail. This I had to see.”
“You must be very proud.”
“You are still a total loser with no class. How not shocking.”
“It actually does sit on a hell mouth.”
“Welcome to the BC, bitch!”
“I know not of what you speak.”
“I know how painfully boring these rich kids’ lives are.”
“Trailer park weirdo.”
“Eye-screwing me and smelling like old sponge.”
“She was dead. Just full-on dead.”
“I’m not even allowed to have curtains.”