3 Blonde Pop Stars Try Movies
MARGAUX: When I started to write this blog a week and a half ago, I was frustrated by my fractured finger slowing down my typically fast typing, and to add insult to injury, anytime I gave a thumbs up it looked like I was throwing up a shaka.
Every time I’ve re-opened this doc since, it became increasingly difficult to concentrate because each passing day was filled with even worse news than the day before, and it was harder and harder to work up the courage to do literally anything other than eat edibles and watch 90 Day Fiancé. But then I listened to Everything Iconic’s recap of Jessica Simpson’s Open Book and I found my inspirational second wind because if there’s one thing self isolation can’t take away from us…it’s Wiki k-holes about early ’00s pop stars. Specifically, their various attempts to transition to the big screen.
In our 3 Blonde Pop Stars episode, we talk about [Renee Zellweger Oscar acceptance speech voice] Mandy, Jessica, and Christina. For the sake of time and our collective sanity, we stuck mainly to their music careers, and didn’t get into their journey to becoming a potential two-and-a-half threat (let’s face it, these three women are lovely and have many talents, but dancing is not among them). Not everyone can be Jennifer Lopez, or for the purpose of this blog, Mandy Moore.
It’s obvious Mandy Moore has the most prolific acting career out of the three, maybe because she was the first of them to pivot to acting; Christina’s Mickey Mouse Club gig notwithstanding. Even though she had a minor role in Dr. Doolittle 2 and Princess Diaries, A Walk to Remember is viewed as the movie that launched her as an actress. We’ve talked about her portrayal of Jamie Sullivan before, but what else? If your memory palace is like mine, her IMBD might look like this:
- Princess Diaries
- A Walk to Remember
- Saved
- The one that’s not First Daughter
- The one with Hugh Grant in it
- The one with Robin Williams in it
- Vinny Chase’s girlfriend
- Tangled
- This is Us
But our brains deceive us because between A Walk to Remember and Chasing Liberty (aka Not First Daughter), she was in Try Seventeen (aka All I Want) with Elijah Wood and Franka Potente. Released in 2002, Try Seventeen/All I Want is part of the illustrious 0% on Rotten Tomatoes club with other hits like Gotti and Bucky Larson. From the trailer, Mandy Moore plays an actress in a love triangle with Wood and Potente, who are all neighbors in the same building in New York, like an artsy Melrose Place. Judging by how little information is available and my unwillingness to spend money to watch it, this movie didn’t make much of an impact, on her career and generally speaking. Apart from a ritzy premiere at the Toronto Film Fest and a screening at Palm Springs Film Festival, it was a (financial) flop.
She followed up Try Seventeen/All I Want (which are both equally bad titles for a movie because it tells you absolutely nothing. At best someone might accidentally rent this instead of the better Seventeen Again) with How To Deal — no relation to Jennifer Love Hewitt’s “How Do I Deal”.
SIDEBAR: A few years ago, to my surprise and delight, I got to watch a human adult in a suit play, at full volume, Jennifer Love Hewitt’s “How Do I Deal” on a packed train during morning commute time. The funniest part was the listener had absolutely NO REACTION to the song. Usually when you have a song playing at 11, you at least look happy about it. Nope, not this guy. Dead eyes, headphones on. And as soon as the song ended, he turned down the volume on his…Zune (not sure what it was, but it wasn’t an iPhone) and exited the train quickly. It’s hard to forget such an odd flex.
Anyway, back to How To Deal. This one I have seen, and although it isn’t a good movie, it’s also not a good teen, coming-of-age movie either. It follows Mandy Moore’s Halley Martin, who is in high school, dealing with high schooler stuff; her best friend falls in love with a turd who knocks her up, her dad is Peter Gallagher with a goatee and he’s divorcing her mom, Oscar winner, Allison Janney. Her sister just got engaged to some guy she doesn’t like, and to top it all off, Halley has pulled a classic “I’m never falling in love” only to fall for the new bad boy in town who looks like a spare member of All American Rejects. Based on the books That Summer and Someone Like You, it might’ve worked better as a Lifetime or ABC Family movie than a theatrical release. The best and most iconic scene is when Mandy Moore gets caught in the rain, after a funeral…question mark, and reenacts Let The Rain Fall Down.
Onto Ms. Simpson. Jessica, like her music career, she had a considerably more difficult go of it. Her first screen credit (that’s not Newlyweds) is Master of Disguise. I really can’t think of a more ominous start to an acting career than James Brolin pretending to be Jessica Simpson in order to steal a historical artifact while playing “Irresistible” in the getaway car. She went from a cameo in a flop comedy (Master of Disguise), to a co-lead in a very high profile, extremely expensive flop that not only reduced her down to a literal pair of Daisy Dukes, but is also widely regarded as the movie that ended her high profile marriage (Dukes of Hazzard).
She tried to go the romcom route after, which, if Jessica Simpson were to have tried that today, I’m sure she could’ve found herself a nice holiday niche on Netflix or Hallmark. Instead, because it was the early 2000s, she was subjected to being romantically interested in Dane Cook in Employee of the Month. Don’t worry, they made sure to give her big ears so she could be more in his league. I watched this poor man’s version of Superstore on a plane so you don’t have to (yes I know Superstore came after, I said what I said). Everyone in the movie except Dane Cook and Andy Dick deserved better.
The best case for “Jessica Simpson could’ve been a romcom lead” is Blonde Ambition. Again, is it an objectively good movie? Not really. As a matter of fact, this movie tested so poorly with audiences the studio pulled it from theatrical release, gave it a short run on 8 screens in Jessica’s home state of Texas, and after it grossed $1,200, got sent straight to DVD. But, for whatever reason, she convincingly (enough) pulls off a small town girl who moves to New York City (in romcoms we call it New York City) and goes from Shirley Temple bewigged bike messenger to corporate exec who falls in love with regular Joe, Luke Wilson. She’s charming, commits to the bit and has decent comedic timing, which is all romcoms ask of you cause they all can’t be You’ve Got Mail. Alas, she’ll star in one more feature, Private Valentine (a grown up interpretation of Cadet Kelly) before going on to start her billion dollar shoe empire. But who would’ve guessed her most frequent co-stars in her short lived movie career would be Willie Nelson (Dukes) and Andy Dick (Employee), both of whom are in Blond Ambition.
Did Christina Aguilera voice a character in the Emoji movie? Sure. Is she in something called Zoe that I was today years old when I found out about it? Yes. But I think we both know that the only movie that matters on Christina Aguilera’s resume is Burlesque, an opinion that should be as obvious as Nick Lachey. Christina’s feature film debut was the last to happen out of the three, probably due to the fact that her music career was thriving and had no reason to pivot. For context, around the time of shooting Burlesque in 2009, Billboard named her one of the most successful artists of the 2000s. But between “Back to Basics” and “Bionic”, someone convinced her to sign onto Burlesque and thank God they did.
Released in 2010, Burlesque combines two divas, Xtina and Cher, plus Stanley “the Tooch is loose’’ Toochi basically reprising his role as Nigel from Devil Wears Prada, Kristen Bell as an alcoholic mean girl, and because nothing in the Old Millennial universe is complete without him, Peter Gallagher’s eyebrows appear in a supporting role. Do the “mechanics” of what the “story” is “about” matter? Look, this is not a competition, but if it was, Burlesque is not only the most financially successful out of all the movies I mentioned, it’s also the most fun to watch. You haven’t lived until you’ve screamed “WAGON WHEEL WATUSI” in perfect sync with Cher. The music is good, the plot is dumb, and the acting is pure camp. It’s basically the PG-13 version of Showgirls. If you want a self isolation pick me up, Burlesque is streaming on Netflix.
Take care of yourselves, and each other. Byeeeeee
You can listen to our episode on 3 Blonde Pop Stars here.
