THIS IS A CULT CLASSIC UNDISCOVERED GEM. Amazing songs, hilarious 2001 style, and a goofy Zoolander-type industry spoof with DIVERSE WOMEN as the leads????? Um, okay I get why it wasn't a critical hit but come on, this is FUNNY. Missi Pyle, Parker Posey and Alan Cumming are all hysterical and I quote this movie all the time with my friends. Do not watch this thinking it will change your life. But I guarantee you, if you actually give it a chance, it will make you LAUGH. And that's better.

Josie and the Pussycats (2001): Dir: Harry Elfont, Deborah Kaplan / Cast: Rachael Leigh Cook, Tara Reid, Rosario Dawson, Alan Cumming, Parker Posey: One of those numb founded ideas that dares viewers to remain until the end. The Pussycats are a girl band used to brainwash people in a scheme by Alan Cumming as a record producer. This all leads up to a pathetic fight sequence with an impersonator making an ass of himself. It is amazing that it took two directors to put this crap together. Deborah Kaplan and Harry Elfont previously directed the teen bore Can't Hardly Wait. They prove to great measures that if one director can make films as stupid as Head Over Heels and The Adventures of Joe Dirt, then two directors should be capable of bigger embarrassments. Rachael Leigh Cook, Tara Reid and Rosario Dawson play the trio of morons in the band. They are the reason special education classes were invented. Cumming is capable of much better and should have known better. Parker Posey also shows up in this garbage because her career wasn't far enough in the crapper yet. This is the kind of film one leaves out in the sun just to see whether it will be damaged. After all, it wouldn't put anyone out of anything of worth. The only area of compliment is its reference to pop culture but the film is cheesy and foolishly idiotic with a band that makes more noise than music. Score: 1 / 10

What an awesome movie. I suppose I would have to categorize this under guilty pleasure since it seems to not get much love. The rating on IMDb is wrong on a level I can't wrap my head around. This is one of those movies a lot of people, particularly guys, will look at and dismiss it just by its concept. Well, it's their loss as they're missing out on a very fun and funny movie. I'm a straight guy and I enjoy this movie on the face of it. Not for camp value or any other backhanded compliments. This is a well-produced musical comedy with great songs and some biting satire of the music industry and commercialization. The actors are all good and seem to be having a blast. The three leads are especially fun. One of Tara Reid's better movies, with some early Rosario Dawson and "She's All That" herself, Rachel Leigh Cook, both of whom I always like.I've been a big fan of this movie since it was first released. The music is upbeat and catchy. Way better than the average music written specifically for a fictional band or artist in movies. I played the soundtrack to death back in the day and still listen to it when I need a pick-me-up today. It's not just the Pussycats songs that I like but also the parody songs from the boy band Du Jour. I think in years to come Josie and the Pussycats will become a cult favorite. It's too good to go ignored forever. I really hope history vindicates what I consider to be one of the best comedies that came out in the 2000s.

After gaining some street cred I decided to delve into this cartoon inspired idiosyncratic experience with little expectations and much dread given previous attempts at live action versions of childhood favourites Garfield, The Flintstones or Scooby Doo. Nonetheless Josie McCoy (played by the petite Rachael Leigh Cook) and her accompanying kitties - bassist Valerie Brown (Rosario Dawson) and drummer Melody Valentine (Tara Reid) - exceed and entertain to a surprising attempt.Neither playing it straight or going all out goofy, "Josie and the Pussycats" fortuitously creates a wacky world, which plays both into the caper ridden stories of the cartoon, as well as manages to deliver a malleable story accessible for kids of all ages (including those in their mid-life crisis). Fleshed out through a mix of deadpan and silly humour, coupled with some successfully intuitive restraint the cartoon adaptation comes of witty and affable, a far cry from the forced idiocies of their counterparts.Superficially (and somewhat hypocritically) touching on issues of the current era of commercial brainwashing and pop culture, "Josie and the Pussycats" become superstars as part of a dastardly marketing scheme. Within the framework of a story, which is undoubtedly predictable to the fullest, the characters molded with the script are wickedly pleasurable. This especially goes for the ridiculous boy band foursome DuJour, played to hilarious effect by Donald Faison, Breckin Meyer, Seth Green and Alexander Martin, whose brief outings are the crème de la crème of the whole movie. Equally satisfying are Alan Cumming as the devious band manager Wyatt Frame and Parker Posey as despicable me record label mogul Fiona. An additional shout-out has to go however to Tara Reid, who gets the stereotype of an idiotic blonde bombshell to a T, delivering one of the funniest performances I can think of.Given the strength at the back Rachel Leigh Cook and Rosario Dawson come off a bit stale, given their more set and conventional personaes, as if hijacked by the more wackier character deliveries. All in all, despite the generic storytelling and some plodding delivery, "Josie and the Pussycats" turns out to be an unexpected ounce of cartoonesque satisfaction, albeit not anything that comes off as timeless or memorable.