Vanity Piece

Rating: 4/10 (29 May 2011)

Lordy, this movie is special! The same way the "special at the school cafeteria is always last week's leftovers, chopped up and baked into a casserole. But, at least everyone involved in this film seems to understand that it's just one, big, port-wine cheese ball with extra nuts. I take some comfort in this fact, because if not, this'd be the saddest production I've ever seen. Everyone's just trying so hard to be "sexy." But the movie actually works perfectly as a parody, even though I have a sneaking suspicion that Both Christina Aguilera and Cher are secretly quite pleased with how they looked on screen.
I actually watched this movie at the request of one of my regular readers. She suspected (and was correct), that I'd have some pretty strong opinions about this little number. It certainly wasn't because she's a huge, secret Cher fan. So, like I said, I'm pretty sure that all the actors in this film were in on the joke. There's an awful lot of mugging for the camera, and general hamming it up. But, don't let that fool you into thinking that this will stop Christina or Cher from trying to nonchalantly out-diva each other throughout the whole film. Those gals are always finding some pretty flimsy excuses to give the audience some full-on, eyes closed, hand in the air, belt-it-out musical numbers. Of course, they always try to shrug these off later on. It's the musical equivalent of, "Oh, this old thing?" I guess it's pretty hard to turn off the inner drama queen. But then, these are two of the most notoriously vain women in show business we're dealing with.
Then again, this movie really was designed just to be a vanity piece for these two. The story line is so clichéd and simple that we can safely ignore it, and focus on our leading ladies' glorious voices. Small-town girl moves to Los Angeles to become a star, and with a little dedication, and elbow grease, she rockets to celebrity, saving all the poor, downtrodden souls she meets on the way. And she finds true love too! You've seen it a thousand times before. But, have you seen Christina Aguilera and Cher's version? Have you seen it with sparkly lingerie and tons of bleached out hair? This is a film for die-hard fans only. But that's who it's really designed for anyway. It's just one, big, tongue-in-cheek wink right at both of these ladies' dedicated admirers. You know who you are.