EPISODE 1: Josie and the Pussycats/Star Wars: The Force Awakens

First, a couple of quick housekeeping notes:

Hey, it's Russ.

We will be releasing a remixed version of Episode 1 soon. When I was working in Audacity, the mix of my audio to the music and From Crisis to Crisis trailer didn't sound NEARLY as terrible as it does in the final version. I should have listened to it in another app before uploading to Libsyn, but sadly, I don't have the time required to remix it right now and won't probably until Thursday or Friday.

So there's that.

Speaking of From Crisis to Crisis, I guest-hosted an episode recently, which you can check out here.

ALSO, the Emerald City Video Podcast is now on iTunes.

Also, I know I had promised these show notes earlier, but I got swamped. That's likely to happen. In the future, there will be fewer show notes, but I'll also attempt to pre-write them so that by the time the episode hits is finished being edited, I'm ready to roll.

During Episode 1a, you hear me mention that I was taking some notes -- more or less in chronological order -- about specific beats, as you might do for a commentary track -- for Josie and the Pussycats. This fell by the wayside as I got distracted by the movie, and by trying to set up recording times and all that good stuff for the actual podcasts.

What notes I did take, you can check out below:

• “Backdoor Lover” should probably have been a clue that this movie wasn’t going to take itself seriously.
• This is obviously the second-­best performance from Donald Faison (after Scrubs). And his best comic book movie. Sorry, Kick­-Ass 2.
• A few token mentions of Riverdale is pretty much the only nod to the fact that this is an Archie Comics adaptation. 
• Well, that and “I’m here because I was in the comic book.”
• I kind of want a t­shirt that says “DuJour means hygiene.”
• I love “Take the Chevy to the levy” as code for crashing the band’s plane. That’s darkly genius.
• For whatever reason, when I see a cute girl fixing a truck like we see from Josie in the first act, all I can think of is Diane Franklin in Better Off Dead.
• “But they didn’t say they were dead; they said they were missing,” says Melody in what is probably the weirdest bit of foreshadowing in movie history.
• Aww...there’s a record store scene. They’re like our brothers­-in­-arms!
• Weirdly, there are at least two people in this film who would later appear in iZombie: one of the girls at the megastore played a minor character in “Real Dead Housewife of Beverly Hills,” and Hiro Kanazawa, the Japanese delegate to Parker Posey’s presentation, was Lt. Suzuki.
• I love the fact that they gave us the only legitimate reason for Behind the Music to be a thing.
• Also, I don't remember autotune being a hugely known thing when this movie came out, so probably there are people out there -- even though it had been around for years by this point -- who thought this movie gave the inventors a bad idea.
• Melody’s Big Mac moment is the weak with the Force moment of the film. Just flat-out Jedi Mind Tricking these ladies.
• It’s interesting to me that they make no real attempt to make the music videos interesting. Usually when they do a full­on music video in the middle of a movie — outside of Tapeheads or UHF — it’s the filmmaker trying to say something interesting. This just looks like what a Josie & the Pussycats video would probably look like.
• I love the Charlie’s Angels stars-As-Pussycats joke in the “Pretend to Be Nice” music video. This movie came out right around the time that those three could have been cast in such a movie.
• Nice that when the hysterical fans showed up now for THEM, they had them all dressed as the girls and the one person of color wasn’t automatically Valerie.
• Okay, so when we get to Operation Big Concert, let’s just point out that it shares a plot with that boy band episode of The Simpsons.
• I think the little stuffed Ronald McDonald doll next to the mirror where the warning for Melody is written, is the scariest thing I’ve ever seen in a film.
• Josie.com doesn’t work anymore, and that makes me sad.
• There’s a TON of “I caught your nonsense, but bought the transparently terrible excuse” in this movie.
• I hate the “obligatory misunderstanding” plot thread they use with Alan M, but at least it’s fairly organic.
• I kind of love the thing with the Matt Damon cut-out at the Other TRL stage.
• “Puppies turn into dogs, who grow old and die.” I also want that on a t-­shirt.
• What the fuck was going on with the clown eating from the garbage in Josie's hallucination?

Also, if you haven't seen iZombie, Tapeheads, UHF, or Better Off Dead, you should rectify that immediately. The latter three would actually be great recommendations for anyone who liked Josie and the Pussycats.

So, you want to keep tabs on your friendly hosts? Here's how you can:

David Nielsen

secondhandunderground.wordpress.com
ohdeargodwhy.wordpress.com

And the archives, which have some good stuff:

bitterbooks.blogspot.com (first thrift store blog)
whatwouldyouaxit.blogspot.com (first taste test blog)

My Twitter and FB are private, and will be staying that way. If people want to contact me directly (HAH), maybe we can set up something through the group page or whatever.

Oh, and just for pure writing:

imaginarybookquotes.tumblr.com although that one's not for the faint of heart. It gets pretty heavy. The other ones are at least marginally joke-based.

Russ Burlingame

My Twitter handle is @RussBurlingame, and my Instagram is @Russ.Burlingame. I have a Facebook page where I'm verified, but if you're one of our old customers or co-workers and we aren't friends on Facebook yet, either look me up as Russell Burlingame or drop me a DM on the professional page if you want.

Daniel Fecteau

My channel is here:  https://www.youtube.com/user/MrAn0n3

Also Logan and I have a WIP board game channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7hh6gyJ1PEmxsQJTXZu-Q