Hilary Duff: The E! True Hollywood Story: "Ohhh Shiny Trendy Faux-Dork Tweenily Implausible Angst!"

So the dog woke me up early for walkies, I went out and was back in by 9 am. We'll see how HE likes it when I have to work a 5 am shift and thus take him out for walkies around 4:30 am.

So while I had breakfast (BigAssBowlofFrostedFlakesOMG!) I pondered over which movie to watch as I have yet to figure out the inner workings of their TV's mind. Last night I had a Harry Potter filmfest, as I haven't seen any of the movies in full until now. As it was, today's selection was either My Fair Lady or The Lizzie McGuire Movie, since I haven't had time to fiddle with the DVD player, otherwise I would watch Ella Enchanted...then again DVD special feautres take me hours alone, so be glad it was VHS-only at this point.
If you're going to watch a DVD, better start around 6 pm and have the whole night free. And plan on sleeping late the next day, cos there are parts you're going to want to watch again.

Since I didn't feel up to the task of admiring Rex Harrison and Audrey Hepburn's classic performances, Lizzie it was. I knew right away that I'd hate myself for this later...
This might take a while. Don't worry, I packed extra ammo. *loads a cartridge easily and cocks the gun with a jaunty little wave to Hilary Duff* This is going to hurt you more than it's going to hurt me.
Let us begin the carnage.

First off, there's the clever little character of the younger brother, who, though predictable in his actions and eventual end, is cute to watch. He is also a semi-plotter in the downfall of Our Lizzie, so thus he may have the honour of the illustrious title: Junior Gunner in Training. He could do well...very well..in the right hands...he could be magnificent...I can see it now...a Gunner Boot-Camp for Teens with Smart Mouths...
But I digress...
Given the title of this piece, it is inevitable that everyone's worst, perkily blonde nightmare is going to grace the silver screen within all of ten seconds into the film. Looking far more trendy and perfectly made-up and coiffed than any self-proclaimed "dork/loser/nerd" has any right to be, Lizzie bee-bops and gyrates around her room in a manner than we all know would be embarassing for us, but is, for her, an omen of things to come. Kate, the supposedly "popular hot chick" dresses like a 30-year old CPA and looks like a tweeny soccer-mom. You know the guys at your school would be all over the Lizzie and tell Kate to take a hike to the nearest GAP and PLEASE buy something that isn't tailored for a weekend in the Hamptons, picnicking and gathering wildflowers.
So Lizzie's "getting ready for graduation!" This gave me a pleasant shock of surprise. Here was something I had never considered possible: Lizzie...grown up...dealing with adult issues in a mature manner...I dared to hope, for one shining moment...
Then it came out: Junior High Graduation. Why the hell would anyone commemorate Junior High graduation? Sure we had Grade 8 Farewell, but, that was nothing close to a full-scale graduation seen here.
Next, Lizzie is thrown into an impromptu public speech, through some convoluted rule that expects her to have a thrilling speech ready at the drop of a hat. Implausibility Count: 1. Her teachers are over-the-top and just plain unreal. Then again, this movie is at least 25% cartoons...
Naturally, she embarasses herself in a stiff and awkward manner and ruins the whole thing, because, duuhhhh that's what dorks DO. They wait until the moment is right, then their oafishness strikes to render them humiliated to the utmost.
Screenwriters: *high-five* We know teenagers SOOOO well! Everyone is going to love this because everyone can sooooo relate to exactly this situation!
Now, as a regular-run-of-the-mill dork, I can tell you that this only works in movies. Real Dorkdom requires more of a subtle art. Embarassment is more often a constant ebb and flow of day-to-day humiliation and bad luck. People will remember the one time a popular person disgraces themselves, but true dorks are distinguished by their inability to ever rise above their abjectly-constant embarassment.
Now Lizzie must leave the country and go to Italy on a school trip (which you know is only an excuse to bring along her friend/love interest Gordo and some jocks and bitches to make her life seem more miserable than it really is,) because *gasp!* she'll never live it down! Oh my God she's only 13 and her life is OVER!
By the way, in the few eps I caught of the LM TV show, I was rooting for a Gordo/Miranda romance rather than Lizzie/Gordo. Kinda like the Ron/Hermione Movement. The two sidekicks make a great couple, and the star must be left alone to leave them an out for dating a hot new person every week. Given that Lalaine left the show in 2003, I suppose they had to make the movie without her. But a guy/girl best friend relationship with no third-person girl to make it a platonic, group sort of love is just too tempting for the screenwriters to resist...you know from the get-go that Lizzie and Gordo will have a "moment" but continue on as best friends in order to ressurect a sequel.
Anyhow...Lizzie has a tender moment of goodbye with her mother, who is fluttering in a protective, archetypal manner which completely belies her facade of a Cool Modern Mom. As I recall, she found a reason to let the mask slip in every episode. Fascinating glimpses of a well-developed character or flip-flopping helplessly between stereotypes as to appeal to more of the tweenage masses? You decide. Anyhow, Lizzie says a cool goodbye, then runs back and hugs her mom, sniffling and the audience now sees how special their mother-daughter relationship is because they can be open and share as equals...
No tweengirl wants to be open with their mother...and no mother in the audience, however much they may want to, is buying this bullshit. Implausibility Count: 2
So Lizzie sets off to Italy, on the German carrier Lufthansa, which, coincedentally, has no direct flights to Italy from the USA. I would hope they're travelling in coach, because no way in hell would her outfit, no matter how trendy, be allowed in first class. On planes, there is a dress code, and even if you are in coach, people will appreciate it if you smarten yourself up and wear some nice neutral-tones pantsuit. She falls asleep on Gordo's shoulder, and he wakes up and smiles at her, and this would be a nice time for him to drop a friendly kiss on her head, but even I see the creepy implications would be coming too obvious, too early, at this stage. They get to Italy, no one looking the worse for wear, and Lizzie looks resplendant after a 14 hour flight in coach. They arrive after dark to their hotel, and Gordo takes Lizzie up to the rooftops to enjoy the...sunset?
"If I could turn back time!" Apparently, on the Disney channel, you can. Anyhow, the setting is perfect and with a tinge of the romantic and adventuresome, and they make a pact to have an adventure, and you know now it's all going to happen to Lizzie and Gordo will spend his days in hit hotel room, thowing meatballs from room service into the air and catching them in his mouth while waiting to show up just in time to save Lizzie's ass and provide the requisite angst of a possible love-triangle.
Now here comes Fez...excuse me 'Paolo', who sees Lizzie, who looks exactly like his singing partner, who just happens to have left him in the lurch, and through the plot-twists meant to show the darker side of showbiz, with threatened lawsuits against Paolo (because, supposedly, this is all Isabella's fault, so why don't they make her singing partner pay through the nose because it's not like he's famous and fabulously wealthy) he now needs Lizzie to impersonate Isabella and save the day and win his heart! Implausibility Count: 3. If they wanted to show us the nitty-gritty, why not just show the footage of Hilary Duff selling her soul to Satan? (For 'Cheaper By The Dozen'? Honey...get your money back.)
Since everyone lipsynchs while on stage, there's no worries since Lizzie can't sing (except where y'all kow she's going to HAVE to in a public spectacle sooner or later,) and she can't even get a half-decent Italian accent in her English. No one seems to worry or notice, though. No one even recognizes Paolo and 'Isabella' when they are together, except when Lizzie needs a pick-me-up or a comedic bit of autographing to re-enforce the idea that, yes, these people are famous. (In case, y'know, you forget or something. It can happen.)
So in a whirlwind romance with lots of kitschy little Italian modes of transport covered in fire-engine red chrome to make it Euro-modern, Lizzie sees Rome in style, but basically gawps at everything without soaking up any history or relevant knowledge. Lizzie's experience of Roman Culture never progresses beyond "Golly gee, that sure is swell-looking!" and "Ohhhh! Shiny!"
So she learns the songs and dance routine alongside Paolo, with lots of shimmying and glances and touching while alone on a vast stage in a swirly skirt and heels because it's not like they have choreographers or anything for this. Lizzie and her Paolo, always with compliments at the ready, watch a fireworks show which only succeeds in giving Lizzie's face an unnatural colour and her eyes are over-mascara'd and shining like bulging glass bubbled in her face, which is beginning to look not unlike the Bratz dolls of our previous discussion.
In Hollywood tween-speak, that's what we call "wonderment, awe, and budding romance."
Implausibility Count: 4. When someone looks like their head is about to explode, it probably means their about to puke on your shoes, not give you a kiss.
Gordo watches the fireworks alone from the rooftop where he so recently stood with Lizzie.
Awwwwww. Now watch him turn disconsolantly away in the turmoil of his teenage angst!
So now Lizzie's set to perform at a huge event, on stage, in front of millions, (Implausibility Count: 5. I'm not even going to explain this one.) and Gordo sacrifices himself and gets sent home in Lizzie's place (except where he doesn't leave.) She realizes the errors of her way, but decides to stay, because being anything but self-centered at this point would be a major character-consistency faux pas. And Lord knows, this movie is ALL about being consistent.
So, in a twist no one saw coming, Isabella returns and tells Gordo everything, how she is the good one and Paolo is bad and Lizzie is going to be embarassed and that's just her worst nightmare. Because again, supposedly, Lizzie can't sing. Except where, for the purposes of this movie, she CAN. Paolo is going to ruin Isabella through Lizzie being bad, but what he doesn't know is that Lizzie can sing well enhough to match a superstar. And he didn't even clue into this when he was, like, five feet away from her during rehersal where he told her to actually sing.
Now if I were the writers (besides never writing this in the first place,) I would have it so that they turn off 'Isabella's' mic and have Lizzie wow them all and leave Paolo without his master plan. (Wondering: did he form the entire wretched plan the moment he saw Lizzie, knowing that in the real world, no one would enter into such a harebrained scheme of impersonation and double-crossing?) Paolo is *only* 17, so of course he is old enough to be an adult and yet young enough to sex up Lizzie without it being illegal. (Then again, I don't know the laws in Italy.) However, they chose a much more indirect path. Isabella sings for Lizzie, and Paolo's mic gets turned off, and he sings sooo bad. (Implausibility Count: 6. If he sang so badly in the first place, how the hell did her get a record contract? Besides being a pretty face, don't you have to work the small-time gigs and nightclubs for years before you can make it big enough to have some record exec CARE enough to have someone GOOD recorded over you? And if so, why not just paint up the actual singer and make them look good? It seems to me to be less work to make a singer pretty than to make a pretty a singer.) Implausibility Count: 7. Paolo's voice is cracking. Not a lot of 17 year olds who have supposedly gotten through the worst of puberty, with professional voice coaches are able to sing a song in mid-range and fuck it up that bad. Paolo runs off stage and cries, bitching to his security guard who tells him to grow a pair and fuck some gelato to warm up, because
That. Was. Cold.
Isabella and Lizzie are resplendant and sing together, with Lizzie taking centre stage and then Isabella just chills backstage because damnit this is Lizzie's moment and damned if she CAN actually sing. The only part I liked was here because they whipped off Lizzie's fluffy antique skirt to reveal a totally hot new costume, because it reminded me of seeing The Phantom of the Opera on stage when Christine does the super-ninja onstage transformation between verses during Think of Me.
Implausibility Count: 8. Lizzie believes Isabella's story of Isa: Good and Paolo: Bad. Why, we're not sure. To paraphrase: "Who are you going to believe...a boy you've been falling in love with for the past two weeks, or a girl who randomly showed up with Gordo and looks exactly like you except for the hair, and at this point you've got to believe that Gordo has ulterior motives in breaking you and Paolo up, plus this other girl has a vendetta against Paolo because it's been obvious for months that they are on the opposite ends of the good/bad spectrum and hate each other..." now we're just not sure who is telling the truth, but to quote Oscar Wilde: 'The truth is entirely and absolutely a matter of style." And because Lizzie doesn't need boys aside from her tween-love-angst, this movie is all about individuality, finding yourself and girl power, so the truth MUST be told by Isabella, because she has a vagina and Paolo has got to be a dirty rotten liar otherwise there is no cause for Lizzie to fly into Gordo's arms at the end.
Implausibility Count: 9. The dance sequence kicks ass. Now one would assume that Paolo would have been a part of this had he stuck around on stage, and yet the entire thing works seamlessly without him. The male back up dancers are the ones lifting and spinning Lizzie, and the girl dancers don't seem to be at a loss for what to do. One can only assume that Paolo had planned ot stand off to the side and look hot.
What ever happens to Paolo anyway? I mean after he finishes crying? I would have appreciated some plot hole resolution there...have Lizzie and Isabella nad Paolo have a chat or something...to invest so much time in a character, then have him turn out to be the uber-villain planning to *gasp!* humiliate our poor little star with absolutely jack-shit by way of a denoument leaves a little something to be desired. I would have liked to see Paolo as more of a human rather than a bitchy little diva with a one-sided personality and one motive and master plan which backfires. Sure, he acted all nice and lovey-dovey, but we see where THAT got us, didn't we? Welcome to He-lied-and-broke-my-young-and-tender-heart City: Population: You.
Reminds me of Marcello in Under the Tuscan Sun. The moral: never trust Italian Men. It's the Americans who will stand by a Yankee blonde-girl in times of trouble and catch her if she falls. Lizzie gives a kiss to Gordo, but it doesn't lead anywhere as they kind of have an awkward chuckle and head back inside as the credits roll on the fade-to-black shot. Now the "awkward chuckle" is hard to define. It could mean any number of things, from "awkward meaning this was a bad idea, it'll never work out and let's just be friends again," to "awkward meaning this could lead to a sequel where we actually DO hook up," or "awkward meaning wow that was surprisingly hot for me so now we're going to go back inside then sneak back to my hotel room where I will let you tenderly deflower me."
The movie was a glittering tween-fest from start to finish, and if you'll excuse me, I have something infinitely more fascinating to do called brushing my teeth...

Everything I just said except Phantom and brushing my teeth--->Gunned Down!