Movie commercials offer us a great service; they not only show us which upcoming movies look good, but also which upcoming movies look like Hitler Turds (turds that waste no energy being anywhere except directly beneath your nose). In honor of this profound art, which I partake in from time to time, I give you TRAILER TRACKS, a weekly examination of upcoming movie commercials: what they say, what they don’t say, and what they say accidentally about the product being sold to you, the excited chump.
This week’s entry:
Burlesque
(Sony Pictures; Dir. Steven Antin)
Introduction
Women are complex creatures with a wide variety of emotional experiences. Every so often they need a movie where the surrogate character’s ultimate goal isn’t marrying some dildo jock. There’s so much more to life than marriage. There’s also dancing. So women also sometimes get movies about dancing.
This movie is about a type of dancing called Burlesque, something I don’t quite understand and may in fact be fictional. See, according to this trailer, Burlesque is a kind of dancing where girls dress provocatively and display sweet moves on an overly flashy stage. This simply cannot be right. If women want dancing almost-tits, they go to the ballet. If men want dancing almost-tits, they watch wrestling. These are not the kind of extremes you can just mix-and-match.
The Setup
Christina Aguirre, The Wrath of Pop plays a sweet, small town girl with big dreams and an accent pre-filled with California sass. The moment she’s legal, she heads to Hollywood to fulfill her big dancing fantasy. This is a movie, so you don’t have to worry about her vagina.
Of course, becoming a professional dancer isn’t all that easy. You can’t just show up and start earning. First you must pay your dues by working as a waitress. Try to memorize moves while delivering drinks. If you spill that’s okay. All part of paying dues.
After a day or two, you’ll get an opportunity to jump on stage when “you’re not supposed to” and show your dedication. TAKE IT! Do you think Madonna got recognized by being polite? They’ll say you suck, but that’s okay; it’s a test. All part of paying dues. Soon, you’ll end up in the right place at the right time, and they’ll be forced to give you your shot. And now you will dance your heart out and sing your heart out and your heart will heart its heart out and all your dreams will come true. But first you will blow me. You will probably blow a lot of people. All part of paying dues. I know it sounds hard, but you’ll be getting that cunnilingus on the reg before you know it.
Once on your way, you’ll need a mentor. This film offers Christina Aguirre two. One is Stanley Tucci playing yet another gay straight man. But the big kahuna here is Cher, playing an old-timer who knows the ropes well enough to make a knot sexy rather than just plain painful. Of course, Cher died recently, so she’s played in this film buy a guy in a wig. Possibly Liev Schreiber. Anyway, Cher will probably help Christan Aguirre’s dreams come true while confronting the failure of her own. Sounds fun.
The Problem
There’s a guy. He’s a bartender at the burlesque club. It looks like he and Christina Aguirre fall in love, so we know something will eventually challenged that love. And let’s not forget the eternal question regarding rising starlets: “When did you turn into such a bitch?”
That’s it. This is a film about fake solutions, not problems.
The Fake Solution
Here’s how I see it all going down:
The guy she’s dating turns out to be gay because, c’mon, of course he is. She has one chance to make him not-gay, but it comes at a crucial time for her career. If she blows off dancing this one night to un-gay her boyfriend, her career will be over because Michael Jackson is in the audience and he’s looking for a replacement for when he dies last year.
She asks Stanely Tucci what to do. He says something a little funny then makes serious-face and tells her, “You have to follow your heart, honey. No one can make this choice for you, but you.” As Christina Aguirre starts to leave he quietly adds, “Good luck, kiddo.” He then continues hanging up dancing costumes because that is what he has done and what he will do from here until the day he dies of glitter poisoning.
She asks Cher what to do. Cher tells her what SHE would do. “I’d take the chance. Men come and go.” As Christina Aguirre starts to leave, Cher suddenly breaks down and tells the tearful story of how she DID have such a chance and she DID take it and she DID blow off her friends and she DID still became the horrible mess she is today.
So it’s decided. Aguirre tells Michael Jackson to go fuck himself. Guess what? It was a test. Impressed by her soul, Michael Jackson hands over his entire empire before poofing into a cloud of dry ice.
As for her boyfriend, she still has just enough time to brainwash him into heterosexuality with the help of that guy from Yes Man, who would only be in town for a couple more hours. Whew! Close call.
Summation
I don’t know how many little girl lives this film will set up for failure, but I hope it’s not too many. In the end, I guess it’s nice to have a man who looks like Cher in a film again. It’s been too long since Mermaids stole my heart.