From Justin To Kelly

Yeah, so�yeah. I was really hoping From Justin To Kelly would be amazingly awful -- awful in such away that it blazed brand-new trails in badness. Awful in a way that all aspiring film students would be shown this movie very early in their educations, with the professor, perhaps assisted by a laser pointer, detailing every single way the movie went wrong. Awful in such a way that it would inspire drinking games. Awful in such away that it would inspire some camp-sensitive entrepreneur to develop a theme restaurant based on the movie in 2023. Awful in such a way that every artist of every medium and genre on the face of the earth would rise up and declare, "Genius can be found everywhere where this movie is not!"

Instead, it was just bad, which is a disappointment. Rumor has it Vincent Gallo has reserved the "Worst Artistic Endeavor Ever" title for at least the few months. Ultimately, it was no worse than seeing a Rob Schneider movie. Or so I assume, as I've painstakingly avoided ever seeing one. It kind of sucks the fun out of writing a recap. I mean, who would want to recap a Rob Schneider movie?

Also, I neglected to bring my personal courtroom stenographer to the film with me. And sadly, the rewind button in my brain hasn't been working properly since I reached that point in life where I realized that everything I used to think was really cool was actually pretty stupid. So what's a lazy entertainment writer to do? Why, the same thing that all the other lazy entertainment writers do -- a list! A list will fill up space! A list allows you to take tiny nuggets of information and spread them out over several pages. Or hours, if you happen to be VH1.

So, without further ado: 146 Reasons Why From Justin To Kelly Sucked.

1. There was the whole embarrassing issue of buying tickets to the movie. I live in a town with two military bases. There were a lot of burly men standing in line, all buying tickets to see The Hulk. I, obviously, was not.

2. I considered buying tickets to see Dumb And Dumberer and sneaking into the movie, but I couldn't decide whether that was more or less embarrassing. I'm still not certain.

3. There was nobody in the theater when I entered. Eventually, two teen girls came in and sat all the way in the back row. I don't think they could tell what I looked like, thank God. Three more girls came in and sat further in front, but the previews had already started, so the theater was already dark. So a total of six people showed up for a Sunday matinee of the movie, in a small desert town where there really isn't anything else going on. They stayed away in droves.

4. There's nothing like having to endure those wretched [product-placed cola] "Screen Play" slide shows while waiting to see a movie you know you're not going to like. They had this "Find The Bottle" thing like that back page of Highlights, but the bottles weren't even hidden! There were just five of them, sitting there on the screen in front of some poorly drawn rendition of a set from Star Trek: Nemesis.

5. And don't get me started on that whole "Bottle Race" thing. Let's just say that I doubt that [product-placed cherry cola] would pass a post-race drug test. It came out of nowhere! ["I actually lost a dollar bet on that race. Thanks a LOT, Vanilla Cokeif that's your real name." -- Sars]

6. Also, if I knew how many Child's Play movies there were, I would never admit it to another human being.

7. During the previews, the three girls in the front all shouted "Wooooooo!" following a teaser for Legally Blonde 2. I don't think they meant it ironically.

8. The movie opens with Kelly Clarkson singing karaoke in some mostly empty Western bar. I thought 19 Entertainment's official policy was to pretend that Nikki McKibbin never existed?

9. Kelly's character is named "Kelly," and she's from Texas, but she's not Kelly Clarkson. She's not!

10. Kelly has a fan, some idiot cowboy named Luke, who believes that he's Kelly's boyfriend, despite her insistence that he's not. This is this movie's equivalent of showing the gun in Act I to go off in Act III.

11. Just as a warning, all the conflict in this movie is based entirely on each character not listening to what any of the other characters actually say to him or her.

12. Sadly, the plot to the movie still makes more sense than the plot to The Hulk.

13. Painful Dialogue Example #1: "I'm just like Hurricane Luke. One day I'm going to blow you over."

14. Kelly's two female "friends" are named Kaya and Alexa. Those names are themselves worthy of being on the list.

15. Kelly's "friends" insist on making her drive them to spring break in Miami because their airline went bankrupt. Despite her whining, they convince her in about ten whole seconds.

16. We immediately cut to their arrival in Miami, as the opening credits play over a wretched cover of "Vacation."

17. The opening credits feature cheesy jump cuts all over Miami that Bunim/Murray would dismiss as "too pedestrian."

18. And since when is Miami a hot spring break destination? Am I out of the loop?

19. As Kelly and her friends arrive, Justin is working the beach with his two friends, Eddie and Brandon. They refer to themselves as the "Pennsylvania Posse."

20. Justin's character is named "Justin," and he's from Pennsylvania, but he's not Justin Guarini. He's not!

21. Brandon is an incredibly obnoxious chipster who makes Steve Sanders seem smooth by comparison. He appears to be allergic to shirts.

22. The actor who plays Brandon, Greg Siff, played Barry Williams in Unauthorized Brady Bunch: The Final Days.

23. Brandon and Justin run a "party promotion" service that's incredibly popular, despite the fact that neither of them seems to actually know anything about actually putting parties together. They seem to have the kind of jobs participants on The Real World get.

25. Eddie is a nerdy guy with an ugly hat and glasses to emphasize that he's a geek. They probably made the actor bathe in bleach to make him more pale. There's no explanation as to what he's doing with Brandon and Justin, because he's not involved with the party promotion. He's trying to meet some girl he's been dating on that internet thing that's so popular these days.

26. Painful Dialogue Example #2, from Brandon: "I'm genetically incapable of developing relationships with girls."

27. The first big musical number is a big dance party on the beach. Actually, most of the musical numbers are big dance parties on the beach. People sing about getting laid and dance around. People actually use towels as props when they dance.

28. And balls. People dance with balls.

29. There's this one guy with nipples so prominent that I'm sure they must get their own spot in the closing credits.

Why I hate myself #1: I'd totally do him.

Why I hate myself #2: I also immediately recognized him as a dancer from Britney Spears's "Oops, I Did It Again" days. I used to watch the video just to catch glimpses of him.

30. The dancer's name is Brandon Henschel, and on his Web site, he declares that he is "Uniquely Accomplishing God's Will Through Entertainment."

Why I hate myself #3: I'd still totally do him.

31. During the song, we learn that Kelly's "friend" Alexa is a big ho. With her Southern-fried accent, long blonde hair, and desperately needy personality, she's reminiscent of Amy from Big Brother 3.

32. Kelly's other friend, Kaya, is African-American. If you've watched enough bad teen television shows and movies dominated by white kids, you have probably noticed that many writers think that "African-American" is actually a personality, not just a race, so those characters get little development. Kaya is one of those characters.

33. Kelly and Justin finally meet briefly during the musical number, and there's so little chemistry between the two of them that they very nearly put out the sun.

34. The amount of money spent on orthodontia for all these kids is probably triple the budget for the entire movie.