Bottom Feeders: From Justin to Kelly

Entertainment is pretty much as important as food.  That sounds a little ridiculous but the fact is that people need to be entertained.  If that weren’t true Transformers 3 wouldn’t have grossed 1.1 billion dollars last year while banks were closing and people were losing their jobs.  And just like food, there’s people who really enjoy it and there are people who just cram it into their bodies on their way to the thing they actually do care about.  That’s why we have junk food and it’s why we have reality TV.

Pictured: junk food.

The problem is that with food people start off simple and build up.  At first just some ground up carrots, some applesauce – baby food.  It’s all they can process because they’re tiny, pathetic babies but when they get older and develop they move on to better and more complex things.  If they’re lucky they develop good eating habits.  They find things that are wholesome rather than just appealing.  With pop culture, most people don’t.  They eat baby food their whole lives or swap it out for fast food – more complex but just as empty.  You might be one of those people.  You might find Jersey Shore riveting or think people are just being too hard on Chelsea – and that’s fine.  But to me you look like an idiot with their big fat fingers jammed into a jar of Gerber’s.

Or using a spoon, if I find that picture first.

And there’s always someone willing to make money off of you.  They’ll make a shitty product on the cheap, dress it up with confetti and push it on you hard.  In pop culture that person is Simon Fuller.  In food it’s Hardee’s, because at least McDonald’s has salads now.  For those of you who may not know, Simon Fuller is the man behind these things:

The one I’m concerned with today is From Justin to Kelly, because they’re all terrible but only that one’s a movie.  And it is terrible, in a very unique and maddening way.  It’s the film equivalent of that guy who wipes a dirty newspaper on your windshield and says you owe him five dollars.  He knows he didn’t do a good job.  He doesn’t care that he didn’t.  just give him your fucking money.  It’s as bad as any movie with two stars who can’t act, can’t dance, can’t even really sing and are only there because they have to should be.  It’s as bad as a movie made in 2003 but still featuring a white guy freestyle rapping like it’s cool and a ‘nerd’ who’s only there so we can laugh at how sad and nerdy he is should be.

Glasses AND a cellphone? I bet this guy uses 'email' too!

This movie was made the exact same way the Spice Girls were, although none of this movie was molested as a child and I cannot with confidence say that about the Girls.  Either way, you just assemble a group of semi-attractive young people with one identifiable trait each and have them say nothing at all.  This movie doesn’t use tropes – it is tropes.  Right down to the ‘she walks in on them kissing and leaves just before he pushes her away.’  It’s like that for a reason.  The goal of this movie isn’t to be a movie, it exists as a product – much more so than even your average studio film.  Trying to make it more complex or deep would only hurt its marketability.

Which is exactly why Americans don't eat poutine.

I try to avoid movies like this that are obviously just giant ads because there isn’t usually much to say about them, but From Justin to Kelly is actually an important historical footnote.  Simon Fuller originally had it in every Idol contestant’s contract that the winner and Runner-up appear in one movie.  If this one hadn’t been so utterly terrible, it might have succeeded and then we’d have had a Ruben Studdard/Clay Aiken movie the next year.  Sure, it would have been the greatest buddy cop movie of all time but it would have opened up a flood gate.

And guess which one's the loose cannon.

Movies have been safe from reality until now.  They’re also mostly terrible but would you rather watch Sucker Punch or three episodes of Kim and Khloe Take New York strung together?  Going back to food, most of it’s shit but there’s still options out there for people who want more because there’s money in that too.  But Trader Joe’s only stays open as long people in baja hoodies shop there and movies will only be real as long as it’s more profitable than making them not real.  That’s important because movies are insanely expensive to make.  If they could get away with making them for pennies on the dollar they would.  Their goal isn’t to make good movies, it’s to make money.  Movies are just the thing they use to get the thing they really care about.

Seen here being being used to snort the other thing they care about.

But when The Real Cancun came out a few months before FJ2K and tanked, Hollywood had to say “Ok, fine.  We can’t just make a long reality TV episode.”  And when FJ2K tanked as well they had to say “Fine, we can’t just cobble together movies based around reality stars, either.”  So as bitchy as I’ve been this article I’m proud of us as an audience.  Reality TV is here to stay because it’s cheap and easy to make and people love it.  But the fact is only 10% of TV is even close to good in the first place, so if the Kardashians of the world are taking over the Whitneys of the world, fine – because I’m not watching either one.

Ok...I'm watching SOME of one.

Everyone wants to watch some dumb entertainment every once in a while, just like we all feel like having a burger and fries some times.  You just can’t do either all the time because you wind up dumb and fat and give Europeans and Brazilians more fuel to mock us with.  But when McDonald’s tries to sell you lobster or Simon Fuller tries not to be a dumb little shit, we can still sniff it out.  We’ll go to quality places when we want quality things.  Like Chipotle.

I'm going to eat you, and exactly four hours later, poop.