Wannabe

well, christina's the one with all the makeup, so that's easy, except on halloween or while you're watching the twisted sister behind the music.

Christina - star/car-crash quality (starcrash?) but drab material (and likely to get drabber given 'real voice' marketing).

Jessica - horrible persona, one supremely beautiful single.

Mandy - highest strike-rate of material but rather nebulous. For some reason I still think she's about fourteen.

UK attempts to develop the Pop Star version 1999.1 have gone horrible awry cf. JO BREEZER.

They're all horrible, but if we have to go with this...Christina is obviously best because she's most print-worthy. Jessica Simpson and Mandy Moore are two of the most generic looking girls/women/young ladies on earth and have boring personalities to boot. And yes, Mandy Moore still seems to be like 14 to me, same with Hanson. The only way to tell the difference between a pure pretender and someone with an actual shot is the persona and the amount of press - material isn't really important, despite what I said on the Britney thread. It is horribly unfortunate that Christina has such terrible material, because with whambang material, she'd rule the universe.

Mandy is the nicest person.

But that generally makes for bad pop stars, unfortunately.

If they only released http://www.morewebspace.fsnet.co.uk/remix.mp3 as a single, it'd be clear who the champion was...

I'm waiting for Willa Ford to take over.

Willa Ford has already done a deal with the devil (ie shagging Nick Carter), so I wouldn't be too surprised Nitsuh.

Mandy is obviously best. Christina needs to be put down, though I'm still quite fond of "Genie In A Bottle".

billie piper kicks all their asses

I still can't tell the fysical difference between Mandy & Jessica. And I don't even have to squint. It's scary, which if they both weren't that terribly devoid of character would be fun. But obviously they're not. Christina wins on diva-points. Plus there's more comedic value to be found there anyway. The Spanish version of Genie In A Bottle still cracks me up.

Spanish version is amusing, but hard-edged hip hop remix is BETTA - however I still can't work out if it's real or just one of those Gnutella oddities. Miami bass version is hypothetical best version (someone still needs to make it).

Jessica and Mandy are easily distinguishable as long as you keep in mind that Jessica is Mandy's drag doppelganger.

I'd find scary Christina easier to stomach if she could decide what she wanted to be. She's another Britney, she's another Janet, she's another J.Lo. And in that order: crap, crap, VERY crap.

Willa Ford scares me, but was stupid enough to entitle her first single, "I wanna be bad". A quick listen confirms that she succeeded. She is REALLY bad.

Mandy obviously beats Jessica. Does Samantha Mumba count? Mandy beats her. Billie Piper beats Mandy despite creepy husband because "Honey To The B" and "Day & Night" constitute possibly the best pair of consecutive singles ever. Christina beats Jessica, but Mandy beats Christina because Mandy doesn't love her songs to death in the style of Houston/Carey. Jessica Simpson combines every bad quality of every other pop princess with none of the good ones.

Although Tom is right - "I Think I'm In Love With You" was lovely.

Can we have some sort of rank diagram plz?

Billie Piper does kick all of their asses, except that if shagging Nick Carter is bad, surely shagging Chris Evans is much, much worse.

preferably a diagram with beakers and arrows and venn circles!

[also, "I wanna be with you" has the twin kudos of being on the Centerstage soundtrack and being the sort of ballad that Britney records but never releases as a single.]

But it sucks.

Bullshit. I like the breath in her vocals.

But the song is boring. "Don't Let Me Be The Last To Know" is a much better song.

Shorely those two too close to call. Mandy has film cred, Britney has clip semi-nudity. Therefore: draw. Competitors must kiss and make up.

Dude tim, save the mock-lesbianism stuff for raging flameworkers on ILE. :-P

Too close to call my fabulous, fabulous ass, everyone knows that film cred is no kind of cred at all, this is not the '80s and Save the Last Dance is not The Breakfast Club.

Yeah, the breakfast club suXoRed. Save The Last Dance was "gritty" and "urban" and taught appropriate slang use and didn't have suicidal geeks. Instead, it had a stunning hip-ho/ballet sequence only matched by the rock/ballet sequence of Centerstage. Speaking of which STLD + Centerstage = Immortality!

What are you, 12? Everyone knows that Save the Last Dance sucked, it was all serious and shit. Go watch like Bring it On or She's All That, they're way better and have better looking chicks. The Breakfast Club rules all eternity cos it has Judd Nelson is it, he is the hero of all actors everywhere.

Christ. She's All That blew chunks. Bring It On was good -- which is why I saw it twice. But neither were set in Chicago.

Chicago is like the worst place on earth, what are you talking about? Go watch Eight Men Out or something. She's All That is fantastic, especially because, like, it tells you that glasses = ugly, no glasses = cute, which is obviously so true. And it has Freddie Prinze Jr, who is only the best actor this side of Vince Vaughn.

But it doesn't have any good songs.

Other movie that taught me that = Never Been Kissed, about which I once wrote a whole essay called, as I recall, "On Never Been Kissed and The Decline of The Great American Teen Film into a Pool of Stinking Sewage"

Ally Sez: Go watch like Bring it On or She's All That, they're way better and have better looking chicks

Yeah they do...

Christina is horrifying, but I haven't heard much out of her lately, which means she's in a cocoon somewhere gestating into a b-u-tiful pop butterfly.

Jessica was so close... If only she didn't believe in God. I've been fetishizing I Think I'm In Love for a long time now...

I never got Mandy, tho I wanna Be With You is decent enough.

I am in awe of Sterling. Did you write that essay for a reason, or for fun? Cos if you actually wrote that for a class, I'm impressed, it's better than my philosophy paper on why the meaning of life is John Travolta's hair.

Jessica Simpson sure don't look like a born again Christian, that's for sure. Funnily, I originally typoed that as "Christina".

Ally and Sterling = the new Ally and Otis?

No one can take Otis's place, Otis is my tru luv and best friend 4eva, duh, hello. Sterling is like sassy friend in the backseat of the road trip film who throws in fantastic one-liners and has a key love scene with Julia Stiles, but is not either Freddie Prinze Jr. nor Sarah Michelle Gellar, who are the main characters i.e. Otis and myself. In fact, he's possibly Matthew Lillard, which would be great.

I wrote that essay because I was inspired by an intense burning rage and loathing for the entire decade of the 90s by that work of hellspawn. I'll post it at empty.org soon.

Also, I so totally have my own movie where Ally is like this colorful eccentric there for me to bounce my glorious bon mots off, to demonstrate how cool I am. Maybe like in teen movies where she's the sardonic hipster with love story II playing in the background as a counterpoint to the main action. Like in Can't Hardly Wait, which I've seen four times at least -- the hip sardonic girl who hooks up with Seth Green. Y'know?

Yeah, like I'd ever date Seth Green, look at me and then look at him, I mean yuck. I might consider Chris Klein though.

Which was like how it was in the movie too -- the I Hate You, I Hate You, Let's Get It On type sitcom device.

Yeah, but the thing is, I don't hate him at all, he's great, he's just grossly unattractive.

but is not either Freddie Prinze Jr. nor Sarah Michelle Gellar, who are the main characters i.e. Otis and myself. In fact, he's possibly Matthew Lillard, which would be great.

Ally, do you realize that's 3/5 of the cast of the new Scooby Doo movie? You just made yourself in Daphne, Otis into Fred, and Sterling into Shaggy.

Velma = ?

I think nitsuh just voulenteered.

"You just made...Otis into Fred" would, under most circumstances, prompt Wheeler to beat you to death with his walking stick. Provided he was drunk enough to do something more destructive than sit and look peturbed. I have always been compared to Daphne, probably because I wear improbable clothes into dirty situations and then complain that my boots are dirty. Plus, red hair.

My mom watched this movie the other day, it was some Scooby Doo movie that featured Shaggy getting married and having babies, what does that imply? I don't think the movie really exists.

Wait - why are they making a live action scooby doo? What?

Umm, yes, as per my previous post, they are indeed making a live- action Scooby Doo, starring (see above). First sign that this will be a complete travesty: Fred will not be wearing an orange ascot. I ask you: how can Fred not have an orange ascot? Fred without the ascot is like Velma without the glasses.

And no, for some reason Reese Witherspoon was not acquired to play Velma. And yes, Scooby will be a 3-D CGI model, although a not-bad one, actually.

I suppose I would be showing my age by announcing that my casting for a Scooby Doo movie would have been: Matthew McConnaghey as Fred, Kevin Bacon as Shaggy, Janeane Garofalo as Velma, and obviously me as Danger-Prone Daphne.

But the ascot is Fred. It's like Batman without the Batmobile.

Freddie just plain does not look like Fred. He looks idiotic with blond hair, it's insulting to the true nature of Fred.

Oh, like any of them aren't an insult to the true nature of any of them. I mean, Sarah Michelle Gellar looks like a mouse.

I love Buffy (the show), but SMG is so not Daphne. I don't quite know who would cut it, though.

Plus, I really do think the CGI Scooby is ass. It's just plain wrong, like Ewan McGregor with a great big honkin' beard.

I'm just saying it's not bad as CGI -- I was expecting a pretty minimal Rocky and Bullwinkle kind of thing. Although I haven't seen it move, which is obviously the point at which to make real judgements.

They will redeem themselves somewhat if they remember to make all secret doors in the film CGI as well -- really bad, unmatched, poorly- lit CGI -- so that we can all sit in the theater thinking, "But Fred, there's a secret door! It's right there behind you!"

The cast is great, because: Freddy Prinze, Jr. = Amherst College
Sarah Michelle Gellar = Mt. Holyoke
Linda Cardellini = Smith College
Matthew Lillard = Hampshire College
Which of course is completely wrong but it does make me feel better about the Five Colleges. (Correct cast would be: Paul Walker=Amherst, Anne Heche=MHC, Chloe Sevigny=Smith, and Owen Wilson=Hampshire, which would be nearly as horrible as the reality).

What the hell are you talking about?

That actually makes a hell of a lot of sense.

Would you please attempt to correlate the Ivy League with the Superfriends? Please?

sarah michelle's droopy eyes. and she doesn't look ENOUGH like a mouse. alyson hannigan RULES

They based Scooby-Doo on students from the Five Colleges, it's a well known fact, Ally. Fred represents kids from Amherst College, Daphne Mt. Holyoke, Velma Smith, Shaggy Hampshire, and Scoob Umass.

i always prefered "captain caveman" (that's a lie)

Wheeler, you are a filthy liar, worse than your comrade. You listen to me, Scooby is nothing like UMass, Scooby is at least vaguely intelligent, I mean he can form sentences.