Blonde Ambition

I'm thinking that the reason for all the negativity for Blonde Ambition is that it is way too familiar, bordering on plagiarizing what Reese Witherspoon did with her two Legally Blonde films. Jessica Simpson is nowhere close to the actress Reese Witherspoon is, but the character in this film she portrays is well within her range and fits right into the public persona we've come to expect from her.

Jessica is really quite the dumb Dora blonde in this film, but she's a decent soul and God has a special providence for these people. She comes in leaving home and hearth and grandfather Willie Nelson minding the store which he owns and she works to join her fiancé in New York who is a male model, Drew Fuller. She catches him in flagrato with a stripper and the engagement is off. But she stays and bunks in with a cousin and substitutes for her as a bike messenger.

Her incredible naiveté, she's a kid from small town Oklahoma, brings her to the attention of a pair of scheming executives Penelope Ann Miller and Andy Dick who want to topple company president Larry Miller. These two frame something up to get Miller's assistant fired and then fake a resume for Simpson so that Miller hires her. With her as an unknowing fifth column in Miller's office, Penelope and Andy start doing their thing. But somehow Jessica gets the better of them constantly.

This was a Simpson family project with Jessica's father Joe serving as producer. And I can see the discussion around the Simpson kitchen table after they must have seen Reese Witherspoon's films. That kind of Elle Woods character was perfect for Jessica, let's get something going like it.

Director Scott Marshall cast his aunt Penny Marshall in a really good small part as the head of a development company who Simpson and her boyfriend, mail room clerk Luke Wilson are pitching to. Wilson is the only good guy she met during her employment at this company, but even he hasn't been totally honest.

In the old days of the Hollywood studio system people like Janet Gaynor or Loretta Young or going back to silent days Mary Pickford would have been cast in Simpson's kind of part. Not shabby company at all.

So Jessica's not Reese Witherspoon. She does good enough as Jessica Simpson.

I'm going to give the writers most of the blame for what didn't work in this movie, and I'm going to give Jessica Simpson an A for Effort.

What Luke Wilson is doing here is anybody's guess. Mortgage payment due? Lost a bet? Penny Marshall made him? He just wanted one scene with the genuinely hilarious Larry Miller?

I didn't hate this film; it's hard to hate a gentle comic book, but this could have been much more artfully handled. They had Luke Wilson and Jessica Simpson as leads in a movie and nobody saw the possibilities. Shame.

Note to Norwegians: This made Norwegians look like a great deal of fun. Remember, nothing in this movie had anything to do with reality. Enjoy!

Who wrote this? Some guy named John Cohen. I guess this was the first screenplay he's ever worked on. Someone should've told him you're supposed to write dialog that sounds like something someone actually might say.

And who directed this? Scott Marshal? Son of Gerry Marshall. My the nut has fallen far from the tree. Someone might have wanted to let him know that you can, in fact, shoot a scene in a cab in New York, and it will look real, and you won't have to fake it with a blue screen for no reason. Might have also wanted to let him know he should stay away from Jessica Simpson, but hopefully he's learned that lesson now.

And Jessica Simpson... naturally she can't act. Hell, she makes Jessica Alba look like Audry Hepburn, and yet she's starring in this movie. OH wait, it was produced by her father. Okay, that's why she got the part. That's really the only reason I can think of.

So should I be surprised it's bad? No. Should I be amazed at how bad it is? I think a lot of people would if they saw as much of it as I did. I mean you expect a movie starring Jessica Simpson to be bad, but this... it's not just bad, it's the complete opposite of a classic film. Think of a great Woody Allen movie, this film is as bad as that film is good. It's the Anti-Annie Hall.

I am so glad I didn't pay to see it, I stopped watching ten minutes in cus I couldn't go on. No doubt I would've walked out of the theater sooner. In fact I wonder how many of the 6 people who saw it per theater actually stayed and watched the whole thing. The film starts out laughably bad, and then goes to the point of being so bad it becomes a kind of Chinese water torture. And then, around when the first act is ending, you realize it'll only get worse, and that's when you either need to leave, or kill yourself.

In conclusion, this film goes under the category of being so bad it should be used in place of water boarding at Guantanamo Bay. Although some prefer the water boarding.

This is a truly awful movie, but wonderful at the same time. It's like Tokyo Drift ... although not quite as stupid as that masterpiece. Blonde Ambition is not a mean, ugly film like Showgirls, which they have tried to rebrand as a cult classic. Rather, it is a piece of bubblegum ... and a monument of sugary stupidity rarely achieved in cinema ... therefore bubblegum you can savor long after the flavor is gone. Watching Jessica Simpson mug like an idiot, trying to do slapstick, possibly the worst I've ever seen, is a joy beyond words. Andy Dick is a dick. I guess Luke Wilson has some talent, but this script is so bad it's kind of fun to watch the what-the-****-am-i-doing-in-this-t*rd looks fall across his face as he tries to deliver the awful lines. Highly recommended.

By now you should already know about this film, the Jessica Simpson "bomb" that pretty much went straight to video (limited, anemic theatrical run). Basically, Ms. Simpson's Katie travels from a small town in Oklahoma to visit her boyfriend, to surprise him, only to find him in bed with another woman. She is stranded, but has one friend (Rachel Leigh Cook, whom I wish we saw more often in film), who lets her stay. Katie ends up getting a job via two conniving co-workers (Penelope Ann Miller and the always amusing Andy Dick) who are just using Katie to get the president of the firm (Larry Miller) ousted. This is strictly a b movie, its not meant to be profound. Jessica Simpson is not a great actress by any means, but she is pretty much beautiful and never truly annoying. The film is watchable in that its not an abomination, but its throwaway fluff. In a cameo, Penny Marshall is funny (a subtle in-joke about Milwaukee made me chuckle), and there is a funny scene involving Norwegian priests (don't read too much into this). So, not horrible, but easy to skip. Your safe bet is to watch it on television if it ever does. Again, not good, but not a profound disaster.