EDITOR’S NOTE: We originally watched this movie on July 20, 2020, but now that Mill Creek has released a 20th anniversary edition blu ray, we figured now was a good time to come back to it. 

Two decades after its release, this movie still rings true, a beacon in the world of pop that says so much.

Beyond featuring the film on blu ray, it also comes with commentary by directors Deborah Kaplan, Harry Elfont and producer Marc Platt, a behind the scenes feature, deleted scenes and music videos for Josie and the Pussycats “3 Small Words” and Dujour’s “Backdoor Lover” and “Around the World.”

You can check out Mill Creek’s information page and order Josie and the Pussycars from Deep Discount. 

Who would expect that a big budget movie based on an Archie Comic and Hanna-Barbera cartoon would end up being a movie so willing to bite the hand that feeds and presents a world where the world of pop music is all one giant conspiracy to sell you things? While it’s selling you things, of course.

Yet despite being savaged by critics back and bombing at the box office at the start of this century, this movie feels more relevant today than nearly anything else that played theaters in 2001. It’s skewering of consumerism is, if anything, even more relevant today. And man, the songs are catchy.

Josie McCoy (Rachael Leigh Cook), Melody Valentine (Tara Reid) and Valerie Brown (Rosario Dawson) are the Pussycats, who have been selected to replace DuJour, the latest and hottest band, but also one who have learned that this is all a big scam on the kids. They pay the price when their plane goes down over Riverdale.

Now, Wyatt Frame (Alan Cumming) and Fiona (Parker Posey) have promised the one world government that her new band won’t need to be killed via drug overdose and will get the job done — or else Carson Daly will wipe them out on the set of Total Request Live.

There are so many products placed in this movie that it becomes virtual overload, yet none of them were paid for by the actual companies. They were all placed there by the filmmakers and there are around 73 different products in this movie.

Those songs I mentioned — that’s Kay Hanley from Letters to Cleo singing — make this movie even better.

Deborah Kaplan (who is married to Breckin Meyer, who has a cameo in this movie) and Harry Elfont wrote and directed this movie. They’ve worked together on plenty of other films, including A Very Brady Sequel, Can’t Hardly Wait, The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas, Surviving Christmas, Made of Honor and Leap Year. However, this would be the last movie they’d direct.