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MisterBadIdea 
"PLZ GET MILK, KTHXBYE"
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 Posted - 08/30/2009 : 15:55:06
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Someone you don't know dared me to watch the Hannah Montana movie. I did, and then I wrote on my personal blog about my observations. This is 2,000 words so I won't be surprised when no one reads this, but I thought I'd throw it out there. For those who don't know, Miley Cyrus plays Miley Stewart, a regular teenager who leads a double life as high-profile pop star Hannah Montana on the eponymous Disney Channel sitcom. Her dad is played by her real-life father Billy Ray Cyrus, the country singer. She performs in concert as both Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus, her fame right now is massive, and she recently released her own movie.
Yes, I watched it. Yes, I�ve got a lot to say about it. And stop looking at me like that. I wanted to know what this whole Hannah Montana phenomenon means, and since plowing my way through three seasons of its TV show didn�t seem like a good use of my time, I gave a couple hours of my life to the movie. Yes, the music in Hannah Montana: The Movie mostly sucks, yes, there are stupid pratfalls and other bad kid�s movie jokes, yes, it doesn�t make any sense that no one can tell Hannah is just Miley in a blond wig. I came to this movie prepared to roll with all that, to find the secret depths of Hannah Montana and all she had to offer beyond the Disney bullshit.
The first scene starts us off on a stupid note, with Miley Stewart and her BFF Lilly having to crash her way into a Hannah Montana concert so she can perform on time. This scene just sort of happens without ever bothering to provide any setup: Why is she late to her own concert? How is she having this much trouble getting into the arena? When she does get in and transforms into Hannah to perform, her concert opener is �Best of Both Worlds,� a song that is clearly about her double life as pop star and regular ol� Miley. I have no idea how this works in-universe. From there we cut to her performing the same song on a Hawaiian beach, like it�s an Elvis movie or something, but for the most part that�s the only time the movie tries to get playful with the musical sequences � this is the last time there is any song which isn�t diegetically justified as a stage performance by a character. Even the beach sequence just turns out to be a music video shoot.
Anyway, the plot proper is that Miley starts getting drunk on fame and starts becoming a diva bitch, getting into a ridiculous fight with Tyra Banks over a pair of shoes and accidentally ruining Lilly�s birthday party by showing up as Hannah instead of Miley. Miley�s dad Robbie Ray (real life dad Billy Ray Cyrus, in case you forgot) worries that the pop life has gone to her head and drags her back home to her hometown of Bumfuck Nowhere, Tennessee, so she can discover good old country livin� and family values.
I�ll tell you right now, I have no time for this bullshit. I hate small towns. They stink of pig shit, there�s nothing to do, and the population is full of morons too stupid to figure out how to get out of a small town. Miley�s face perks up when she hears that some local farmland is to be turned into a giant mall, but the entire rest of the town seems to be united against it, and are trying to raise enough money to� you know, I have no idea what they would have done with the money, but if they get it they can prevent the mall from being built, somehow. The real estate developer is of course snarlingly evil, and shows up at one of their fundraisers to mock them and say things like �You ain�t never gonna raise the kind of money you�re going to need to save the Meadows!� I have to wonder if he did any market research, since the entire town seems to hate him and his stupid mall. Also, your average Hannah Montana fan loves the mall, so what exactly do the filmmakers think they�re selling here?
This, thankfully, is not the main thrust of the film. Matter of fact, when Hannah Montana plays a benefit concert in the film�s climax, the whole business with the mall isn�t even mentioned, so we�re only left to assume that the sleepy backwater town has been saved from the scourge of economic development and an expanded tax base. I�ve already expounded at length about what I think Hannah Montana should be about, and to my surprise the movie kind of met me halfway on this. The main point of the movie is that leading a double life sucks. At the beginning of the movie, she wishes she could just be Hannah 24/7; later, she wishes she could just be Miley. Either way, she�s not happy being both. The whole reason I watched this movie in the first place is that the concept is so weird to begin with � a pop star who�s also an actress playing a teenager with a secret life as a pop star in a show where her dad plays her dad and who performs live simultaneously as herself and her character. I realize that Hannah Montana: The Movie isn�t David Lynch or anything; it�s designed as a pop star fantasy that an average tween girl can both aspire to and relate to. But I do at least respect that they tried to look a little harder at the premise, even if that puts them considerably out of their depth.
There�s an extended, patience-trying sequence where Miley has to try and split time between a big fancy dinner with the mayor as Hannah, and a hot date with a farmhand love interest as herself, �Three�s Company�-style. It�s really, really bad (at one point, a ferret crawls up the mayor�s pants), but it culminates in a surprisingly graceful little movie moment where Miley tries to change out of her secret identity on the fly in a revolving door; she�s a sorry mess of wig and hair and clashing outfits, and as the camera spins around with her, we see that she�s sharing the doorway with a disappointed-looking little fan, and then a few spins later she�s also sharing it with her disappointed-looking love interest. Granted, this leads directly into the tired I Thought I Knew You moment, but at least for a moment the film wasn�t shot like a Hallmark TV-movie. (Following this scene is another nice moment where a depressed Miley sings a nice little duet with her dad, so it's a pleasant little stretch of movie.)
Miley starts to crumble under the stress. The strain of being Hannah Montana has ruined her love life, jeopardized her friendships, and attracted paparazzi to even her secluded small town; even her dad can�t sustain a budding relationship because he�s too busy keeping up his daughter�s charade. (Honestly, though, that whole subplot is strange; Miley�s actively trying to play matchmaker for her dad and rooting for him to hook up with this new woman. I�ve seen this in several movies, and it�s weird every time. By the way, Billy Ray can�t act. At all.) Finally, she just breaks down under the pressure during the big benefit concert and reveals her true identity, and tries performing as herself with a song she wrote on her own.
We�ve seen her slowly composing this song throughout the film. Her cowhand love interest overhears an early version of it with different lyrics and tells her he doesn�t like it: �It�s not bad, it just wasn�t about anything. Doesn�t tell me anything about who you are or how you feel.� She takes his advice to heart, and at the concert, she finally reveals her true self as channeled through the finished song. Said song is, of course, �The Climb.� Yes, that�s right: �The Climb,� one of the most brain-emptyingly banal hit songs of recent memory, is Miley Stewart�s big escape from the superficiality of the pop world and into emotional maturity and honest confessionalism.
Fortunately for her, the band somehow gives her perfect accompaniment and everyone seems to love this awful, awful song. It seems that the persona of Hannah Montana is retired for good. And then, in one of the most existentially horrifying scenes I�ve ever witnessed, a little girl in the crowd tells her, �Please be Hannah.� The entire crowd agrees. �She�s a part of you!� �You�ll be unhappy without her!� Positivity aside, the message is clear: We have no use for your pathetic stab at controlling your own life, you stupid teenage girl! Get in your cage and dance, monkey! �Please be Hannah.� God. Words can�t describe how scary this little girl is � she�s just heartbroken that her favorite pop star is playing some song she wrote herself instead of the hits, and when confronted with the truth, this little girl only wants lies. Come to think of it, there�s that scene earlier where circumstances force Miley to attend Lilly�s birthday party as Hannah, and her adoring fans basically (maybe even literally, I can�t remember) drag her to a stage to play a song. Consider that in the Hannah Montana universe, Miley doesn�t seem to suffer from stalkers or jerkass critics; and yet, the adoration of her fans alone looks like hell. Naturally, she acquiesces to her demanding public, and the entire town promises to keep her secret. If you didn�t like how many people knew Peter Parker�s identity in Spider-Man 2, you�re going to have real problems with this movie, but it bothers me much more that Miley's whole character arc is personally growing to a point where she no longer needs or even necessarily likes the Hannah persona anymore, only to have her fanbase wholeheartedly reject her attempt at personal reinvention and shove her back in her box.
The whole movie exists at a weird crossroads for Miley Cyrus. They don�t kill off Hannah at the end of the movie because that goose still has some golden eggs left in it, but they also have their eye on the future, and are presumably planning to spin off Miley into an adult career, probably in country music. Miley speaks with a surprisingly thick Southern accent, and even Hannah�s fictional handlers in the movie sell her as a country girl made good. (Worth noting is that the movie features guest performances not from the Jonas Brothers or Selena Gomez but from Taylor Swift and Rascal Flatts.) But I dunno, is there a huge crossover to be had between country music fans and Hannah Montana fans? There might be. I would be remiss if I didn�t mention �Hoedown Throwdown,� the movie�s worst song and worst scene, a country song �mixed with a little hiphop� and starts off with the words �pop it, lock it, polka dot it.� The lines between country music, teen pop and hiphop are apparently so blurred that she can get away with it (or not, as the case may be; for the love of God, do not click this link). She doesn�t strike me as a terrible actress and maybe not even a terrible singer (her voice doesn�t sound to me as bad as it did when I first heard it, which may just mean that my shock at how bad it really is has faded away). If she does have a future after she hangs up the wig, it will either be doing weird genre mix stuff like �Hoedown Throwdown� or boring-ass shit like �The Climb.� I�m not sure either is preferable, but I�m also pretty damn sure I won�t ever buy her as a straight-up country singer. She might be better at what she does than Hilary Duff was, but she's got Disney in her bones, not country.
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Conan The Westy 
"Father, Faithful Friend, Fwiffer"
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Posted - 08/31/2009 : 11:49:06
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| What he said... |
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[matt] 
"Cinemattic."
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Posted - 08/31/2009 : 12:35:41
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Thanks for the review Mister, very good read.  As if I needed any more of a reason, I now know for sure never to waste any of my life watching that garbage!
Oh, and I just accidentally clicked on the link to the "Hoedown Throwdown"...  I can only hope that the people responsible for this will be hung by their own intestines for crimes against music.
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ChocolateLady
"500 Chocolate Delights"
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Posted - 09/01/2009 : 07:56:53
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quote:
Originally posted by [matt]
Oh, and I just accidentally clicked on the link to the "Hoedown Throwdown"... I can only hope that the people responsible for this will be hung by their own intestines for crimes against music.
Well, that put me off my food for the next week, at least! Totally disgusting!
(Good for my diet, however!)
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ChocolateLady
"500 Chocolate Delights"
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Posted - 09/01/2009 : 08:02:27
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quote:
Positivity aside, the message is clear: We have no use for your pathetic stab at controlling your own life, you stupid teenage girl! Get in your cage and dance, monkey!
Bwahaha! |
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Whippersnapper. 
"A fourword thinking guy."
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Posted - 09/01/2009 : 14:15:18
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Thanks for the review MBI. Almost certainly better than the film and took up a lot less than 2 hours of my time. Probably made on a lower budget too I imagine. Better all round.  |
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Sean
"Necrosphenisciform anthropophagist."
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Posted - 09/01/2009 : 23:33:43
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| Thanks for the review, MBI. I'd always avoided anything Miley like the plague, but from now on I'll.... avoid anything Miley like the plague. |
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Sean
"Necrosphenisciform anthropophagist."
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Posted - 09/01/2009 : 23:38:17
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quote:
Originally posted by MisterBadIdea
for the love of God, do not click this link).
Oh no, I clicked that link! I had to go cleanse my ears and soul with some real music. I feel better now. 
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Chris C 
"Four words, never backwards."
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Posted - 09/02/2009 : 00:26:38
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quote:
Originally posted by Se�n
Oh no, I clicked that link! I had to go cleanse my ears and soul with some real music. I feel better now.
Not my thing, but infinitely better than the Hoedown Throwup. |
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[matt]
"Cinemattic."
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Posted - 09/02/2009 : 08:56:52
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Anyone else who needs to cleanse their ears after that monstrosity could always have a listen to these incredibly talented guys.
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[matt]
"Cinemattic."
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Posted - 09/02/2009 : 08:58:50
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quote:
Originally posted by ChocolateLady
quote:
Originally posted by [matt]
Oh, and I just accidentally clicked on the link to the "Hoedown Throwdown"... I can only hope that the people responsible for this will be hung by their own intestines for crimes against music.
Well, that put me off my food for the next week, at least! Totally disgusting!
(Good for my diet, however!)
Haha sorry CL 
Hope you can still choke down some chocolate to keep yourself going. |
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ChocolateLady
"500 Chocolate Delights"
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Posted - 09/02/2009 : 12:01:40
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quote:
Originally posted by [matt]
quote:
Originally posted by ChocolateLady
quote:
Originally posted by [matt]
Oh, and I just accidentally clicked on the link to the "Hoedown Throwdown"... I can only hope that the people responsible for this will be hung by their own intestines for crimes against music.
Well, that put me off my food for the next week, at least! Totally disgusting!
(Good for my diet, however!)
Haha sorry CL
Hope you can still choke down some chocolate to keep yourself going.
I think that's the only thing that will take the bad taste out of my mouth after watching that. |
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randall 
"I like to watch."
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Posted - 09/03/2009 : 01:13:15
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| Haven't yet read your 2500-wordie, but now you've kinda dared me to see this bit of tripe. Wonder if I will take you up on it? |
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Sean
"Necrosphenisciform anthropophagist."
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Posted - 09/03/2009 : 02:31:47
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I think I'd rather watch Joe's "50 Chilling Classics" - all of them - than watch this.  |
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MguyXXV
"X marks the spot"
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Posted - 09/03/2009 : 04:13:02
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I saw no hoes in the Hoedown Throwdown. I was definitely down with seeing some hoes throw down, so I'm a little disappointed.
The music is actually pretty good, with the banjo sounding somewhat reminiscent of a sitar. It's the lyrics and images that are guilty of rape.
I endure this stuff -- I have a 12 year-old daughter -- so I try not to disparage Miley in front of her. After all, my parents thought The Monkees were ridiculous, but that only helped to alienate them from me back when I was 10.
Mr.B has captured my adult angst appropriately. I don't enjoy this stuff; but I endure it.
quote:
Originally posted by Se�n
I had to go cleanse my ears and soul with some real music. I feel better now.
Now there's some great elevator music. I'd love to hear Neil Diamond cover that tune. |
Edited by - MguyXXV on 09/03/2009 06:39:48 |
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Sean
"Necrosphenisciform anthropophagist."
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Hannah Montana: The Movie
