Camp Rock Review Pt. 2

Okay, I bet some of you are wondering why there's a part two. Well, I feel a bit like I "sugar-coated" the first review I made because, frankly, I didn't feel like getting bombarded with comments from tweens defending their beloved JoBros. I know what it's like to be young and able to get easily carried away with these things. They make it sound like it's so much fun and it's the bestest thing ever in the whole entire world, but in reality it's really not. Not to sound like an old fart, but sometimes it really is best not to follow the crowd; mainstream isn't always a good thing. Instead of thinking for yourself, you end up allowing other people to give you your opinions without even your realizing it. It's very easy to get sucked into this. Don't make yourself vulnerable to being "fed" and "brainwashed." So yes, that's my mini-soapbox for the day.

I stumbled upon this review on IMDb that I thought was really well-put. I think it explains it better than I could, so here it is:

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"Disney Channel Movies no longer what they used to be"

I have always been a fan of Disney Original Movies. They don't try to be more than what they are, and get the most out of the obviously limited budget they have. Disney had a great run of Original Movies in the late 90s/early 2000s, but ever since Disney caught lightning in a bottle with High School Musical in 2006, the production brand has been on a decline.

High School Musical was the pinnacle of what Disney Original Movies were. Low budget but good film, believable characters, and plot that fits the movie. What kept High School Musical's integrity in check was the fact that none of the movie's stars were household names yet. They may have been known, but no where near mainstream. High School Musical is what made the stars of the movie into household names and into the mainstream.

Disney was obviously so blindsighted by the success of High School Musical that they have tried to recapture that success with High School Musical 2 and Camp Rock.

HSM2 was the DEFINITION of sellout. Not only did Disney basically recycle the plot of HSM, but the entire movie was fanservice. Fanservice to appeal to the preteen/teenage girl demographic who spends hours a day online looking up the latest news on "Zashley" or "Zanessa" or whatever you call it. Disney knew its High School Musical fanbase wanted to see more of Zac Efron/Vanessa Hudgens romance on screen, as well as Zac Efron and Ashley Tisdale romance. The producers sold out their artistic integrity for the sake of appealing to the fanbase. High School Musical 2 of course was a success and "THE BEST MOVIE EVER!" for the fanbase, because it was fanservice. But as a neutral observer, HSM2 was terrible. Like I pointed out before, they took no risks at all.

Unfortunately, Camp Rock suffers the same fate. After seeing the movie last night, I was disappointed. Once again, Disney sells out to its fanbase.

The movie is basically High School Musical at a summer camp. It uses a similar plot line with the same "types" of characters. It's obvious that Disney was just trying to capture the HSM lightning in a bottle again with this movie.

Disney takes its hottest property this side of Hannah Montana with the Jonas Brothers and makes them the centerpiece of the movie. That automatically will draw in millions of teenage fans who adore the Jonas Brothers. Unfortunately, the Jonas Brothers do not perform their roles well at all. I really think that this movie could have been far better if they replaced the Jonas Brothers with lesser known actors. This way the screenwriters may not have sold out with their scenes that involve the Jonas Brothers. The Jonas Brothers roles are exactly what the fans want. Love, singing, and romance.

At least Disney channel saved some of its dignity by casting Demi Lovato for the role of Mitchy. Disney could have easily slotted someone like Miley Cyrus or another bigger teenage star in her role, but didn't. Like I said, a key to High School Musical's success was using lesser known actors in their roles, and I think using Demi Lovato was the main character in this film helped save it from total disaster. She did her role well, and could have been much more if the Jonas Brothers were replaced with lesser known actors to give the film some genuinity.

Other supporting/minor roles are filled with lesser known Disney Stars.

The movie's plot is basically High School Musical at a summer camp, like I stated before. I don't want to spoil anything, so I won't go into detail, but there are too many cheesy/unnecessary scenes in the film, obviously for fanservice.

The songs and choreography are very stale. No memorable songs, and all of them are rather generic and similar to each other. I would say the songs are worse than both High School Musical movies, but maybe because they are too similar to the High School Musical songs rather than being creative. The choreography is also boring. Can't we get creative like "Stick to the Status Quo" was in High School Musical, or do we have to be treated to the same generic "triangle formation" choreography that has plagued High School Musical 2, and now, Camp Rock?

In conclusion, I think that the film could have been much better without the Jonas Brothers. They are not fit for the roles, and were put in there to gain viewer interest. The movie would not have suffered with out them, and actually would have improved.

By no means am I telling fans of the Jonas Brothers or Disney to not watch this movie. If you liked High School Musical/High School Musical 2 and love the Jonas Brothers, you will love this movie. You will love Demi Lovato. I fully expect dozens of "Jonato" watch blogs(for those who will inevitably wish for Demi Lovato and a Jonas Brother hook up after seeing this film) to sprout up by next week. She will be the next "big thing" for Disney. This movie is made just for people like that.

But for neutral observers, and people who are interested but not really fans of the Jonas Brothers/Disney Original Movies, or who don't really know what Disney Original Movies/Jonas Brothers are all about, avoid this movie. It's too generic, cheesy, and linear. If you hated High School Musical 2, you will hate this.

I love the Disney Channel, as a 21 year old Radio-TV-Film Major in College, I adore many Disney Movies and Programs. But not this. I actually think the word "Original" in "Disney Original Movie" should stand for something, not just the generic garbage they have pedaled out since High School Musical.

Was High School Musical the last great, full of integrity and dignity, non-sellout, non-fanservice Disney Original Movie that Disney made? I hope not.

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Camp Rock Review

Alright! So I watched it. Whyyy I did is just beyond me. But here's my review on it, so....

***SPOILER ALERT***

So I'm doing this review while it's still fairly fresh in my mind. There was seriously nothing else on tonight (that I wanted to watch, anyway) so I thought to myself, why the heck not?! I think it's pretty darn amusing that I ended up watching this with my family. It's hilarious how even my dad is getting annoyed by all the promos and how the JoBros and Miley Cyrus are constantly made such big deals. He kept going on and on about how annoying and fake Demi Lovato's smile is, and how slutty everyone looked (but he thinks that about ALL the Disney Channel girls). Really, I'm just glad that Slimey wasn't in it, since she just loooves to be in everything. I kept hoping she wouldn't have some random cameo or something.

In all honesty, it wasn't THAT bad. But it wasn't like, "OMG that was the bestest movie I've ever seen!!!" either. It was just so-so to me. I think that if it didn't get SOO MUCH hype and they didn't show the music videos and promos for it ALL THE TIME, I wouldn't have been so impartial to it early on. Well, those reasons as well as my impartialness to the JoBros. I still can't believe it got a 6.2 on IMDb, but actually right now when I checked on it, it went down to a 5.3!! WOW, big jump. I can accept that though. I didn't think it was better than HSM or HSM2 (which got a 5.5 and a 5.0, respectively), but I didn't think it was worse, either.

So with all that being said, first thing I have to say is how surprised I am that Nick and Kevin Jonas were hardly in the movie. Seriously, they were only in like 3 or 4 scenes. Not that I'm complaining that Joe got all the screen time, but yes, if I had to pick a favorite JoBro it would be him. By the way, Connect 3 is one of the most ridiculous band names everrr.

The music was actually okay. Again, if it didn't get so much hype and if I hadn't seen the "We Rock" video like fifty gazillion times, I probably would've thought differently. I actually liked "Gotta Find You" by Joe Jonas. The song that Jasmine Richards sings, "Here I Am", is also pretty good. Same with "This Is Me" by Demi Lovato. The supposed hip-hop and reggae songs weren't that spectacular to me, but then again I'm used to listening to a bit harder core hip-hop/rap. I really wish Ana Maria Perez de Tagle had a solo, she also has an AMAZING voice (her being in one of the hip-hop songs doesn't really count). Speaking of Ana Maria, she pretty much played the same character as she did in Hannah Montana, only a bit less dumber/ditzier. I don't know if I really like Meaghan Jette Martin's acting. She seemed like she was trying too hard to play the bad girl, so it came off as forced and fake to me. I also wish we saw more of Alyson Stoner performing. She only had like one solo moment and even that was cut short thanks to Tess (Meaghan Jette Martin).

As for the "romance" between Shane (Joe Jonas) and Mitchie (Demi Lovato), I think it could've been developed more. It's like they just started hanging out a bit out of the blue. Well, after they randomly run into each other, which resulted in them randomly running into each other a second time. Don't get me wrong, it was kinda cute and sweet at some points. I'm still a bit bummed that they never kissed. This is JUST like it was at the end of HSM. Urgh! Please don't tell me they plan on making a Camp Rock 2 and then have us wait until the very, very, VERY end for them to kiss?! Oy vey, that was frustrating.

There're just a few things that puzzle me. When I looked up the soundtrack on Amazon, I noticed that Jasmine Richards isn't listed as the singer for "Here I Am", but it's someone else named Renee Sandstrom. WHAA?? And I also don't get why she didn't use her character's name, Peggy, and instead went by a different name before she was introduced on stage. There are a few more things I'm a bit confused about... well, just things that I thought were going to happen differently based on subtle hints dropped but didn't exactly happen that way. But that's just me, so don't mind me and my natural state of confusion. Speaking of confusion, am I the only one who TOTALLY missed the character intros?? Seriously, besides Shane, Mitchie, Caitlyn, and Tess, I had NO idea what the names of the other cast members were.

So in case y'all weren't aware, Camp Rock is taking up the ENTIRE weekend, all up until Monday. On Sunday, it's premiering on ABC Family as well, and it's "the first Disney Channel original movie to have access rights to other cable networks of the Disney company from ABC to ABC Family in airing the film's screen debut." That's straight from IMDb, by the way. And yes, it'll be on ABC, ABC Family, Disney Channel, as well as Disney.com. That's FOUR different places, y'all!! Besides its world premiere, JoBros is also premiering their new music video for "Burnin' Up", which features Selena Gomez as Nick's girl (*points and laughs at Slimey*). And if you watch the premiere on ABC Family, you'll get to see a premiere of a new episode of Jonas Brothers: Living The Dream. And as if that wasn't enough, they also finally showed a more detailed promo for The Cheetah Girls 3 (it sounds like the other songs besides "One World" are better, at least just based on the teensy clip I heard). It's premiere-overload, I tell ya!

Okay, I think I'll stop there. Please feel free to share your thoughts on the movie! These are just my honest opinions, so please no bashing of mine and I won't bash yours. ;)

Fairly Pointless Disney Channel Update

Yes, as the title implies, this is a fairly pointless Disney Channel update, indeed. Great way to start the month of June, yea? ^_- But really, though. I'd rather make a post like this than a post solely devoted to Camp Rock (at least not yet, anyway). Now, onto the random fairly pointless Disney Channel updates! :)


1) Totally Rockin' Summer Movies

Yes, yes, y'all! All summer long, every day at noon, Disney Channel's showing all your favorite movies all summer long!! Wow, that was seriously like verbatim from the promo. I'm starting to scare myself.

So here are the movies shown in the promo. No idea what particular days they'll be shown, though.

Monsters, Inc.
The Wild
The Incredibles
Nanny McPhee
Minutemen
Herbie Fully Loaded
The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement
Finding Nemo
Jump In!
Dr. Dolittle 3
The Cheetah Girls 2
Charlie & the Chocolate Factory
Johnny Kapahala: Back On Board
Chicken Little
Twitches Too
Wendy Wu: Homecoming Warrior
Cadet Kelly

...Plus a few more that, in my opinion, will most likely premiere sometime too. Some of them have already been on in the past few weeks, and I'm betting they'll be on again soon.

Holes
Freaky Friday
Read It & Weep
Cow Belles
Get A Clue
Pixel Perfect
The Even Stevens Movie
Spy Kids 1, 2, & 3
The Princess Diaries
High School Musical 1 & 2
The Cheetah Girls
The Lizzie McGuire Movie
Model Behavior
My Date With the President's Daughter
Twitches

Double Teamed

I would SO tag all of those movies but apparently there's a limit to the labels on here. *pouts*


2) Minutemen on DVD

Yup, Minutemen is now available on DVD, wootwoot! Its bonus features contain a never-before-seen extended ending, a behind-the-scenes look on the making of Minutemen, and Corbin Bleu's "Run It Back Again" music video.

A bit off topic but still pretty relevant: Every time I see the promo for this, as well as every other movie soon to be out on DVD or theatres, I want to punch my TV. Not because of the movie in particular, but because I HATE "The Really Short Report." It is THE corniest, dumbest, most annoying crap EVER. This is probably not very Disney-like, but I seriously have the urge to punch those kids. Am I the only one who feels this way? Honestly, I have never missed "Mike's Super Short Show" more than ever before. I never thought I'd say that in this lifetime. Sad, quite sad.


3) Hidden Talents

So ya'll know about the "Show Your Stuff" dealio, right? Where kids show their "cool" stuff? Holy crap, again with the verbatim. I need help. Well, you name it: from bugs, to coins, Pez dispensers, stuffed cows, toy cars, the list goes on.

Now Disney Channel has a new and similar dealio called "Hidden Talents." It shows a random kid doing three different talents and it makes you guess which talent is the correct one; actually, you have to pick a door, to be exact. When the correct talent is revealed, they give a short preview of the kid doing their special thang while their family is shown as an audience, all grinning and proud.

Yet another amusing thing for me to point and laugh at. ....Kidding! Sort of.


4) Disney Channel Games

They've been pimping this a lot lately, I've noticed. According to Mikey from Disney 365 (can't quite decide if this guy is metro or what), everyone sounds pumped for the games!! GAHH when am I going to stop with the verbatim-ness?! This proves to ya'll how much I watch the Disney Channel.

Maybe it's just me who's confused about this, but why don't they ever show the actual games on the Disney Channel?? I've only ever seen bits and pieces at various times, like who's all on what team, which team is leading, which team won whatever, which team ended up winning the entire thing, etc. I think it'd be totally interesting to actually watch the games in its entirety. This is a super odd suggestion coming from me, since I'm the most anti-sports person ever. But I'm totally for it, really.

NOTE: Make sure to check out Atoosa's post before this. It has TONSSS of awesome videos on the stars and the Disney Channel Games!


5) Miscellaneous

I am NOT pimping Camp Rock yet. For all you die-hard JoBros and Demi Lovato fans, y'all will just have to wait another week. But yes, as predicted, Disney Channel is pimping Camp Rock more and more each week.. day, even.

[EDIT]: Y'all know Camp Rock is premiering on June 20. I just found out today that Camp Rock is also premiering on ABCFamily on June 22. Like, seriously, WHAT?! Is ABCFam now merged with Disney Channel or something?? I've seen promos of Disney movies from ABCFam shown on the Disney Channel a couple of times, so it makes me wonder a bit.

Hmm, what other pimpage has been out there. Ah, yes. DisneyMania, Vol. 6 is out! That's being pimped quite a bit lately, as well. In particular, interviews with Demi Lovato (and Mikey asking her to sing), how Demi and Selena feel about being on the same CD together for the first time (dang those two are joined at the hip like whoaa), Mitchel Musso and Emily Osment talk about their duet (aww!), and Jordan Pruitt wanting to meet the other half of the Disney stars. Yea, ok.

[EDIT]: I just now saw Mitchel and Emily's duet of "If I Didn't Have You." OMG SQUEALS!!!! How freakin' ADORABLE are they?!?! I am so totally a Mitchel/Emily shipper, on aaand off screen (just like another fave couple of mine *coughHHRcough* LOL). I heart Mitchel, that boy's swag is RIDICULOUS.

Let's not forget: The Cheetah Girls 3 is still being pimped, too, every now and then. We're told to watch out for "Dance Me If You Can", because it's like supposedly the best and most dynamic dance number out of the whole movie. Alright, that was *almost* verbatim.

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I'm probably forgetting something, but I'll stop there for now. This has pretty much gone long enough, considering it's supposed to be such a fairly pointless Disney Channel update. What can I say, I'm incapable of composing short anything.

Tall, Dark, & Handsome

Ahhh these intercession classes are EXHAUSTING. I had this all written out and saved but ended up catching up on sleep for the most part of the weekend. Nice. Anyway, thanks SO MUCH for the sweet intro, Atoosa!! *big hugs* ^_^

So besides the upcoming CG3, what ELSE has been happening lately on the Disney Channel?!


1) LOTS and LOTS and LOTSSS of hype on Camp Rock

Promos Promos Promos!! It's all about the promos. And the music videos, of course. The music video for "We Rock" is constantly played during commercials. CONSTANTLY. As well as the new JoBros music video from the movie, "Play My Music." I honestly don't think they show any other music videos anymore nowadays. A couple months ago they showed Raven's "Double Dutch Bus" and JoBros' "When You Look Me In The Eyes" quite a bit, but I haven't seen those in a while.

Oh, and let's not forget the DisneyChannel.com pimping of Camp Rock!! (*points above*) Lots of fun stuff to do on there, apparently.

So don't forget, people.... JUNE 20!!! One more month away! And in case you do forget, there's a huge countdown thingy on the Camp Rock channel online. No, not kidding.



2) Prince Caspian-ness

I know Atoosa already reviewed this below (sounds great! I can't wait to see it! ^_^), but Disney IS still showing tons of Prince Caspian.

So yes, indeed. Much hype for the hunky Ben Barnes. And who's complaining?! Certainly not I. All together now, yall: *DROOL*

There's been a LOT of behind-the-scenes stuff, where they teach us how to become a Steady-Cam Operator and how to make fictional animals from scratch, yo. We chat with the stars, and I surprisingly find out that Ben doesn't use his natural British accent in the movie. Um, why?? Well, I personally like both accents. (Atoosa said it was Spanish, THANK YOUU. For the life of me I couldn't place what kind of freakin' accent that was, LOL.) By the way, anyone else notice he has a butt-chin?! Kinda cute after a while. Wow, this is getting random.

So from what I've been reading on message boards, many are raging over the romance between Caspian and Susan. I've never read the books (and hard to believe, but I haven't gotten a chance to even see the first movie yet), but all I can say is... that kiss looks HOT. And from the trailer, it looks like Susan makes the first move. You go girl!!

Last piece of randomness, I swear: I just want to say, I am SO glad that Asian girl on the Movie Surfers finally dyed her hair one color and FINALLY got rid of those hideous red ends. Nothing against highlights. But I was definitely not feelin' THOSE kinds of highlights.


3) David Henrie grows out his hair

Oh, David, whyyy?? You were so much cuter with short hair. *pouts* Well, keep an eye out for him on the slopes with some Disney interviewer named, Chucky, playing the new HSM2 and Cory In The House games on Nintendo DS, and you'll see what I'm talking about. Or you can just check this out (though his hair looks a bit longer in that promo I mentioned). By the way, anyone else think this looks MIGHTY cozy? ;)





Maybe it's just me, but I prefer short hair on guys. Take exhibit A....



How freakin' PIMP is that jacket?! Gawd, I miss Ricky. SO MUCH.


Moving on to.... Exhibit B:




Okay, I won't lie: I like Ben with long hair too. But seriously, this new trend nowadays where ALL the guys grow out their hairs and have it all over their faces is just NOT attractive to me. I think it definitely suits some guys, like Jason Dolley and Mitchel Musso.

Wow, I really randomed this post out the wazoo.