When I lived in the great city of Dayton, OH, I had an amazing blog titled ‘Tea and Strumpets’ (or ‘The T&S for short). The name came from the Dumb and Dumber line where Lloyd says “If I know Mary like I think I do, she’ll invite us in for tea and strumpets.” My writing was slightly less frequent, but I think I wrote with less abandon.
Anyway, at one point, I did a running diary of the movie ‘From Justin to Kelly’ starring Kelly Clarkson and Justin Guarini. For those that may not be familiar, this is based off the success of American Idol Season 1 and is ranked as one of the worst movies of all time. It currently sits at #24 of IMDB’s worst movies of all time. This post originally ran on April 5, 2004 (a young 20 something Mark). Enjoy.
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Oh, Hey Teens, Mark Roehl here.
Oh Hey Teens, Mark Roehl here. Every once in a great while, an opportunity comes your way that is just too good to pass up. Earlier in the week, I was in Blockbuster video and lo and behold, staring me right in the face was the movie ‘From Justin to Kelly’. How could anyone pass this up? Movies this bad don’t come along too often. I felt it was my civic duty to rent the movie and keep a running diary on the website so everyone could experience the joy with me.
From Justin to Kelly to my DVD Player
So here I am, ready to do you a solid and play the role of the almighty wingman hooking up with the heavyset chick taking one for the team.
While reading this, there are six main characters in the movie, please take a moment to familiarize yourself with them as it’ll make it easier to follow:
Justin – Sideshow Bob from American Idol
Brandon – Justin’s ‘cool’ friend who gets all the chicks
Eddie – Justin’s dorky friend who is trying to rendezvous with a woman he met off the internet and is socially awkward
Girls Beware…. Dorks on the Prowl
Kelly – Kelly from American Idol
Alexa – Her hot blond friend
Kaya – The token minority?
The Girls
With those six characters, I know I’m in for a treat. Without any further ado, let’s get started.
3:19 p.m. – The DVD is inserted. I’m sitting in front of my computer so I can type and watch at the same time. The official T&S cat is sleeping in the corner. Once the DVD loads, I’m taken to a menu with a lot of dancing, but not nearly enough prancing. I click play with great fear as I have no idea what the next 82 minutes will contain.
3:23 p.m. – Movie begins with Kelly singing in a bar with one passed with two people watching. One is passed out and the other is her friend Luke who is overly excited about her performance. In my mind, I’m wondering why I can’t be as lucky as the person passed out.
3:25 p.m. – Enter Alexa and Kaya. The plot is set as her two friends reveal that they lost out on a trip to Florida because the airline went out of business and they need Kelly to drive them to their destination. She agrees much to the T&S’s chagrin.
3:28 p.m. – Justin and his two friends enter the movie walking down the street in Florida talking about the opportunities they’ll have at Spring Break. It’s rare to see a movie with this much forced dialog so early in the movie, I don’t know if I’m lucky for witnessing this or not? Justin almost appears normal in front of the horrible supporting cast.
3:31 p.m. – Whoa, spontaneous singing just erupted once the three males made it to the beach. I’ve heard of curveballs, but this is something I’ve never seen before. Everyone is singing and there is a lot of touching. Take note, before I die, one of my life’s goals is to be somewhere where spontaneous singing and dancing breaks out. Back to the movie, I think this film had budget problems because the extras are very fat and ugly. I’ve heard of living large, but this is ridiculous. I think I just saw Rosie as one of the dancers…. Bad times….
Random Dancing and Singing
3:34 p.m. – The singing is finally done and everyone casually goes back to their business. In another incredible twist, Justin and his friend Brandon unexpectedly start freestyle rapping about how to pick up chicks. Justin and his friend Brandon are tutoring their other friend Eddie on how to be a “chick seeking missile.” The rapping ends by Brandon dropping trou on the beach. Only one word could possibly describe what I just saw… Wow.
3:39 p.m. – Next up on the most shocking movie ever… Freestyle tap dancing, this movie has everything. After making eye contact on the beach for a brief second, Kelly and Justin both feel the spark and know they were meant to be together. I have a feeling that the rest of the movie will revolve around Kelly and Justin trying to get together. I’m happy to see that Kelly lost a little weight. She doesn’t have the big linebacker arms anymore. So far that’s the only plus.
3:42 p.m. – This just in, apparently Justin and his friends are in Florida as famous party promoters that all the chicks salivate over. The first party is a whipped cream bikini contest. This movie would be a lot better if it had some gratuitous nudity, I’m sure that’s too much to ask from the people who brought us American Idol.
3:48 p.m. – Another plot twist (I’m sensing a theme), Kelly’s friend Alexa becomes interested in Justin and is trying to sabotage them getting together.
3:53 p.m. – In other news, Kaya, the token minority, has fallen for a local busboy/dishwasher (Carlos the busboy) who takes her on a date salsa dancing. Despite not knowing how to salsa dance, she picks it up no problem and suddenly breaks out in song. I’m not sure how this relates to the movie….but yet here we are.
3:56 p.m. – The whipped cream bikini contest is about to begin…. The anticipation in the Roehl household is mounting…. Then they ruined it and entered Kelly into the competition. Bad times for sure. Kelly is insulted and throws whipped cream in Justin’s face, it’s PANDEMONIUM, whipped cream is flying everywhere, and not in the good way that you see on Pay Per View.
3:59 p.m. – In another awkward scene, Justin finds Kelly at the burger stand and proceeds to accidentally spill hot sauce on her, then ask her out on a date. I’m not sure what just happened but they now have a date at the marina. I think that is the strategy Ted Bundy used to use to get innocent girls to date him, have them go on a romantic “boat ride.” Singing promptly breaks out. Is it too early in the movie to hang myself? I don’t possibly think this could get any worse. Even Ladybird the official T&S cat can’t take anymore and has left the room. Justin and Kelly then meet at the marina and go for a boat ride.
4:04 p.m. – The boat scene has just ended… thank god. I need a beer.
4:05 p.m. – Mmmmmm Coors Light.
4:08 p.m. – Justin’s geek friend Eddie is set to meet the girl he met online, but decides he needs a suntan before he can go. I wonder how this will end. Gee… maybe he’ll get so sunburned that she won’t be able to recognize him.
4:09 p.m. – Wow, he got really sunburned, I’m glad no-one saw that coming. Who wrote this movie? Can’t we ban them from writing another one? Dude Where’s My Car had a better plot than this.
4:10 p.m. – Kelly’s friend Alexa has set up a meeting with Justin behind Kelly’s back. More singing breaks out with scary dancing and way too many guys. Alexa is kind of hot… she has the southern chick with the big books thing going for her, let’s hope she starts doing coke and ends up in some porn movies. We’ll call this the Olsen Twins wish.
4:16 p.m. – After getting no where with Justin at their meeting, Alexa calls Kelly’s friend Luke from back home to come down and sabotage Kelly’s relationship with Justin. Both Kelly and Justin believe they were stood up by the other. More singing and bad dancing ensues. I long for the days of dancing like in the Paula Abdul video Cold Hearted Snake. Has there ever been a video that confirmed the sexual orientation of an entire generation like that video. That was back when Paula Abdul was hot instead of the dense windbag that she is now.
4:21 p.m. – Kelly’s friend Luke arrives and promptly kisses Kelly in front of everyone. An argument ensues after Justin jumps in and he and Luke go toe to toe. Okay, where I come from, there are a few ways to settle disputes over women. The most common way is fighting. Apparently, the writers thought that they should solve this dispute by a different method….hovercraft races. That’s right teens, hovercraft. It better news, the dork who got incredibly sunburned the night before has returned to being pale. This leads me to a couple of questions, where did the hovercrafts come from? Is it standard to settle disputes using hovercrafts? Where did Dude’s sunburn go? Why am I still watching this movie?
I’m Gonna Kick Your Butt…. In Hoverracing….
4:23 p.m. – Carnage on the beach as a hover boat collision knocks out Kelly’s friend Luke. Tough love. At this point, some blood may spice the movie up a bit.
4:25 p.m. – Only 20 minutes to go. That’s the best part of this movie so far.
4:27 p.m. – Alexa makes a move on Justin and kisses him as Kelly watches from afar. I want a catfight. I’ve watched this movie for over an hour. Nothing has happened. Why is it too much to ask for a catfight, preferably in bikini’s…?
4:32 p.m. – Eddie’s sunburn is mysteriously back.
4:33 p.m. – Justin confronts Kelly and tells her that Alexa came on to HIM. The dialog in this movie is what sets it apart from others. Kelly finds Alexa’s phone and sees the text messages that Justin has been leaving that were meant for Kelly. I’m hoping for a nice bout of hair pulling mud wrestling to get to the bottom of this. Doesn’t happen.
4:36 p.m. – More singing, this time it’s Kelly in a purple leotard. In a way, she looks like a cross between the Grape Ape and Grimace. Tell me there isn’t a more underrated character than Grimace. Yeah, this movie is so bad, I’ve managed to think about Grimace.
Look at that purple… is that Grimace?… No it’s just Kelly
4:39 p.m. – Justin skips his flight home for one last chance with Kelly. The singing continues with a Duet. I think my ears are bleeding. They finally kiss below a big fountain in downtown Miami. Apparently the budget was blown so there are no fireworks.
4:40 p.m. – Eddie’s sunburn is gone again. He finds his internet romance. This movie still isn’t over yet.
4:43 p.m. – Finally the much needed prancing. A “That’s the Way I like It” medley. You can listen by going to the official From Justin to Kelly website. Only a few more minutes. I can do this… I can do this… Kelly looks like she was dressed by a blind homeless person. More fat extras appear to join the dancing.
Nice Wardrobe!!
4:45 p.m. – More rapping breaks out as the medley continues, Kelly plays air guitar, and everyone is all smiles as they dance into the ending credits…. I need to go wash out my eyes…
Eighty two minutes of sheer horror finally come to an end… roll the ending credits. After watching this, I feel as if I deserve some kind of congressional medal for sitting through this and the director needs to be locked up for life so they can’t unleash this kind of horror on humanity again in the future. That’s all for now, check back later for the T&S’s running diary of Gigli….
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If you have any thoughts on the running diary or want to comment about how much worse my writing has gotten over time, please feel free to drop a comment in the box below!
It Takes All Kinds... A Blog by Mark 