With bated breath Jamie and Patrick slowly turn to page 473 in the book. This could be the key to confronting their cyborg doppelgangers and saving Rich and Poe. They lean in close to read the all important words: “Fuck you, dweebs.” Gah! The only words on the page and they leave them just where they started. “I don’t get it,” Jamie says slowly, “what’s so important about calling us a couple of dweebs? Cause we aren’t… we aren’t dweebs.” Patrick assures him they aren’t and looks past page 473 for any clue. The half-cyborg terminator has finished bible class for the day and is walking with Mary out of the church.
“Oh, Cyborg, you’re so handsome and cool,” sighs Mary, “We just need to find you a nice lady to keep your mind off all those dweebs that need crushing.” The half-cyborg shakes his head, embarrassed. No woman would like a ¾ man like him… could she? He dares to dream. He imagines meeting a sweet gal who shares many of his passions. They crush dweebs together, but also crush cans of Diet Crush during their down time. She would be a rising star at the salt mines while he wrangled bounties in the Pit Station of Zaal. They would raise a couple of ⅜ boys and… sigh… but no. “Beep boop clothes,” he says sadly motioning towards his ratty battle armor. Mary laughs, “You know what? I’ll set up a hot date with Rachel down at the Pretzel Stand and then I’ll help you improve your style. And you know what that means.” Cyborg smiles, “beep boop shopping.”
Shopping? What does that help? “That’s funny,” says Jamie, “I used to know a Rachel down at the Pretzel Stand.” Suddenly Patrick knows exactly what to do. That’s right! We’re watching Confessions of a Shopaholic. You may be wondering why we are doing that. Well, against all odds it was the only BMT qualifying film we could find to connect back to The Skulls in the Chain Reaction. So congrats. Let’s get shopping. Let’s go!
Confessions of a Shopaholic (2009) – BMeTric: 36.2; Notability: 56
StreetCreditReport.com – BMeTric: top 29.6%; Notability: top 12.0%; Rotten Tomatoes: top 22.2% Higher BMeT: Dragonball Evolution, Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, The Twilight Saga: New Moon, Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel, S. Darko, Stan Helsing, Dance Flick, Year One, The Unborn, All About Steve, Halloween II, Bitch Slap, Paul Blart: Mall Cop, Obsessed, The Final Destination, Madea Goes to Jail, G-Force, Survival of the Dead, Sorority Row, Miss March, and 27 more; Higher Notability: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, 2012, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Angels & Demons, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, Fast & Furious, The Lovely Bones, Terminator Salvation, Nine, Halloween II, Surrogates, G-Force, The Twilight Saga: New Moon, Land of the Lost; Lower RT: Old Dogs, Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, Miss March, All About Steve, Whiteout, Beyond a Reasonable Doubt, Echelon Conspiracy, Post Grad, Driving Aphrodite, Malice in Wonderland, The Unborn, Couples Retreat, Bride Wars, The Stepfather, The Pink Panther 2, S. Darko, I Love You, Beth Cooper, The Ugly Truth, Stan Helsing, Year One and 27 more; Notes: That notability is amazingly high. I guess that is what happens when you create a film chock-a-block with high fashion product placement? An IMDb of 5.9 is basically exactly what I would have expected of this.
RogerEbert.com – 2.5 stars – Look. “Confessions of a Shopaholic” is no masterpiece. But it’s funny, Isla Fisher is a joy, and — of supreme importance — it is more entertaining to a viewer with absolutely no eagerness to see it (like me) than “Sex and the City” was. Also, no movie can be all bad where the heroine attends a Shopaholics Anonymous meeting and meets a former Chicago Bulls star.
(Spoilees. We are on an interesting streak of films here. 3.0, 2.0, 2.5 stars by Ebert in the last three. This is the second one he seemed to genuinely enjoy. He seemed lukewarm on Message in a Bottle, but he liked The Rite and this it seemed. Nice to hear Isla Fisher was good in it though.)
Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npFBRp716Qw/
(Her fashion is so in your face and crazy. Not at all what is in fashion now. Seems like an easy breezy comedy … so basically it is going to turn out that it is aggressively not-funny right? The only possibility sadly.)
Directors – P.J. Hogan – (Known For: Peter Pan; My Best Friend’s Wedding; Muriel’s Wedding; Unconditional Love; Mental; The Humpty Dumpty Man; BMT: Confessions of a Shopaholic; Notes: Australian. Was nominated for a BAFTA for Muriel’s Wedding which he also wrote.)
Writers – Tracey Jackson (screenplay) – (Known For: The Guru; The Other End of the Line; BMT: Confessions of a Shopaholic; Notes: Created the series Babes for Fox in 1990 which is kind of wild. Seems to have made multiple Bollywood inspired films in the 00s.)
Tim Firth (screenplay) – (Known For: Kinky Boots; Calendar Girls; Blackball; The Wedding Video; BMT: Confessions of a Shopaholic; Notes: Pretty big name in British theatre, he won an Olivier award in 2003 and has made a few productions which have been nominated as well. Kinky Boots itself became a huge British musical.)
Kayla Alpert (screenplay) – (BMT: Confessions of a Shopaholic; Notes: Mostly a producer, producing Ally McBeal and LAX among other shows. A good number of television writing credits as well.)
Sophie Kinsella (books) – (Known For: Can You Keep a Secret?; BMT: Confessions of a Shopaholic; Notes: Her sister is also a novelist. Both credits are for adaptations of her books.)
Actors – Isla Fisher – (Known For: Blithe Spirit; Tag; The Great Gatsby; Nocturnal Animals; Now You See Me; Godmothered; Rango; Greed; Wedding Crashers; Rise of the Guardians; Horton Hears a Who!; The Beach Bum; Definitely, Maybe; I Heart Huckabees; London; Bachelorette; The Lookout; Life of Crime; Wedding Daze; Burke and Hare; Future BMT: Scooby-Doo; Grimsby; Hot Rod; BMT: Confessions of a Shopaholic; Keeping Up with the Joneses; Notes: Scottish, but born in Oman and raised in Australia, she considers herself Australian. Has been Married to Sasha Baron Cohen for ten years.)
Hugh Dancy – (Known For: Martha Marcy May Marlene; Black Hawk Down; Ella Enchanted; Our Idiot Brother; Late Night; Savage Grace; Hysteria; The Jane Austen Book Club; The Sleeping Dictionary; Adam; Shooting Dogs; Tempo; Future BMT: Blood & Chocolate; King Arthur; BMT: Basic Instinct 2; Legends of Oz: Dorothy’s Return; Confessions of a Shopaholic; Evening; Notes: British. For me at least he’s most famous for playing Will Graham in the Hannibal series which is quite good if a bit gross.)
Krysten Ritter – (Known For: El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie; 27 Dresses; She’s Out of My League; Big Eyes; Margaret; Search Party; Veronica Mars; The Hero; Vamps; Animal Attraction; Killing Bono; Listen Up Philip; L!fe Happens; How to Make Love to a Woman; Frost; Asthma; Refuge; Slingshot; Heavy Petting; Future BMT: Mona Lisa Smile; BMT: Confessions of a Shopaholic; Notes: The B in apartment 23 and Jessica Jones. She was also in Breaking Bad for a bit.)
Budget/Gross – $55 million / Domestic: $44,277,350 (Worldwide: $108,394,089)
(Not bad. I imagine they were, as usual, hoping for that unlikely $100 million hit. Didn’t get it, but I bet it came out even.)
Rotten Tomatoes – 26% (44/169): This middling romantic comedy underutilizes a talented cast and delivers muddled messages on materialism and conspicuous consumption.
(Uh oh. Middling. So unfunny and kind of boring. But maybe we’ll get some hilarious 2009-level “whoops, we made this gross materialistic film as the economy is falling apart, sorry” storylines going. Reviewer Highlight: Not only is it an unfunny movie shrilly told, it probably is the most ill-timed and appallingly insulting movie in recent memory. – Claudia Puig, USA Today)
Poster – Confessions of a Sklogaholic
(I like the artistic leap they took on this one, even if it doesn’t entirely work. I hate white space on posters, so I wish they could have avoided that, and the font on the bag is real boring. But gotta give credit when they take a risk. B.)
Tagline(s) – All she ever wanted was a little credit… (A-)
(I do like this. It’s clever in that special tagline type of way. The biggest problem with it is that the double meaning doesn’t totally work with the film itself. I wouldn’t describe her character as someone who doesn’t get the credit she deserves… but that’s besides the point really. It’s solid.)
Keyword – department store
Top 10: Wonder Woman (2017), Catch Me If You Can (2002), Prisoners (2013), Superbad (2007), Ocean’s Eight (2018), Baby Driver (2017), Love Actually (2003), Suicide Squad (2016), The Terminator (1984), The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Future BMT: 60.4 Maid in Manhattan (2002), 49.3 Mannequin: On the Move (1991), 46.1 Sleepover (2004), 44.7 Simply Irresistible (1999), 41.3 I Think I Love My Wife (2007), 38.2 Masterminds (2016), 35.6 Indecent Proposal (1993), 34.5 Suicide Squad (2016), 32.8 Mannequin (1987), 31.9 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze (1991);
BMT: Confessions of a Shopaholic (2009), Keeping Up with the Joneses (2016), Left Behind (2014), The Darkest Hour (2011), The Women (2008), Proud Mary (2018)
(Probably follows the growth-collapse of the department store through time. This film didn’t have very many good keywords in my opinion. Mannequin: On the Move is definitely the pinnacle of department store film.)
Welcome to Earf (HoE Number 16) – The shortest path through The Movie Database cast lists using only BMT films is: Kristin Scott Thomas is No. 7 billed in Confessions of a Shopaholic and No. 2 billed in Random Hearts, which also stars Harrison Ford (No. 1 billed) who is in Hollywood Homicide (No. 1 billed), which also stars Josh Hartnett (No. 2 billed) who is in Here on Earth (No. 3 billed) => 7 + 2 + 1 + 1 + 2 + 3 = 16. If we were to watch Toys, Jack, and The Glass House we can get the HoE Number down to 15.
Notes – At the end, Rebecca Bloomwood (Isla Fisher) pays off her entire debt in coins, saying that she was doing it in the most inconvenient way possible. In real life, Derek Smeath (Robert Stanton) could have refused to accept it. While coins are legal tender within the Federal Reserve System, no law requires a merchant or anyone else to accept them. However, if he had refused payment, the debt would legally be considered paid off. (So … he couldn’t have refused? If the debt is paid off if he refuses or not what is the point in refusing?)
The novel is set in London. The movie changed it to New York City to connect with an American audience. Following the success of Sex and the City (1998), New York City was seen as a selling point to female audiences.
Dame Kristin Scott Thomas revealed in 2014 that she didn’t like the experience of filming. “I thought it would be quite good fun. But I spent my entire time waiting. I hated it, hated it, hated it, and I said that I wouldn’t do another one. Funnily enough, I haven’t been asked to.” (I don’t know what this means … she didn’t direct it or anything. She’s been in plenty of films prior and since. Weird.)
Isla Fisher researched her role by visiting some overspend/under earner groups, people whose lives have essentially become unmanageable because of their compulsive shopping.
Isla Fisher wore five-inch stilettos during filming.
Isla Fisher is only fourteen years younger than Joan Cusack, who played her mother.
In the book Rebecca Bloomwood wishes she was ‘someone really cool like Kristen Scott Thomas’ who stars in the film. (Fun)
Bad Movie Twins 