Poor Mimi

[zeyguy]

Her character really gets screwed over in this movie. Mimi's storyline was gradually usurped by the other two girls. Which is odd, because in the "instigating incident", it is Mimi that persuades the others to dig up the box. It is Mimi that brings the three back together again. And it is Mimi that wants to go to L.A. to become a singer. The initial bout of stage fright during the karaoke would indicate that plot element is Mimi's dramatic conflict, her particular hurdle to overcome, but we never get that moment. After that scene, her character seems to forget all about her singing ambitions and has no problems singing backup to Lucy. She never even gets to have that dramatic moment when her character realizes that her dreams of being a singer will never come true. And in the scene where she encounters the guy who raped her, Mimi slinks into the background and it his Kit who gets to deliver the come-uppance. So Mimi gets denied another big dramatic moment by not having her confront the guy herself.

So either Taryn Manning is just a weak actress and the producers didn't want to accentuate that by putting her in scenes whe was incapable of handling, or far more likely, they didn't want the other actresses to have "big moments" that would allow them to upstage Britney Spears and further augment Brit's weak acting. Which is probably why we do not get the scene where the long lost mother (played by Kim Catrall) tells her she never wanted her. They knew Britney was incapable of acting in such a dramatic confrontation, so they skip that revelation and cut to the aftermath when the waterworks are already in full force. This pretty much sums up the film. Britney in a lightweight drama with the other girls who are treated more as accessories rather than fully realized characters. And the flimsiest excuses to have her character sing without making the movie into a full-blown musical.

[sarcasm_made_Easy]

your missing a far more obvious reason she is in the background.  it has something to do with the fact that pregnant women arent attractive. 

[zeyguy]

your missing a far more obvious reason she is in the background.  it has something to do with the fact that pregnant women arent attractive. 

ooooookay

** backs slowly out of thread **

[sarcasm_made_Easy]

im serious, i think the director made the less pretty one in the background, despite the fact that you are totally accurate and she is the most interesting charectar. 

[Minnesota]

sarcasm that was a riffworthy comment man, it was unexpected and gave me a good laugh kudos. As for Zguys original post about the Mimi chick, I never really thought about that much in depth and you seem to have thought this through to its logical conclusion so I'm inclined to agree with you, this was Brit's movie and the other actors /actress' weren't allowed to upstage her.

[AmandaGal]

Are we really analyzing CROSSROADS to find deep significance and meaning?

Good lord, Mike Nelson what have you done?!

[Bob]

Are we really analyzing CROSSROADS to find deep significance and meaning?

Good lord, Mike Nelson what have you done?!

You know, I was thinking the same thing myself.

Of course, I have had many a sleepless night wondering the fate of the "pop corn" boy in Troll2.   I mean, that loose end is just picking at my brain.

[sarcasm_made_Easy]

so no one seriously thinks that beauty had ANYTHING to do with the situation? 

[zeyguy]

Are we really analyzing CROSSROADS to find deep significance and meaning?

Good lord, Mike Nelson what have you done?!

No, but we're analyzing, or at least I am, on why Crossroads was such a narrative failure. I've always been interested in picking apart such screenplays. You have screenplays like those found in Troll 2 which was written by somebody who obviously has no clue how real people talk. But then you have screenplays like Crossroads, which you can imagine having possibly been good at one point before studio interference came in and rewrote the whole thing to suit the star of the moment. (Especially since screenwriter Shonda Rimes went on to great success with Gray's Anatomy.) It happens all the time in Hollywood. But this was the most blatant example I've seen in some time.

I can hear Britney's agent picking up the screenplay and saying "this would be a good debut film for my client. But I'm not going to have her play the pregnant trailer girl even though she's the one with the 'wannabe singer' plotline. Britney should play the virginal valedictorian looking for long lost mommy. But she should also sing. So let's just have Mimi encounter stage fright before the first big number and Britney will be the singer from then on. Oh, and that scene where the virginal valedictorian finds her mother? Britney's limited acting talents can't handle such an emotional scene. So let's cut that and skip to directly to the 'valedictorian loses virginity to rocker loner character because Mommy didn't want her' scene."

And maybe I just misunderstood Sarcasm's sarcasm in his "pregnant women aren't attractive" post. That's the problem with the internet, you have so many people make claims like that in all seriousness, it's hard to tell who's joking and who isn't.

[zeyguy]

so no one seriously thinks that beauty had ANYTHING to do with the situation? 

No, because Zoe Saldana is hotter than Britney Spears in every conceivable way and she was pushed into the background right alongside Taryn Manning.

[sarcasm_made_Easy]

And maybe I just misunderstood Sarcasm's sarcasm in his "pregnant women aren't attractive" post. That's the problem with the internet, you have so many people make claims like that in all seriousness, it's hard to tell who's joking and who isn't

I never claim to be serious, even in this sentance i dont claim to be serious

so in all seriousness, You may think she is hotter but there are a few things to consider.  At the time of this movie britany had a lot of popularity and at least half of that WASNT from her singing,  as much as i didnt think she was hot others did, and the girl who was half pregnant in the film was made less attractive, and i think the already shallow preduction team decided that was more than enough of a reason to move her out of the way, plus since they expected a lot of chicks to see this movie they move mr stud muffin more into the foreground. 

[zeyguy]

Yeah, but even in the movie, Zoe was still hotter than Britney. But Britney was the star, and this was her vehicle. Only now Britney is well on her way to Anna Nicole Smith-ing herself and Zoe Saldana went on to do the first Pirates of the Carribean movie, a Spielberg movie (and I, for one, liked The Terminal), and will have a starring role in Avatar, the first James Cameron film in ten years.

[Bob]

Are we really analyzing CROSSROADS to find deep significance and meaning?

Good lord, Mike Nelson what have you done?!

No, but we're analyzing, or at least I am, on why Crossroads was such a narrative failure. I've always been interested in picking apart such screenplays. You have screenplays like those found in Troll 2 which was written by somebody who obviously has no clue how real people talk. But then you have screenplays like Crossroads, which you can imagine having possibly been good at one point before studio interference came in and rewrote the whole thing to suit the star of the moment. (Especially since screenwriter Shonda Rimes went on to great success with Gray's Anatomy.) It happens all the time in Hollywood. But this was the most blatant example I've seen in some time.

I can hear Britney's agent picking up the screenplay and saying "this would be a good debut film for my client. But I'm not going to have her play the pregnant trailer girl even though she's the one with the 'wannabe singer' plotline. Britney should play the virginal valedictorian looking for long lost mommy. But she should also sing. So let's just have Mimi encounter stage fright before the first big number and Britney will be the singer from then on. Oh, and that scene where the virginal valedictorian finds her mother? Britney's limited acting talents can't handle such an emotional scene. So let's cut that and skip to directly to the 'valedictorian loses virginity to rocker loner character because Mommy didn't want her' scene."

And maybe I just misunderstood Sarcasm's sarcasm in his "pregnant women aren't attractive" post. That's the problem with the internet, you have so many people make claims like that in all seriousness, it's hard to tell who's joking and who isn't.

Ah, I understand now why you were thinking about that.   Maybe they just ran out of budget or something?    But you are right, that is a pretty bad plot flow lapse.

[Pak-Man]

People were going to this movie to see Brittany. If anyone else got the A-story it wouldn't have even done as well as it did.

[zeyguy]

People were going to this movie to see Brittany. If anyone else got the A-story it wouldn't have even done as well as it did.

I don't argue with that. Also if anyone else got the A-story, the movie likely wouldn't have ended up on RiffTrax.

I'm just took notice that the screenplay seems like it was written with the character of Mimi as the main character. But obviously Britney's handlers wanted her to play the squeaky clean suburban girl and not the pregnant trailer girl, so Mimi's A-story was given to Britney's character.

Of course the ultimate irony is the Britney became the pregnant trailer girl in real life. And somewhere, Taryn Manning is not shaving her head, not getting sh'faced with Paris and Lindsay, and not being photographed sans panties.