30 Days Until I'm Famous (2004)

Absolutely the worst movie.

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Blistering performances.

I don't have much to say about this movie. On the surface, it seemed like your typical fluffy American movie, which I must admit, I usually like. This movie definitely held my interest, and it entertained me. But, for some reason, the story line didn't really click. It seemed like something was missing. Maybe it was because, in my opinion, the two romantic leads had no chemistry whatsoever. Not to mention,the female lead was playing a 16 year old girl and the male lead was obviously no younger than 25 years old. It was unrealistic of the writers to say that a teenager and a grown man would have sex as if it was legal.Overall, though, it held my interest, and it is worth watching, but only casually on television. If you were considering buying or renting it, I'd give you a thumbs down.

I picked this DVD up in the cheap bin at Walmart out of curiosity, and it turned out to be one of the best I've seen!!! It has a good story line and Camille and Seans chemistry is amazing!! Ill recommend it to anyone!!!!! It's easy to tell that these two are going to fall in love, but its the right moment that you wait for through out the movie. Camilla plays this character with such charisma and passion. I enjoyed watching her and will look forward to seeing other movies she is in. Sean has really come a long way from the young Indiana days and I was quite smitten with his looks, as he is very handsome, especially in this movie.The red dress Camille wears at the party is amazing, I would love to recreate that dress, but could never wear it as amazingly as she did.The ending was the best of all, I wasn't sure how it was going to end as it got a little skeptical but it ended the best possible way!!Sometimes I felt that the camera angles were all over the place switching from left to right, up and down, but that could have just been me getting picky because there was nothing else better to pick about. This was one of the best romantic comedies i have seen in a long while and am glad I own it now!!Some people are quick to judge on romantic comedies, especially those that did not go out in movie theatres, and that have found their way to the cheap bin at walmart, but don't knock it till you try it!

I happened to catch this movie by accident on VH1. The story is a simple one. It's about a young Latina named Maggie (played by Camille Guaty) who is discovered by Cole, a young music talent agent/manager. (He was played by Sean Patrick Flannery, who I didn't even recognize until I saw his name in the credits. He is best remembered as the actor on the short-lived TV series "Young Indiana Jones"). He offers her $40,000 to be groomed as the next Latin pop sensation.She is given lessons on how to sound more "ethnic" by a Jewish vocal/dance instructor played by Mindy Sterling (who played Frau in the Austin Powers series), whom I also did not recognize until I saw the credits. Of course, being a total amateur, Maggie hilariously and painstakingly tries to play the part of Latin pop diva, while also trying to help support her family at the same time. Her rival is an incompetent lip-synching uber diva bitch named Daisy Fresh. Cole has a month to turn his Latina Pygmalion into a star.This movie is like a new, updated "My Fair Lady" for the new generation. It's also a campy farce about the music business. It's fun, fluffy stuff. It is obviously targeted to young pre-teen and teen girls, but my boyfriend and I actually enjoyed this movie. Sure, there are the one-dimensional, phony Hollywood characters, and it is a little corny and cheesy at times, but it has heart. I had no idea who Camille Guaty is, but she is a very lovely young lady with talent. Physically, she looks like a cross between Frida Kahlo (minus the "uni-brow") and a younger Salma Hayek. Sean Patrick Flannery ain't no slouch either! Obviously, Cole and Maggie fall in love and the scene where they dance and passionately kiss and embrace is very steamy...muy caliente! Which goes to show you that you don't need a gratuitous sex scene to show sexual tension between romantic leads.Plus, Ms. Guaty has a very nice singing voice and there was some good music in it too. The biggest surprise was one of the executive producers of this movie was none other than the biggest diva of all time herself, Madonna. If you happen to catch this on VH1 sometime, be sure to watch it for some lighthearted and campy humor.

summary: a promising concept is poorly executed, resulting in an uninspired & cliched romantic comedy about a music mogul and a wannabe pop star. the concept for this made for t.v. film had potential: a farce about how the music industry manufactures, hypes, and sells "pop stars". This film takes the farce further by having the music moguls manufacture the ETHNICITY of our protagonist (Maggie) as well as her image (drawing attention to yet another feature of corporate music: exploiting a fad to maximize profit--in this case the recent "Latin pop music" explosion heralded by Ricky Martin). Maggie is a Latina struggling in LA, but she is not sufficiently "ethnic" in the eyes of her agent or the music studio--so she is "taught" how to be a "real" Latina by her ethnicity coaches. This is a perverse, but an often accurate depiction of what happens in the music & film industries, in the sense that corporate music & film utilize ethnic stereotypes to sell their products. These corporate images of how a "genuine" Latina, Chicana, Asian, Pacific Islander, etc. acts, behaves and speaks reinforces the stereotype even further. [ASIDE: is the film taking jabs at Christina Aguilera? if so, bravo! one wonders if Christina, like Maggie in the movie, needed to have language coaches to ensure she sang the lyrics correctly on the album she recorded for the Latin market.)Unfortunately, this film doesn't provide a deep analysis of ethnic identity, or how ethnicity is manufactured and defined by media conglomerates, or how damaging these stereotypes can be. Instead, the film employs the very same ethnic stereotypes it hopes to critique--but perhaps I am being unfair, since it is a farce after all.Regardless, the film's campy humor falls flat, the dialogue is simply banal and the plot is so cliched that my wife and I were able to predict plot developments (and even dialogue in crucial scenes) with horrifying accuracy. The end result: we were bored to tears.So why did I continue to watch this film--painful as it was? I confess, I love Camille Gauty. I first noticed her when she was a contestant on a reality tv show (which, ironically, was about "making a girl pop-music group"). Gauty almost made the final cut...the musical act (sans-Gauty) would later name themselves "Eden's Crush" (remember them?). I can't verify this, but I suspect that one of the reasons why Gauty was cast in "30 Days..." was because.... well, because Gauty herself wanted to be a pop music star!VERDICT: do yourself a favor and watch "COOL AS ICE" instead of "30 DAYS..."--you'll get to see Vanilla Ice (a bonafide pop star instead of a fictional one) in his prime. Ironically, Vanilla, later in his career, would face a dilemma not unlike Maggie faced in "30 DAYS": was he selling himself out when he reinvented himself as a "gangsta" rapper for his comeback album "the funky headhunter"? In "30 DAYS..." Maggie ultimately decided not to sell out and dropped her "Solita" persona. Vanilla, however...