#y2k smashmouth

[y2kbeautyandother2000sstuff]

Hit Clips Boombox, "Someday" Sugar Ray and "All Star" Smashmouth Micro Music Clips (and some more of my collection in the background)

early 2000s

My personal picture of my collection

[what-nathan-did]

Josie and the Pussycats, 2001 - ★★★★

What a gem. I can’t believe anybody thought the product placement in this was anything but acidly ironic. They didn’t even get paid for it! All those Target and America OnLine logos are purely voluntary set dressing baybee! Even at a formal level, this really is “pop-punk” all the way down. Makes sense that the soundtrack at least got its due of popularity, it’s great.

Love how well this pinpoints and skewers a host of trends swirling around the turn of the millennium. The “sour-candy-and-nicotine-stains” color grading that was all over the era is equally grody and sublime. I both don’t miss it and wish that current era flicks exercised the option to go this big more often.

I feel like this flavor of comedy didn’t get the lifespan it deserved; I can’t think of a long list of similar things like it. (It would make sense to me though if Zoolander, which came about 6 months after this, existed in the same aesthetic universe.) Do I think Elizabeth Banks watched Parker Posey in this frame-by-frame before her role in Hunger Games? Yes, yes I do.

It does seem a bit like other Y2K era comedies that spend about 10 minutes too long in an ending that doesn’t quite fit what preceded it — for the worst of this style, see the film-closing Smashmouth charity concert that the end of Rat Race literally stumbles into.

[y2kmusicvideohell]

this is technically mid-90s but it’s an interesting bridge between the 90s and y2k. the music and certain parts of the video definitely seem reminiscent of No Doubt, but the color scheme isn’t quite bold enough for a y2k music video. The clothing is a little drab, too, like halfway between Nirvana and Smashmouth. IDK after sifting through dozens of y2k videos I’m starting to ANALYZE, y’all