Greatest Movies In Which Musicians Play An Exaggerated Version of Themselves

Inspired by the most craptacular flick I've seen in some time, I thought it might be fun to take a look back at some of the other completely idiotic movies based at least in part on a popular musician’s persona. Here’s what I came up with:

7. Yellow Submarine – Sorry Beatles fans, but unless you’re a high school student, zonked out of your head on mushrooms, within the approximately ten-minute window of time during which your naive little mind could possibly think a story about “Blue Meanies in Pepperland” is worth two hours of your attention, this movie totally blows.

6. Every Gangsta Rap Movie Ever Made That Isn’t 8 Mile (see intro above) – With the surprising exception of the Eminem biopic, pretty much every movie about a young rapper on the streets is just an incoherent collection of pointless violence, a love interest who’s way hotter than anyone you’d ever find in the real projects, and a sh*tty soundtrack consisting of a bunch of tracks that weren’t good enough to make it onto the album that made the person famous to begin with. And Hype Williams probably directed it.

5. Moonwalker – This really should have been the world’s first clue that Michael Jackson was totally f*cking nuts and had no business being around children. A bizarre combination of live performance footage, video b-sides and a mind-explodingly insane short film in which Jackson battles Joe Pesci, who is an evil drug dealer with a strange interest in children, by turning himself into some kind of giant dancing robot who gets his power from shooting stars. The funny thing is, in retrospect, this movie is probably one of the less insane things about Michael Jackson’s life.

4. Spice World – This self-reflexive genre-bending look into the life of the international pop phenomenon is the 8 1/2 of movies about retarded girl groups. You should all watch it.

3. Pure Country – George Strait basically plays himself, and sets out on a journey to find out what country music is all about, but fails to get arrested, spend any time in jail, take drugs or kill a man with his bare hands, so he just goes back to being the crooning puss-wad he was to begin with. The end.

2. Glitter – So Mariah Carey plays this mentally-handicapped woman with epilepsy who wants to be a star and she’s shiny and there’s some romance and blah blah blah. Let’s be honest, I’ve never seen this movie and I’ve never will. This is just what I’m guessing from the looks of the poster.

1. Cool As Ice – Vanilla Ice plays “Johnny”, a badass rapper dude on a motorcycle who comes to this small town and meets this hot-but-dorky chick who’s dad is on the run from the mob or whatever. Actually contains the line, “I’m just…coolin’” which alone is worth the price of picking this bad boy out of your nearest bargain bin. In all seriousness, this is a classic.

Honorable Mentions: Purple Rain, Crossroads