Britney, Baby, One More Time
dir. Boeken
Opens Fri April 11
Clinton Street Theater
Certain films defy explanation. And yet here I go again. In Britney, Baby, One More Time, the stars of the popular indie documentary American Movie (Mark Borchardt and Mike Schank) play a pair of filmmaking brothers (Dude and Mike Schmitz) who need dough for their next indie flick. Sound familiar? It should, because so far it’s the plot for the previously mentioned American Movie. However, unlike the real-life documentary, Britney, Baby is a fake documentary using real-life documentary actors. Brain bleeding yet?
After blowing a chance to interview Britney Spears for a Milwaukee TV station, Dude and Mike run into a gay Britney drag queen (Angel Benton) and convince her to join them on a road trip to New Orleans to meet the real Britney. However, the fake Britney doesn’t know that Dude and Mike are passing her off as the real Britney in order to bilk the TV station and fund their next movie–which sounds suspiciously like the film the real Mark and Mike were going to make in American Movie. Yep, I think that’s blood trickling out of your ears.
And to make things even more confusing, Britney, Baby is somehow “based on a true story.” Ker-POW! There goes that aneurysm!
Puzzling as all this sounds, Britney, Baby works like a charm once you put your brain away. Simply put, this is a sweet-as-pie road movie exploring the difference between who we are, and who we pretend to be. While the fake film crew films fake Britney rescuing kids from burning cars, and teaching truckers the “Oops!” dance, fake Britney teaches the fake film crew what it means to be true to oneself.
While the acting is barely up to community theater standards, the film is so amazingly good-hearted you’ll be more than happy to forgive the many cinematic slip-ups. Only afterwards, when your mind starts to digest the layers upon layers of scenes that play with “reality vs. fiction,” that’s when you’ll realize this campy throwaway flick is actually pretty goddamned brilliant.
