say it with pie

Yep. So now that that's out there, I'm going to spend the next 1000 words or so justifying it.

Camp Rock: it's exactly like High School Musical, except it's at a summer camp. And Zach Efron is being played by some guy named Joe Jonas, who is like a longer-haired, slightly less effeminate Zach Efron. And the guy has two younger, uglier brothers who apparently form a teen pop trio called The Jonas Brothers who have recently taken Toronto by storm!

More about Camp Rock, my musical history, and pop songs behind the cut.

The story is about a girl named Mitchie (Demi Lovato) who, despite being an awesome singer and songwriter, is inexplicably bashful about her talent. All she wants in life is to go to Camp Rock, the rockingest camp in Haliburton, Ontario.

I should probably address at this point that the primary reason I liked this movie is because it is about band camp. I went to Durham Regional Music Camp in grades 7 and 8 and it was pretty much the best thing ever. Until Camp Rock came along, the only reference to music camp in popular culture was Allyson Hannigan's infamous "this one time at band camp..." line from American Pie. Since 1999, every reference I have made to my stint at music camp has been followed by the questions, "So, did you stick a flute up your vajay?" No, I played the saxophone and it was too big and had lots of keys, jerkface.

But I will live in shame no more, because Camp Rock has made band camp cool and tantalizingly abstinent!

So anyways, Mitchie's family doesn't have enough money to send her to Camp Rock as a regular camper, but her cool mom gets hired as the camp chef so Mitchie gets into camp for free. Sidenote: Mitchie is latina, her mom is latina, her dad...is the biggest cracker I've ever seen. This is only worth noting because their surname is Torres, so Disney must be playing around with their ethnic tokenism or something.

When Mitchie arrives, she meets some perfectly nice girls and some heinously bitchy girls. Obviously she chooses to hang out with the heinously bitchy ones who only want to be friends with her because she lied and said her mom was a record executive. Who wouldn't, right? This kicks off the major theme of the movie, which is finding out who you are and being true to yourself. It's funny―while watching this movie, I suddenly remembered how much of my adolescence was spent trying to figure out who I was. When did that end? At what point was I like, "Okay, I think I've got a pretty good grasp of my identity. Now I'm going to think about something else for a few minutes, and maybe talk to some boys without spitting all over myself." I wouldn't exchange my twenties for my teens any day.

For some reason, Joe Jonas comes to Camp Rock to teach hip hop dance and overhears Mitchie singing a song about finding out who you are and being true to yourself. Since he's all stressed out about his record deal, it speaks directly to his soul and he becomes obsessed with finding the mystery song girl. Meanwhile, he and Mitchie hit it off by the lake but he doesn't know that she was the one singing. It's basically just the plot of The Little Mermaid―the Disney version that ends happily.

And end happily it does! Mitchie grows the cajones to get out up on stage on the last night of camp and sing an overproduced version of the very song that Joe Jonas overheard her singing at the beginning of the movie. Cut to a slow motion shot of Joe Jonas turning to the stage as he realizes who his dream girl is. What's a lovestruck boy to do? Grab a microphone and join her for a duet, of course! It's epic.

Since I'm already in the mood for confession, I have to admit that I've had the song, "This is Me", stuck in my head for the last week and...I kind of like it.

I mean, how can you not like it? It's the prime manifestation of pop music engineering. All the chords and key changes are in order to invoke an emotional response. This is not news. However, I was struck by how obviously similar is was to "Everywhere" by Michelle Branch. Check it:

I was going to mash them up to prove my point, but it seems that someone on youtube already did. At first I was like, "Shit! He beat me to it!" but then I was like, "Oh right, now I don't have to spend five hours doing a Camp Rock/Michelle Branch mash up........" Everybody wins, especially me!

Final verdict: Camp Rock was no Citizen Kane Mean Girls, but it was good fun and Joe Jonas was a better Zack Efron. I'd recommend it as guilty pleasure viewing, especially since Disney now airs a sing-a-long version with the song lyrics printed on screen. Besides, it's nice to have something to talk about with 12-year-olds.

3 out of 4 stars.