{"id":3044,"date":"2009-08-17T13:50:04","date_gmt":"2009-08-17T13:50:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/2009\/08\/bandslam-too-cute-and-wholesom.html"},"modified":"2009-08-17T13:50:04","modified_gmt":"2009-08-17T13:50:04","slug":"bandslam-too-cute-and-wholesom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2009\/08\/bandslam-too-cute-and-wholesom.html","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Bandslam&#8217;: Too Cute (and Wholesome) To Miss"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"bandslam.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/import\/bandslam.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"333\" class=\"mt-image-right\" style=\"float: right;margin: 0 0 20px 20px\" \/><\/span>People have been making fun of me for wanting to see &#8216;<a href=\"http:\/\/bandslam-movie.com\/\">Bandslam<\/a>,&#8217; which just showed up in theaters (finally) Friday. I was a little embarrassed to admit that I wanted to see the movie simply because I can&#8217;t help but adore Vanessa Hudgens of &#8216;<a href=\"http:\/\/tv.disney.go.com\/disneychannel\/originalmovies\/highschoolmusical\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\">High School Musical<\/a>&#8216; fame. Which is the same reason I went to go see &#8217;17 Again&#8217; earlier this summer (Zach Efron). Fine. I&#8217;m shameless.<br \/>\nThough, after just walking out of &#8216;Bandslam&#8217; as the credits rolled, I felt like telling passersby on the street to get out of the heat and watch this gem of a high school movie. Imagine a dash of &#8217;10 Things I Hate About You,&#8217; with the love for alternative music from &#8216;Nick and Nora&#8217;s Infinite Playlist&#8217; thrown in, plus (yes, of course), a helping of that feel-good &#8216;High School Musical&#8217; charm, and last but certainly not least&#8211;remember Patrick Dempsey&#8217;s turn as the geek in &#8216;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0092718\/\" target=\"_blank\">Can&#8217;t Buy Me Love<\/a>&#8216;? Before he became McDreamy?&#8211;well meet Gaelan Connell as Will, who&#8217;s channeling his inner Patrick Dempsey-as-geek for this film. And who knew that Vanessa Hudgens could channel the alterna-chick?<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><br \/>\nThe plot is basic: there is a battle of the high school bands (aka, BANDSLAM) coming up, and a ragtag ensemble of geek(ish) students, managed by Will, who hope to win. Peppered with the narratives of Will&#8217;s ongoing fan mail to David Bowie&#8211;a nice added touch&#8211;we accompany Will on his journey from untouchable outcast to lovable geek-with-adorable-girlfriend all via him putting together a fantastic band. While much edgier than &#8216;High School Musical,&#8217; &#8216;Bandslam&#8217; captures its wholesome feel goodness like few other high school movies of late. It might even (gasp) make you feel all inspired and warm and gooey inside. I loved it. Go see it.<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.locatetv.com\/person\/vanessa-hudgens\/273086\" target=\"_top\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.locatetv.com\/person\/vanessa-hudgens\/273086\/584x85_belief.gif\" alt=\"Vanessa Hudgens\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>People have been making fun of me for wanting to see &#8216;Bandslam,&#8217; which just showed up in theaters (finally) Friday. I was a little embarrassed to admit that I wanted to see the movie simply because I can&#8217;t help but adore Vanessa Hudgens of &#8216;High School Musical&#8216; fame. Which is the same reason I went&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":105,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movies"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>&#039;Bandslam&#039;: Too Cute (and Wholesome) To Miss<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2009\/08\/bandslam-too-cute-and-wholesom.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"&#039;Bandslam&#039;: Too Cute (and Wholesome) To Miss\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"People have been making fun of me for wanting to see &#8216;Bandslam,&#8217; which just showed up in theaters (finally) Friday. I was a little embarrassed to admit that I wanted to see the movie simply because I can&#8217;t help but adore Vanessa Hudgens of &#8216;High School Musical&#8216; fame. Which is the same reason I went&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2009\/08\/bandslam-too-cute-and-wholesom.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Idol Chatter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-08-17T13:50:04+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/files\/import\/bandslam.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Donna Freitas\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"'Bandslam': Too Cute (and Wholesome) To Miss","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2009\/08\/bandslam-too-cute-and-wholesom.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"'Bandslam': Too Cute (and Wholesome) To Miss","og_description":"People have been making fun of me for wanting to see &#8216;Bandslam,&#8217; which just showed up in theaters (finally) Friday. 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