Guilty Pleasures

Guilty pleasures.  We all have them.  Those things we enjoy more than we probably should; maybe we enjoy them in the middle of the night when no one else is around just so you don't have to explain your fascination to others.  I have any number of guilty pleasures and they range from my unhealthy love of instant ramen to my love of '80s hair bands, from trashy romance novels to badly made SyFy movies and so many, many more.  However, my biggest guilty pleasure are musicals.  There is nothing wrong with musicals, but I'm not just talking your standard musical, although I do love them as well, I'm talking about those corny movies dealing with someone trying to become a famous singer.  You know leaving their small town to venture into the big city only to find out that it's harder than they thought so they end up serving beer at a seedy bar for tips.  I love those movies too.  Truth be told if it has to do with someone breaking into song a drop of a hat for no real good reason I'm all over it; I'll admit to even watching Glee.  I'm going to date myself but Eddie and the Cruisers was one of my favorite movies growing up, and don't get me started on Disney Princess movies and the many sing-a longs I've had with them.

 

I've tried really hard for this slight obsession not to bleed into my Kdrama watching, and for the most part I've been successful mostly because I don't think I've found any true musicals a la Rent or Sweeney Todd, but what I have found are dramas dealing characters wanting to be successful in the music industry, unfortunately, none of them work in a skanky bar with scantily dressed women.  Three of my favorites are Heartstrings, You're Beautiful and Shut Up Flower Boy Band. 

Ok, yes this one is my all time favorite .... ever.

This slight obsession with all things musical led me to watch K-Pop the Ultimate Audition also called K-Pop Extreme Survival I wasn't going to watch it because, but not only is it about an all boy kpop group it is also about a girl pretending to be a boy to be part of said group how could I pass this up?  I'm weak and I couldn't.  So I watched and for the most part I did enjoy it.  The story is about a young tomboy who plays classical piano but really wants to be a hip hop star.  Seung Yeon ditches her prestigious school in England, returns to Korea, hides out from her parents, tries out for the most popular kpop group, M2, alongside her best friend, Ji Woo, makes it as one of the finalists, lives in a house with seven guys, falls in love with Woo Hyun, the assholey lead of M2, dances, sings, is found out, something ... something happily ever after.  Ok, it's not the greatest drama dealing with music, that distinction belongs to Shut Up Flower Boy Band, but it's not the worst, Dream High 2, cough cough.
The best thing I can say about it is that it was cute and short.  They cut the drama down to 14 episodes so I saved two hours of my life. Hooray.  I would even venture that I kinda liked it. The lead played by Ko Eun Ah was great, the music was pretty okay.  The only things were that I have no idea how they thought she was a guy with big ole boobies that she had even after they were taped down, and it had the most awkward kisses ever to grace dramaland.  We are talking Heartstrings awkward, but there were more than one.  You'd figure they would learn how to kiss after the first one, or they would be more comfortable doing it after the first kiss, but no every kiss in the drama was deer in headlights kiss. Shudder.