Our Lips Are Sealed (2000)
Directed by Craig Shapiro
Written by Elizabeth Kruger & Craig Shapiro

Let Howard Stern proclaim himself the King of All Media; those in the know recognize Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen as the true wearers of the crown. The first ten minutes of this tape are devoted to ads for the following Mary Kate & Ashley stuff: website, magazine, video game, book series, video series, TV series, movies, dolls, fan club, and marital aids. Wait, maybe not marital aids. But the Olsen Twins™ have quite an empire going, built entirely on the perception that they are cool but accessible. Well, who am I to argue?

In some respects watching this movie was more perverse than watching The Turkish Wizard of Oz. Certainly when I rented it, I could not have felt more like I was renting pornography, especially when the Korean proprietor shouted out "Our Lips Are Sealed? Due back Wednesday."

But despite the relative ease with which the movie could be re-edited into a very degenerate softcore porno, this is simply one of those movies you'd see on like Fox Family or whatever. The plot, of course, is entirely beside the point. The point being to just show Mary Kate & Ashley wearing hip contemporary threads and flirting with cute boys. It's how we all wish we were.

In case you care, Our Lips Are Sealed has "the Parker Sisters" going to Australia after a madcap mixup causes them to enter the Witness Protection program, a development which is met by the twins and their parents with absolutely no concern whatsoever. The movie is incessantly self-referential, to demonstrate that it isn't taking itself too seriously, 'cause that would be SO not Mary-Kate and Ashley (I speak of them as an ontological concept, not as individual people).

The only way to appropriately address this film is to simply provide a list of its ingredients. Trust me, no cliché is left untrammeled.

• Dialogue to montage ratio (in minutes): 1:2
• Plot point centering around thief stealing the "Kneel Diamond"
• Thief looks vaguely like Thom Yorke from Radiohead; "dissed" by Olsen Twins™ for having a gross zit
• At least 80% predictability rate for overall dialogue
• Statement: "First day of high school." Reply: "Hope we'll be popular."
• Ability to distract someone by pointing somewhere and saying "Look, there's Brad Pitt!"
• Mailman, meet snarly dog
• Human pyramid of cheerleaders ruined when Olsen Twin™ on bottom sneezes
• Electric guitar riff indicates when punchline has occurred
• Blowdryer fight
• In court, judge says "Order in the court"
• In Seattle, people hang out in cafés and look "grungy"
• Amish community is boring
• Two people, when asked a question, inevitably utter opposite responses simultaneously, because they don't have their stories straight
• Funny word: "Condiments"
• Benny Hill-style chase sequence
• Quote: "Kinda 90s." (said dismissively)
• The Clapper
• References: "The Sopranos," Blair Witch, "Ally McBeal," Mini Me, Home Alone, Titanic, "whatever," silly string, Razor™ Scooters, Palm™ pilot, GPS receiver
• Several half-assed dance sequences
• People who haven't really done anything wrong get their comeuppance anyway
• Rewrite of "Jump, Jive, and Wail" called "Jump, Shake, Rattle, and Roll"
• Villains foiled variously with catsup dispenser, boomerang, and barettes
• It's funny when people speak in alliteration
• Obligatory 80s cover: "99 Luftballoons" by Goldfinger
• Quote: "Al Pacino wouldn't have to put up with this." True that.
• "Best of" sequence at end
• Totally non-hilarious blooper reel over credits
• Improbably long credit sequence reveals casting person with improbable name "Jennifer Syrup"

Needless to say, it's a must-see.

Review by Janus McCarthy