![]() ![]() I think the best way to start this movie review is with a bit of context I am a middle aged British male and as such "Dear Dumb Diary" was not made with me in mind as this is one of those movies about the misadventures of an overly imaginative child as they navigate the ups and downs of school life. Determined to be noticed Jamie sets about entering the school's Jump-a-thon fundraiser and also trying to save the school's art program. For Jamie that is frustrating as not only does she wish her secret crush, Hudson (David Mazouz), would notice her but her nemesis, Angeline (Sterling Griffith), is one of those beautiful people who always gets noticed. I particularly liked when she mentioned Voldemort.At Mackeral Middle School, Jamie ( Emily Alyn Lind - Who Is Clark Rockefeller?), an imaginative seventh grader, knows she is one of the average group, a student destined to go through life unnoticed. And Isabella was vaguely amusing, at times. (I didn't really care much about any characters beside Jamie, though Angeline seems like someone who might be nice to learn more about. And of course, to see more redonkulously awesome musical numbers. Just to see her continue her progress toward maturity. you can see just enough of the beginnings of change that I feel like I wouldn't mind watching sequels, if they make any. Eventually Jamie does sort of learn some valuable life lessons (none of this will matter in the future pretty people can have inner beauty). It's all just basically fodder for Jamie's skewed take on life, and mostly seemed to me like filler between fantasy musical numbers (or at least it existed to set up the fantasies). I dunno, I suppose there's lots of random stuff going on throughout the movie, but none of it really seems that important. Of course, Angeline is also competing in the fundraiser. But there's a Jump-a-thon fundraiser in which she eventually agrees to take part, which could save the program. a bunch of programs at her school get cut because of budget issues, including her beloved art program. Nevertheless, she's fairly funny (what is "Earth" without art? It's just "eh"), and I can't help mostly liking her, in spite of all the things I dislike about her.Īnyway. whatever, Jamie just has lots of conflicting viewpoints on the world, most of them unrealistic and, as I say, flawed. near the end of the movie she seems surprised to learn that they were a couple, when I could have sworn she'd been aware of it the whole time. And starts dating the assistant principal, though um. (Though it does bother her when Carol starts working at her school. And for the most part, she likes her Aunt Carol. (She can sing about being "average" and also about being "awesome.") Oh, also, she has a kind of stereotypical pre-teen concept of any adults being ancient and gross, though she does like her art teacher. It's also kind of odd that Jamie can simultaneously have a sort of inferiority complex with regard to Angeline, but otherwise have a pretty healthy ego. I dunno about the books, but in the movie, I wouldn't say Jamie was really less cute than Angeline. Rather atypically for movies like this, Angeline seems to be a much nicer person than the protagonist, so Jamie just comes off as jealous and spiteful, for no good reason. And there's a "perfect girl" she hates, named Angeline. And she has a best friend named Isabella, who's clearly a bad influence on her. she has a crush on a boy named Hudson Rivers. I guess maybe in a way she's kind of normal (even if she can seem kind of weird because of her fantasy sequences and stuff) you know, not a bad person. (Usually it's her singing, though once it was the lunch lady.) It's all totally redonkulous, but kind of awesome. Anyway, the best thing about the movie is that there are occasionally really fun musical numbers that Jamie is fantasizing. (There's a potential crisis when she loses the diary and it's found by kids at her school, but that doesn't happen until almost three quarters of the way through the movie.) Of course, Jamie does a lot of narration throughout the movie, which is probably always meant to represent diary entries, though I don't think that was always made blatantly clear. It's about a middle school girl named Jamie Kelly, who of course writes her thoughts about life in her "dumb diary," though I feel like the diary is actually a rather minor aspect of the movie. But the author of the books is Jim Benton, who also created Happy Bunny, so of course they're gonna be funny and kinda twisted. This is based on a series of children's books which I've never read (in fact I don't think I'd heard of them before this).
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