When I saw the previews for this movie my first instinct was to not see it unless it was on Cinemax late night. It looked like some low-rent, raunchy, boob fest (frankly, my kind of movie) not deserving of my patronage in the theaters. Well I was wrong on a number of points because this movie has the looks of an R-rated sleaze extravaganza but it has a PG-13 rating. That would have been the first warning to stay away had I known but I went in hoping for a little more sex and violence or at least a little nudity.

In short, Coyote Ugly is the story of a would-be singer-songwriter who
takes a seemingly unorthodox route to entry-level stardom by leaving her New Jersey home to end up working in a wild bar in New York City. Had the main character been from the Midwest or any small, rural town, one might realistically overlook her naivete. But this girl was from Jersey. Pardon me, but cynicism is not unknown on the east coast.

It was quaint for me to see some screenwriter create a character who is so naive as to make dozens of demo tapes to send to major record labels thinking they'll actually be listened to after being rejected when she actually visits some of those labels in person. Suspension of disbelief is fine for a Terry Gilliam movie but not for something that makes pretensions of gritty reality. After being slightly disillusioned by the music industry (true disillusion takes actually being part of the music industry), the main character takes a job with some hard-drinking, street savy women, "Coyotes," who work at the quaintly named Coyote Ugly run by Maria Bello. The name hails from the oft-repeated witticism about how "You know when you get really
drunk and you wake up the next morning with someone so hideous that you'd rather chew your arm off than wake them up?"

The main character finally makes the grade at Coyote Ugly and
miraculously stops a bar fight by singing "One Way or Another" by Blondie, karaoke style and, after some initial misunderstandings with her mysterious boyfriend whom we really never get to know, she convinces her father, played by John Goodman, that the whole dancing half-naked on a bar isn't so bad so long as it gets her to doing what her dead mother wanted to do with her own life--become a singer-songwriter.

The mysterious boyfriend helps the main character overcome her crippling stage fright, an interesting psychological sideline left almost entirely unexplored, and she blossoms into yet another anonymous pop rock songstress whom we're supposed to believe has a bright future ahead of her.

Ultimately the movie is a string of well-produced cliches that you're not supposed to notice are extremely derivative but I did enjoy it because I expected the movie to be incredibly bad. So even though the gorgeous Russian girl didn't get naked and down and dirty I'd have to say the movie is enjoyable so long as you're not expecting any sex, originality or rock and roll.

This is a Disney movie? Poor Walt, hope he don't spin out of his grave.

I saw one major flaw in this movie and that
was Violet's purchase of an iBook. I agree with
the salesman's statement "You gotta go with a
Mac", but the iBook is the least likely candidate
for the job considering that it has NO
AUDIO-IN JACK. How is a songwriter
supposed to get her songs onto the computer
to edit without a way to get them in? She could
have purchased a USB alternative (are they
out there?) but then she would have had to
purchase a hub because there is only one
USB port on the iBook and that CD-burner she
had would have had to have been hooked up
to it, too. In short, she should have sprung for
a PowerBook.

Of course, there's no reason that her audio-in solution had to be hooked up at the same time as the CD burner. USB is, after all, hot-swappable with the greatest of ease, and there's no practical benefit to having them both hooked up at once.

Having said that, USB audio-in products generally ••••, and the iBook is rather underpowered for what she needed to do with it. It was great to see the salesman recommend a Mac, but you're right, she shoulda sprung for the PowerBook.

Here's a better question, why did she get a notebook computer at all. They are great for business trips but they are practically un-upgradable and cost significantly more than a regular desk-top unit. It seems to me that she would have been better off with one of those I-Macs where everything except for the keyboard is connected to the screen, although I still think it is ridiculous to make a computer that has no floppy disk drive on it.

I have owned an iMac for the past two years, and I have never once wanted for the floppy drive. The modern world does not require it, and if you were to stop using one tomorrow, you'd find that you don't miss it.

I heard that many writers, including Aaron Sorkin, had their hands on the script. Final script credit went to "Gina Wendkos."

It's pretty rare to use a computer's stock audio-in jack for real recording. There are better mic pre-amps/analog-to-digital converters for very little money, and they can use USB or, for multiple channels, Firewire.