Yeah I know, what is this you might ask!?…well if you didn’t already know this is Sharpay’s spin off movie, Ashley Tisdale’s character from the High School Musical franchise movies, some of you probably never heard of it and some of you maybe have, but most likely forgotten about it at the same time and that’s alright, sometimes I find myself forgetting about it too, what keeps reminding me of it is a specific song from the movie I like called New York’s Best Kept Secret, which we will talk on a little later, that is if this post doesn’t end up being very long!! If it does then we’ll just make a part two focusing on the Soundtrack and have this be the movie review of it, right now the title includes both movie thoughts and soundtrack review, but if by the end of me writing this, I feel this has been a little too long of a post, it’ll be changed to movie thoughts.

Now to get straight into it…..let’s give our thoughts on the movie itself and see how well I do with this, movie reviews aren’t really my usual thing, but I thought i’d give it a go and see how I do with it, plus there was some things in the movie that I couldn’t help, but want to share when I revisited this slight hidden gem a couple of days ago….depending on if you watched it or even liked it to call it that, I however will, because I have a soft spot for it, even though I rarely watch it, it’s a once in a blue moon kind of movie for me when I want to feel nostalgic in a way……but let’s talk about it!!

Movie Review Time

Alright so based off memory, the movie starts with a song obviously, this song being Gonna Shine and i’m not gonna lie, even writing that out makes me cringe, reason being is because I can hear the song in my head and it’s just not my tune….i’ll explain it fully later when I talk about the soundtrack as a whole, but to continue on which in a way i’m happy with, after Sharpay’s performance, we follow her backstage where her parents are raving about how well she did on stage which she loves cause she’s Sharpay….during the gathering backstage,

She gets approached by a what I believe is a casting agent for broadway, which she always dreamed of starring in telling her about a play he’s doing and all the exchanging of information that they do, now this is where we switch it up, because it was this part of the movie where I realized something very important that I didn’t notice before when I watched originally, plus a few times after of course and that everyone is the fact that JOEY JEREMIAH (played by Pat Mastroianni) from Degrassi (DJH, DH & New Generations) WAS IN THIS MOVIE…….and I just learned about it!! Joey Jeremiah was in Sharpay’s Fabulous Adventure…..

HOW DID I NOT SEE IT UNTIL RECENTLY, like you’d think I would’ve gotten it before, but no, not at all!! That blew my mind, when I saw that, well that was the first of it anyway, but moving on to the rest of the movie….we go back to Sharpay where she’s pleading with her dad to let her go to New York so she can be in the play, but her dad doesn’t think that she’s ready to go to the Big Apple alone, so what does Sharpay do to convince her dad!? What only Sharpay Evans does best comes up with plan to get what she wants which is to go to New York and star in that play!!

Now in this next scene discussion, we have Sharpay and her friends thinking up a plan that will get her to New York and get her dad to agree to let her go, it was also in this scene where I discovered another fellow Degrassi face Paige Michalchuk played by Lauren Collins and where I paused the movie for a second time yelling at the tv wondering how I didn’t see that before AGAIN!! I mean both Joey Jeremiah & Paige Michalchuk appeared in this movie and I just noticed it!? I guess because I had a moment in my life where all I watched (for the most part) was Degrassi, it took me this long to notice they were in this, like if you were sat next to me and saw my reaction to seeing them in it, you’d probably look at me like I was crazy, but in that moment I didn’t care I was all I cared about was that I didn’t realize it before…..

Moving on though Sharpay and her friends come up with their plan and she later presents her whole set up to her father who still is unsure on letting her go alone, her mother sees her daughters efforts and tells her husband about a friend in New York who has a son that could keep an eye out for her while she’s there, Sharpay’s father is at first hesitant, but soon caves in and agrees to let her go to New York, on a few conditions however, she’s got one month to get herself into the starring role of the play and if by the end of the month she doesn’t, she’s gotta go back home and work for her father at his country club, which is something Sharpay doesn’t want to do so she agrees to his conditions, but only to make sure she gets in that play.

To sum up the rest of the movie, Sharpay heads to New York and makes a new friend/later love interest, she also makes a frenemie (enemy first, friend later) and then an actual enemy in disguise, her friend/later love interest Peyton (played by Austin Butler) journey’s along with Sharpay on her road of stardom, while also creating his own short film for a project that he made Sharpay the leading role of when she first arrived, pretty much recording her adventure in the big apple, while on their journey, Sharpay also learns that the starring role that she was approached with by the casting agent was not for her, but for her dog, which at first she was upset about, but she later embraced it and chose to support her dog on his opportunity, Where we welcome our second song of the movie My Boi & Me, which again we’ll talk about later.

We are then soon introduced to the frememie Roger (played by a young Bradley Steven Perry) and his dog Countess, where they perform their own rendition/version of the same song that Sharpay sang with her dog, but instead it called My Girl & Me throughout the majority of the movie Sharpay & Roger have a feud with one another trying to sabotage each others dogs chances at being the lead, while their dogs found interest in each other, seriously they had a whole scene with them going on their own adventure hanging out and falling in love, it was very weird, very cute, but weird….but before that whole scene, we meet Amber Lee who is the villain of the whole movie in disguise,

Her mission is to get rid of both dogs so only she can be the star of the play and while that’s all happening she suckers Sharpay, well yes and no to that, Sharpay kinda volunteered herself temporarily to be fair only to get close to Amber so that she’d make her dog the lead dog of the play, but back to what I was saying….Amber allows Sharpay to be her new assistant after firing her last assistant all because she didn’t get her what she wanted,

*Mind you the assistant got into an accident while on her bike, but Amber didn’t care, all she cared about was what she asked for*

Back to the review Now because Sharpay idolizes Amber, she doesn’t realize that Amber was actually just using her to get her to do extra stuff that she didn’t want to do, at least at first she doesn’t, even when she was warned by Peyton about it, but even though it takes her a while she eventually learns the true colors of Amber Lee and after feeling a little down on herself for it and getting a pep talk from Peyton, she cuts ties with Amber Lee real quick all while exposing her as well, not alone, but with a new friend, her enemy turned friend Roger and after being humiliated Amber confronts Sharpay and soon quits the play,

Causing it to be canceled thanks to Sharpay standing up to Amber…..not the greatest thing for a headlined show I know!! Soon after the show was said to be cancelled with Amber walking out, Sharpay is faced with the realization that her time in New York had come to an end and that she would have to soon pack and head home to wor…wor..work at her dad’s country club (if you don’t get that reference than i’ll tell you it’s from the movie itself anytime Sharpay thought about it she’d say it that way) while she’s packing, she talks to Peyton one last time, about how she doesn’t want to leave, he tells her not to, but she’s already accepted that she made a deal with her father and that she has to go forward with it due to her not getting the role she sought out for

She then gets a call from the theater telling her to pick up the rest of her dogs stuff from the play, the writer and director of the play in the movie tells the cast that the play is off due to not having a lead actress and that it would’ve been nice to almost work with them…..after the announcement Sharpay walks toward the steps of the stage and tells Peyton that she’ll meet him outside, Peyton not wanting Sharpay to both leave and give up, tells everyone in the theater room that he know’s someone who is great for the part and shows them part of a video he filmed of her singing in the theater when no one was there.

Revealing my favorite song of the movie New York’s Best Kept Secret, after they’ve seen her hidden performance of the song they realized that she definitely should’ve been considered for the part of the girl and they without question asked Sharpay to save the show by playing the lead and she of course agreed on one condition….

That condition being that both dogs split the role of the lead dog in the play which they agreed to, in this little moment we also get a bit of a side to Sharpay that you don’t normally get which is her admitting that she’s afraid, with Peyton responding in the words of “finally” and transition love interest is a go (I don’t have to explain what that means you all get it i’m sure) we finish the movie with one last song, called The Rest Of My Life, which is another one I like, Sharpay does what Sharpay does best and steals the show, all whilst showing everyone just how she was meant to play the part and how good she actually is and that’s the movie!!

Thoughts On Movie

Okay so now we move our focus towards what I thought about the movie after not have seen it in a good old while……so revisiting this movie, i’m not going to lie, it was a little weird at first, I hadn’t watched it in soooo long and if I hadn’t have had a song from this movie stuck in my head a few days ago I probably wouldn’t have watched it for another long while to be fair, I did have a few moments where I cringed at some parts and it wasn’t really with the movie itself, but the songs within the movie, but I feel there were some parts of the movie that made me go “Oh gosh seriously!?”

Perfect example…..the parts with the two dogs, although it was cute and I fawned over the dogs themselves, I just didn’t understand why they decided to do a whole romance day with the dogs, it was very weird, I think what gave it the ultimate cringe moment was they played Justin Bieber’s breakout song Baby in the background, mind you it wasn’t even Justin himself singing it…..but Lucas Grabeel one of the main characters of HSM sing it, which by the way I just found out about recently, crazy part is it didn’t even sound like him, but okay!?

I think if they had a different song play, it wouldn’t have been that bad, it might’ve still been a little weird, but less cringe, then again it was mid 2000’s, 2011 to be exact, but still why!? Another cringe scene to me was Roger’s (Bradley Steven Perry) performance of Me & My Boi (Girl in his version) I didn’t like it, I thought i’d feel the same way about Ashley Tisdale’s version when she first started singing it, but after her performance of I learned that I had a soft spot for her version, the way she did her was actually not as bad, but Roger’s……the only thing I liked about it was the cute dog, that’s it!!

There probably was some other scenes I didn’t quite like much, but overall even with the cringe parts, I still felt like it wasn’t that bad of a movie, I think what give the movie it’s leverage of not being completely terrible is Ashley Tisdale, to me she just plays the part of Sharpay so well even the cheesy parts come across normal at least to me, watching this movie again despite me having moments where I wondered why I was even watching it, I still watched it because I was genuinely enjoying myself, Ashley Tisdale did a great job playing Sharpay not just in the High School Musical franchise, but also in her spin off movie, she doesn’t get a lot of credit for the characters she played while on Disney and how well she played them either, which is a bit of a shame, because she really is a good actress, not only that, but she’s also a good singer, her vocals are very unique, they may not be the strongest to a lot of people, but she still holds her own with it pretty well!!

I just feel her to be a little underrated with her talents and I wish people acknowledged her a bit more, because Ashley Tisdale really is quite the talent, as sweet as Ashley is, she really knows how to play the opposite to her personality and it suits her very well, but back to the movie thoughts…..overall i’d say it was pretty solid, on scale through 1-10 i’d say it’s between a 6-7, 8 being the highest on the scale that i’d choose to give it because I did enjoy it a good amount, 6 songs and all, if I had to go between 6 or 7 though, i’d give it a solid 7, it wasn’t the best movie, but it wasn’t the worst either, I still had a good time watching it and regardless to how cheesy and cringe some of the songs are, which i’ll talk on soon, there were still some that I liked as well, but movie wise….it’s exactly how I remembered and also not how I remembered,

Which in this case is good, Ashley Tisdale & Austin Butler played their parts well, I feel like their chemistry was good, Bradley played his character well too even though he was very annoying and the actress that played Amber Lee did good too, I really didn’t like her, I mean when you’re playing a villain though it’s expected, however I still feel her character to be the worst character in the movie, like seriously awful,

but I guess that was the point I mean she played her part well!! Other complaints with the movie that became a recent bother of mine was how the movie had two dogs in it, gave them their own scene and yet their not mentioned when you look up the cast even though they were LITERALLY apart..of..the..cast!? Maybe that’s just me, but I just feel if you put a lot of time into adding a whole scene for two dogs to go on adventure/date then it’s only right they are included on the cast list, JUST SAYING!! Rant now over…..I have a soft spot for this movie, will I watch it agin!? Yeah probably, a bit later down the line unless I get a sudden urge to watch it,

but I don’t think that’ll happen, with Frozen 2 most definitely because I have been wanting to watch it again for a while now, but with this movie……I feel it’ll be a while before I decide on watching it again, still have a soft spot for it though, but that’s the review…..i’ll be doing the soundtrack of this movie next although it’ll probably be a short one cause there aren’t a lot of songs to look at, there maybe 2 songs that I briefly and I mean BRIEFLY talk about because I just don’t like them very much as for the rest of the songs……i’ll try and give my best and honest thoughts on them, stay tune for part 2….

P.S. One last complaint, why did they take out Ryan’s (Lucas Grabeel) special guest appearance in the movie at the end credits!? I was looking for it and everything when I watched it on DisneyPlus and they removed it, come on seriously!? I searched it up after to feel complete, but still, they should’ve kept it!!

All The Love ❤ ❤

Lexa