They’re probably going to revoke my hipster certification for this but here it goes… I’m a Britney Spears apologist. And no, I don’t like her ironically. I just like her. I know that she’s not some stunning paragon of beauty and talent. She’s pretty, has an okay voice, and is a good dancer. I imagine she must be very disciplined and hard-working. Whatever. I just find her completely fucking adorable.

Now, as for Crossroads. People are only too willing to disparage a movie like this. It’s a teen roadtrip (blahblah-metaphor-for-selfdiscovery-blah) movie. Three little girls who were close friends grow up and drift apart into disparate social cliques – the nerd, the popular girl, and the trailer trash who also happens to be pregnant. But at midnight on graduation night they wind up keeping a pact to dig up a box in which they’d buried the things they wished for themselves in the future. Somehow this leads to the three of them winding up in a car driving cross-country with a guy who just got out of jail – possibly for killing someone. Don’t think too hard about it. Particularly the part where Britney Spears is the nerd. Despite that implausibility, she’s not a bad little actress. Particularly in her scenes with Dan Aykroyd, who plays her father, the emotion really comes across. So kudos to her.

Now, at least for me, in a movie like this, the plot exists merely to string “moments” together. Singing in the car. Jumping around on the bed in a hotel room. Girl talk. One girl teaching another how to throw a punch. That first kiss or almost kiss with a boy you like. But mostly it’s the girl stuff, their friendship, that interests me. The questions - what’s up with Kit’s fiancé, what will Mimi do about the baby, will Lucy find her mother, and will Lucy and Ben get together – are merely vehicles used to string together a bunch of cute scenes. And sometimes, that’s all I need.