Stripped and Scripted: An Awkward Dinner Date With Christina Aguilera

I love Christina. In the band room where I practice, I have the Rolling Stone cover poster with her grabbing her boob. Her Stripped tour was absolutely amazing to see live. Maybe even one of the best nights of my life. I wish she hadn't strained her voice this past summer because I would have gladly shelled out the 50 bucks to see it again. Which is why when I saw this DVD for sale at my local Borders, I just had to shell out the $16 for it. I knew the concert segment would be great, and I was excited that there would be extras. First things first, the Concert segment...

Includes: (I'll rate from A -best- to F -worst- how each number goes over.
*Dirrty- A. This number is hot (obviously). Great stage set. Great choreography.
*Get Mine, Get Yours- C. Not a favorite song of mine. Seems a little bland even in her stage show.
*The Voice Within- B +. The girl can really sing live. The only thing that prevents this from getting an A is the long intro..or should I say speech...she gives to the crowd. Even when I was watching this live it just went on and on and on.
*Genie In A Bottle- A+! This remix is so hot. The intro with all the man belly dancers or whatever is a little long and awkward, but when they wheel her out from within those flames, on some sort of rotating stockade, all strapped in and looking dangerous-- all awkwardness is forgiven.
*Can't Hold Us Down- A++!! My favorite performance on this DVD. Hot hot hot.
*Contigo En La Distanica/Falsas Esperanzas- Almost F. I don't get this. It's not so much the song-- just the intro and the dancing and just everything..Very cheesy. I've only watched this segment once. Now I skip over it.
*Infatuation- B. The little segment to lead into this where one of her dancers takes off her skirt is cute.
*Come On Over- A. Nice acoustic. Nice to listen to. Gives the girl a chance to sit down for a minute and breathe!
*Impossible- B +. Her singing on a piano.
*At Last- B. Good cover. But we've all heard this song a million times. Not crazy about her outfit.
*CRUZ- B+. Another pretty song. No complaints here.
*Lady Marmalade- A. Proves she doesnt need the other girls to back her up.
*Walk Away- A. Hot. Male stripper in cage. Need I say more?
*Fighter- A. Love the outfit. Love how she shouts part of the song instead of sings it.
*What a Girl Wants- B+. Good remix. Fan favorite.
*Beautiful- C. Annoying how she lets the fans chime in...sorry, was fun when you're at the concert, but not when you're watching it at home.

All in all, good concert. Can't hold a candle to seeing it live,but still very good. Any die hard fan will want to own this just for the concert segment. Now on to the extras... dum dum dum!

Extras:
The way these are arranged are needless--if not completely pointless. I'm guessing they're here just for the sake of having some extras. All are below what I would even consider standard.
As they are described on the back of the box:
* Exclusive interview with Christina about her album Stripped, the Stripped tour, and her life and causes outside of music. I could have probably snagged this "exclusive interview" by digging through the garbage can outside her house. Nothing new is revealed--practically all that is "revealed" is how she loves the fans, loves being on stage, loves expressing herself creativity... Oh but Christina, I actually have some equally exclusive and important questions for you. Such as what is your favorite color? What's cuter--a wet puppy or a kitten with a bow on her head? Really, I mean just give her the tiara, give her some roses and a sash, let her smile and wave, smile and wave.. wave...no wait, then she might drop all her cue cards and have an original thought.

*An introduction to the supporting cast. Meet the musicians, dancers, stylists, and choreographers.
Keep in mind that all segments in the extra features are no more than 4 minutes long--most top out around 3 minutes. The musicians don't talk about their past experiences or really anything-- they're just sitting around on the bus talking about how cool it is to play for Christina and travel around the world. Okay, um, yeah we all figured that might be a little cool.

The dancers' segment is pretty much the same. Funny how there is no dancing in the dancing segment-- just blurry home video-esque footage of their tour bus. Most of the extra features revolve around a bus-- and no matter how extravogant..c'mon now--how exciting can any bus really be? I love it though how Christina has her own bus (although we never get to see that one--that would be a little too interesting--almost like this was supposed to be an all access DVD. almost )-- I just have this scenerio in my head of Christina awkwardly talking to the dancers: "Yeah, um, okay guys I'm just going to go to my bus now...enjoy your stale poptarts and shoe box size toilet for all six of you..."

I would have to say though that the stylist's segment was most disappointing. How cool would it have been to see Christina go from bare-faced to burlesque? Instead we are subjected to the stylist teasing her hair-- them both laughing for a minute...two minutes...three...in a dimly lit dressing room where nothing is shared. I would have liked to have known exactly how they are able to make her pounds of makeup hold true beneath such hot stage lights for the entire duration of the show. And with all the teasing done to her hair-- how do the extensions keep from falling right on out? Oh shhh, no I guess they want us to assume Christina is one of those natural beauties. Granted, stage makeup must be heavier than day to day...I guess in her head she's just carrying the stage around with her wherever she goes. And I for one actually like her pancake makeup--gotta give it to the girl-- she can really work the eyeliner in a fierce way.

The brief segment with the choreographer was most interesting. Although that still doesn't say very much. We didn't get to see him actually working out the moves with Christina--just a few clips from the Dirrty video that he choreographed, and him working with the dancers briefly onstage. This was the highlight of the extra features-- which should clue you in as to how quickly thrown together this all seemed.

*Gilbert's bus tour- Take a tour of Christina's tour bus with backup dancer Gilberto Saldivar. And here we are on the bus once more. Funny how in this 3 minute segment, we are able to truly feel their pain for the 16 hour bus rides they must endure.

*One Night in Milano-Christina meets up with Donatella Versace in Milan, the fashion capital of the world. This was just odd . I really felt like I was watching an SNL skit. This would be the feature that could use the closed captioning because I could barely understand a word Donatella said. You could just see the look of panic on Christina's face every time she spoke. Smile and nod. Just smile and nod! Quick! Break into the dirrty dance..."gonna get a little be naughty!" Grind, grind, good!

RSVP- Christina answers questions directly from her fans. Speaking of cue cards. Did they really expect us to believe that these questions were totally unscripted, spur of the moment? Imagine this in the most monotone, German-accented voice spoken with a look of a deer caught in headlights. "So. Christina. Aguilera. Good Show. Do. You. Get. Nervous. Before. The. Show.?" *pause*.... cuts back to Christina lounging in a couch, gasping with surprise at such a poignant question. Please.

Really, the best way to describe this DVD, is like an awkward dinner date with Christina Aguilera planned at the last minute...where conversation is choppy and scattered, no one gets enough to eat, and nothing is left behind-- no trace of lipstick on the glass, no real insight into her world.