The high-pitched singing of the Chipmunks - I trace it back to the mice in "Cinderella" (1950), although there could be earlier instances - is a product of electronic trickery, a childishly simple gimmick; yet it was enough to make bland pop standards sound magically fresh, if you were a seven-year-old. High-pitched singing is really all that "Joe's Apartment" has going for it. Make the high-pitched singers cockroaches, and you can rope in older viewers who wouldn't dare admit even to themselves that they still find the Chipmunks kind of fun to listen to. The plot is perfunctory - it tries to make its perfunctory nature into a knowing joke, and fails - and the love story is poisoned by irony. (Cloying sentiment is not improved by being placed inside quotation marks.)
Neither worth watching, nor worth remembering, nor even worth avoiding. Why am I even writing about it? Good question.
Neither worth watching, nor worth remembering, nor even worth avoiding. Why am I even writing about it? Good question.