Cue up another unintentionally-hilarious prediction for Burlesque (starring Christina Aguilera, Cher, and Kristen Bell), which hasn’t yet received an MPAA rating but I suspect that it will go the PG-13 route in the hope of achieving a larger audience. Hell, why even bother making a movie without actually delivering on the risqué nature of the business in question? At least Showgirls had some integrity in that regard, even if its only other merit was an unabashed excess of campiness, which is a hell of a lot more entertaining than the prospect of an ultra-serious Aguilera & Co. vamping it up and acting like they’re liberating women everywhere in the process. Spare us, ladies.

The question remains whether anyone of significance will watch this movie. Dustin Rowles takes the stance that Burlesque is unprecedented in its pandering to gays. He’s probably correct on that studio intention, but I maintain that gays have more taste than to reward this nonsense. After all, Burlesque looks to feature an even more inferior version of the hot-chicks-pretending-to-strip while singing about their miserable lives than Nine did, and that movie didn’t even come close to recouping its $80 million budget. And while Sony hasn’t yet disclosed how much it cost to make Burlesque, it’s fairly evident that the makeup budget alone was massive. Hell, Aguilera can’t put down the lipstick or sell concert tickets, so I doubt that she’ll prove herself to be a box-office draw (no matter how much makeup she wears). Notwithstanding the presence of Alan “Teflon” Cumming, this movie’s gonna be an outrageous flop.

Imagery: Sony Pictures