Am I supposed to take Purple Rain (the movie) seriously?

STOP SMILING!

Under The Cherry Moon wasn't bad either, only it wasn't bad for a movie that should have been a one-off by a one-off himself. Had St. Paul of the Family, or Jesse Johnson, or Andre Cymone been the main star of that movie, then I doubt it would be given this many pannings.

GET FAILED

PERSON WHO HAD: It has this scene in it that represents what it's like to have sex with Prince.
PERSON WHO HADN'T: Are there blowing white curtains and feathers?
PERSON WHO HAD: OMG I thought you said you hadn't seen it!

And that is why you should take it very, very, very seriously.

I think my favorite cinematic Prince moment is when he's inexplicably taking a bath with Jerome at the beginning of "Under the Cherry Moon" (which, btw, is NOT saved by the musical sequences)

Graffiti Bridge and Under the Cherry Moon both suck, however, and I have only been forced to watch both at the behest of the wife, who has thankfully toned down (at least in this respect) her Prince obsession in her "old age".

Before the movie started, a friendly guy came over (I was alone) and tried to pick me up - I was too dense to get it (though I got the hint when he gave me his card). Him: "Do you collect bootlegs?" Me: "What?... oh, Prince bootlegs... uh, no..."

Seeing it again, well yeah, sorry, it's not Citizen Kane.. boohoo, dudes. It still is a fun movie, though.. without having to resort to "so bad it's good"-ness like Can't Stop The Music, The Apple, or Xanadu.

You could attribute the "so bad it's good"-ness to Under The Cherry Moon, however.

wait, Great Balls of Fire is fucking awesome!!!! serrrious love it!

slocki has the best take on this movie... "awesomely bad".

that's all i have to say on the subject.

This movie is a classic. End of story. It's a Prince thing--you might not understand.

contenderizer's description applies more readily to under the cherry moon. still there's a charming haphazardness to purple rain imo

i saw under the cherry moon on 35 mm a few weeks ago and imo it's baffling and wonderful

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CgvhDBXU4AESgV7.jpg

typically stupid simpsons joke. it's not funny, and what's more, SotT is his /best/ movie.

that seems to be what the joke is saying?

the subtext is that the film is so marginal/obscure that even prince hasn't seen it

which is dumb

i'm being literal-minded, maybe, but that simpsons joke is made up of 100% low-grade recycled humor so we're even.

depends on what the meaning of "it" is

i think you mean "that"

http://rinf.com/alt-news/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/bill-clinton-05.jpg

its a bad film in every way. nothing is explained. conflicts arrive without any context for them. resolutions happen without actually being resolved. its never clear if the kid is failing or if he is packing them in at first avenue. tbh i cant remember all the problems i thought of when i saw it, but there were many. it has next to no redeeming features, except some performances. and even those, arent what he was capable of. they are reduced to having to fit the terrible narrative.

the beautiful ones is among the greatest music performances ever committed to film, worth the price of admission alone, fuiud

^^^^^

was so gratified to see that someone had written a standalone piece about that, i think it was in rolling stone. as a raw expression of sexual longing it really has few peers.

that's not quite right, it's not just raw, it's massively performative, which is maybe part of what makes it so great, that it's this almost ludicrously demonstrative and detailed set of codes/moves telling the story of the most basic pop drama - wanting, not having. and prince just melts your face with it.

40 years!

This is a great piece from 10 years ago about it.

https://www.theverge.com/2014/12/9/7353913/prince-purple-rain-30-years-exclusive

I love Purple Rain but I don't think it's a Great Work like the album - it's a silly, melodramatic film with a few genuinely touching moments and some of the best music ever made

I want to take my kids to see it - there’s a revival screening in July - but I have icky memories of some really jarring misogyny which is kind of putting me off. Those live performances tho..

Your memories are correct.

i watched it a couple years ago and it was pretty gross

I definitely wouldn't let my kid see it, he straight up punches his girlfriend after she gives him a guitar

Edgy

within 24 hours of Prince dying, our local indie theater screened Purple Rain for free, and it was a strange collective mourning and joy watching it, but yeah. There was a couple in our row who brought their grade-schooler, and they clearly had forgotten the gross stuff, as had I. They didn't cover their kids' eyes exactly, but they clearly felt confused and uprepared.

I didn't watch it until 2006 and it grossed me out.

brilliant musicians who made godawful movies, prince, bob dylan... who else in the club?

Sinatra, Bowie.

All Dylan’s movies are good

Outkast, Neil Young, Elvis…

Perry Farrell

Mariah Carey

There was a couple in our row who brought their grade-schooler, and they clearly had forgotten the gross stuff, as had I. They didn't cover their kids' eyes exactly, but they clearly felt confused and uprepared.

― Bertold Brak (bendy), Wednesday, May 8, 2024 9:34 AM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

a big part of gen x parenting is putting on a beloved movie from childhood that you haven't seen in 25 years with your kid and promptly being like wtf i forgot about that shit and pulling the plug

The boobies

the boobies are no problem, there's just so many anti-trans jokes everyone took for granted, racist stereotypes, homophobic slurs, it's weird to see stuff with today's eyes

16 Candles for one...jfc that plays different now

who doesn't think a little drugged date raping and blatant racism isn't hilarious?

yeah it's just a reminder of how prevalent and shitty it all was, and you know being like 10 or whatever it's just kind of the air around you

good curative to all the "well that movie couldn't be made today!!" shit like so much of it was just ugly and dumb and hateful

the big thing about 80s and to a degree 90s media that really offputs me now is how stalkery behavior got presented as romantic time and again.

like mom started watching LA Law, which I of course hadn't seen as a 6 year old, so it was my first time seeing it, and so they're showing Michael Kuzak basically uncomfortably stalking and manipulating Grace, and I'm watching through 2024's lens going "oh man he's going to be a villainous character and Grace is going to spend season after season trying to get the firm to see his snakiness and then, oh wait, nope, he shows up at her wedding and easily talks her out of it and they're a power couple on the show after that. she even shows up to his house once to apologize for her 'rudeness' in telling him to fuck off due to his stalky behavior!

oh god yeah

i watched st. elmos fire in my peak watching all kinds of old garbage on streaming during covid that movie absolutely toxic

was actually a little surprising to see Miami Vice of all shows have an episode where it handled the rape and prolonged abuse of a victim quite sensitively and actually criticized law enforcement's own enabling of the rapist through inaction.

i mean it's dated in the sense that it's a complete fever dream of the 1980s, i don't think anything could be *more* 80s than Miami Vice but i was watching it recently and i agree it holds up a lot better than most

Glitter > any Bob Dylan movie

xpost yeah there's no actual realism or grounded elements, the style was the hook. i do find it funny that they almost never arrest anybody, pretty much every perp winds up in a body bag

like imagining how much time they would have had to spend doing desk work while each shooting was investigated in real life

...then Crockett would light his twelfth Marlboro Red around her and she dies of lung cancer in 1997.

i always loved that sonny crockett's super secret undercover name is sonny burnett

'hey boss the guy I'm working with is named Sonny, didn't this cop named Sonny actually like give a deposition in open court against one of your guys last week, is that something you want me to look into'

'nah there's lots of Sonnys here, let's close the deal"

the pilot ep where 3 of the 4 participants in a drug deal are undercover cops made me laugh, always wondered if there was ever a deal that was all cops because everyone got so undercover nobody knew who was who anymore

haha i'm sure it's happened

that’s basically the plot of The Man Who Was Thursday except with anarchists instead of drug dealers