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

fucking love P's lair full of dolls

people were clapping, singing along, laughing, probably crying too. It was a nice crowd to be in right now

cab driver very easily hoodwinked by Apollonia

i also like the idea of getting revenge on a lover that spurned you via a conveniently timed setlist choice

haha yeah it does build up this mythology of performance, where things that are happening onstage are actual parts of a larger melodrama

other highlights

Apollonia foisting a fancy-assed guitar upon Kid and then saying "I'm joining Morris's band" like she expected any kind of positive reaction to that news.

only thing that woulda improved Prince's "whAAAAaaaaT?" woulda been a record skip sound effect.

this is playing here now. should i see it tonight?

went to a showing last night. yes.

Go see it. It is almost an audience participation movie, like Rocky Horror.

yeah I was kinda sad that my crowd didn't make more noise last night.

FUCK'S WRONG WITH YOU KID

yeah it's weirdly regressive gender-wise, which is weird in the context of Prince's music, except for Wendy and Lisa as noted

― Οὖτις, Friday, April 29, 2016 5:36 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Some but not all of the regression is there to characterize Morris as the heel, but its regression is not in fact particularly "weird in the context of Prince's music," which is not as progressive as has been claimed recently.

I do love the implication in the film that Wendy and Lisa are the ones that actually wrote the song "Purple Rain"

― Οὖτις, Friday, April 29, 2016 5:44 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Well they, or, more properly, the band as a whole, did, if not exactly in the way they movie indicates - he, not they, came up with the basic chords, but the band and Wendy especially fleshed the music out before he wrote the lyrics and presumably vocal line.

(some of which incorporated bandmember vocal contributions)

And that's true of a lot of his stuff, something else under-discussed since his death

I think the movie itself is a pretty good guide to just how seriously or not you're supposed to take it

the scene where he tricks apollonia into skinnydipping in lake non-minnetonka and then leaves her in the dust of his motorcycle peel out

He is such a fucking dick in that scene

the way he frames it as "oh I triiiied to tell ya" despite the pregnant pause between his last sentence and her striptease and then him standin there all like "ok yeah i wanted to see some titties. WHAT?!"

I like this movie because it look intersting

I saw this movie when it came out and I was in 10th grade. At the time I thought it was both ridiculous and amazing. The only thing that's changed in the intervening years is that when I saw it I didn't like Morris Day's music at all, and now I do, a lot.

Does Morris Day still perform?

Nah, he doesn't have the time

fp me if you must

Boomboom

Saw Purple Rain for the first time last summer. People were ecstatic, very much an audience participation movie. I remember a big laugh when the blonde girl looks at the slip of paper and said "Apollonia??" Saw it again last night, that didn't get a laugh. Oddly, it was pretty much the same mood, the giddiness of a rock concert. Not somber at all, which was really surprising. Amazing moment when Prince and Apollonia first have sex: woman behind me screaming "HUSBANDS! BOYFRIENDS! LESBIAN PARTNERS! WATCH THIS. WATCH THIS. TAKE NOTES." But it was mostly the same innocent excitement and cheering as the screening I saw last year, both capacity crowds in huge auditoriums. I don't know what I was expecting, though. People were happy. It was fun.

Even worse than I remembered. Siskel and Ebert both including it on their year-end lists in 1984 is a true WTF moment. Like, this is basically Rick Springfield's Hard To Hold with better music.

I like the Day-Benton teamwork, a couple of concert sequences, the rest is garbage.

saw it a few weeks ago at the ICA in london. slightly too snarky crowd maybe, but lots of LOLs all the way through. maybe without that, i might have been more forgiving. but it hasnt aged well. some great scenes with morris and jerome (why didnt they get to do more movies?). interesting for how closely the revolution in the movie seem resemble the real dynamics of the band. but i found the performances to not be as good as remembered - by prince that is. the time and other groups seem to be fine. but prince's performances on the PR tour video are much better. in the film, they look a bit over-acted in a way the songs dont really need (though computer blue is great). also confused at the weird grasp of sense of time/continuity on the montage for the very first song (lets go crazy). best moment though is hearing fathers song (the computer blue bridge) on the piano. amazing.

saw it in a sold out screening in Manchester in one of the biggest screens last week. people went nuts; standing, cheering, singing, crying, the whole bit, a very youthful stylish crowd. the only time i can recall being drunk in a cinema thanks to the 'purple cocktails' on sale. biggest crowd lols were for his Dad's 'don't get married' speech, and at the bizzare leg moves from Apollonia during the start of the sex scene. it seemed creaky but better lit and shot than i remember.

and yeah the piano bits were great.

there were lots of whoops and cheers too. but mainly just lots of 'LOL!'

in the cast/crew interviews on the DVD, the director actually gets teary about the 'dont get married' scene. apparently princes dad gave him the same speech.

Morris Day has charisma as an actor, I'll admit, but his whole "Who's on First" bit with Jerome was agonizing.

Is it worth pointing out that the plot makes no sense? Like, his character is this struggling musician who lives at home but he still exerts this Prince-like control over his band where its a big deal if he does or doesn't consider performing one of Wendy and Lisa's songs?

It's weird you almost have to watch it as several phases of the characters life palimpsested into one

in the cast/crew interviews on the DVD, the director actually gets teary

Like, his character is this struggling musician who lives at home but he still exerts this Prince-like control over his band where its a big deal if he does or doesn't consider performing one of Wendy and Lisa's songs?

Is it hard to believe that Prince was like this even when he lived at home?

it hasnt aged well.

nnnnnnnnnno, no perceptive viewers thought the non-musical shit was good in '84

there are certain movies that i just hold to a lower standard. this, dirty dancing, point break...patrick swayze's whole filmography, basically.

Dirty Dancing is a better movie than PR, but, you know, Prince.

i love this movie, of course it isn't good, but it's great

its basically like prince's spin on all those terrible youth/teen pics of the 50s etc

OK, so I re-watched it for the first time in many years and I have to say …
It still sucks. Even worse than I remember. The plot doesn’t make a bit of sense, the story’s self-pitying and pretentious — not to mention misogynistic — and the acting sucks all around. Yeah, I know the musical sequences are good BUT IT’S PRINCE, after all.

Even worse than I remembered. Siskel and Ebert both including it on their year-end lists in 1984 is a true WTF moment. Like, this is basically Rick Springfield's Hard To Hold with better music.

― rhymes with "blondie blast" (cryptosicko), Tuesday, May 17, 2016 9:17 PM (6 days ago)

so wrong. intentionally or not, it's one of the funniest, weirdest, most fucked-up movies ever made. plus prince. can't imagine any sensible person not loving it.

Really, you can't? Had I seen it when I was 15 or 16, I probably would have enjoyed it. But I was 20 or 21. I thought it was pretty embarrassing as a film, although I loved the music. Now that I’m much older it seems lamer than ever. I mean, take the fanboy glasses off and watch it as a film, not as a 90-minute music video. It’s awful. And there’s nothing even remotely weird or “fucked up” about it. It’s just bad.

yeah, it's one of the funniest movies ever made, except for a couple thousand made by good comedians.

I watched it a couple years back fully expecting to hate it. I'd hated it when I last saw it, back in the 80s, as a teen. But no. I loved it. Each image and line is perfect (and, yes, perfectly terrible). People are often at their funniest when they're trying to be something else.

I'm assuming the people itt saying Purple Rain is awful haven't watched Under the Cherry Moon (etc).

Yeah, I'm not getting where this is so bad/funny/fucked up/whatever that its good. It's basically a severely underwritten melodrama that has some fantastic songs in it.

Pretty sure Magnoli thinks its a great work

Well, he would, wouldn't he