How do you judge Purple Rain? The music is a contender for greatest soundtrack of all time. The movie’s dreadfully boring, pretentious mess.
Movie Review of Purple Rain:
I’m a huge fan of listening to movie scores and soundtracks, but I recognize that there’s a real danger to listening to a film’s soundtrack before seeing the movie. Instead of the music easing you further into the story, the recognition factor pulls you out of the moment. This may be less the case with musicals but it still is jarring.
In the case of Purple Rain, which is really just a long-form music video, the original audiences for the film probably experienced this to a much smaller degree, as the soundtrack album dropped only days before the film’s release. (Although the single “When Doves Cry” had been out for months.) For me, seeing this movie for the first time after listening to the soundtrack for 30 years, it was hard to get past. I was even more impatient during the filler story scenes than I perhaps would have been otherwise.
In Purple Rain, Prince plays The Kid (really), an arrogant, pretentious, self-absorbed, misogynist jerk who also is a phenomenally talented songwriter and musician – he’s Prince. Oddly enough, he’s about the only person in the whole movie who doesn’t use his real name for his character. The story concerns his tumultuous family life, love life and band life during his residency at the First Avenue nightclub. His parents are abusive, so he’s abusive and completely unlikable. He also has a puppet.
Everyone in the movie plays themselves, really, although I have no idea exactly how autobiographical this all is – and I don’t really care. The movie is a joyless mess, with bad pacing and worse dialogue. Absolutely no one in this movie is at all sympathetic and the non-musical scenes are slow and boring. There’s possibly a real movie in here somewhere, with the story of the abusive father, but no one involved in this production knows how to develop it.
The musical performances are of course wonderful. Or at least the music is. It can be a little distracting to see Prince acting out all of his lyrics and he has a tendency to point a lot, but I accept this as a minor inconvenience and part of the aforementioned problem with knowing the soundtrack so well. You will also be subjected to two performances by The Time and an unwatchable Apollonia 6 song.
When I saw the music videos played ad nauseum in 1984, I always thought it looked really funny to see Prince in his leathers and frilly shirts out by the lake. Turns out it’s even more ridiculous over the course of 111 minutes – just a guy and his heels, out in nature…
Finally, although these are generally spoiler-free reviews, I have to call out the denouement of this one, in which The Kid finally accepts the input of his bandmates and performs one of their songs, thus learning…wait, Prince? Accepting someone else’s input? The ending would have been more plausible if Morris Day turned into a dragon and ate everyone.
If you have somehow avoided this movie for 30 years, don’t break your streak now. Watch Sign O’ The Times…
Poster:
Trailer:
Bechdel Test:
Pass
The Representation Test Score: C (4 pts)
(http://therepresentationproject.org/grading-hollywood-the-representation-test/) [schema type=”movie” name=”Purple Rain” description=”A young man with a talent for music has begun a career with much promise. He meets an aspiring singer, Apollonia, and finds that talent alone isn’t all that he needs. A complicated tale of his repeating his father’s self destructive behavior, losing Apollonia to another singer (Morris Day), and his coming to grips with his own connection to other people ensues.” director=”Albert Magnoli” actor_1=”Prince” ]
Actually better than I expected – no one more surprised than me. I’m not sure I’d say that I liked it, but it’s pretty good at what it does.
Spoiler-free Movie Review of Weekend at Bernies:
I’d hate for you to think I watched this movie and reviewed it just so I could watch Catherine Mary Stewart and put lots of pictures of her in this review. It’s totally true, of course, I’d just hate for you to think it…
The truth is that this one was on my list since it was going to be 25 years old on July 5th and I’d never gotten around to seeing it. I frankly had no interest in seeing it before now, but I’m choosing to use the opportunity of these anniversaries to see some things I might not otherwise. Besides, Barney Stinson from the tv series How I Met Your Mother kept going on about it in a running gag so I felt it was probably worth a watch.
Weekend at Bernie’s looked perfectly stupid when it was released, so it was easy to skip, and I certainly didn’t expect much when I finally watched it. I was actually pleasantly surprised by the movie, though.
Oh, it is definitely stupid, don’t get me wrong. I don’t know, though, I found it sort of impressive in the way it just kind of went for it. It was really effective in going for madcap silliness. Stupid movies that try to be zany and wild often achieve neither, feeling calculated, safe and just dumb. This one just squeaked over the line because the slightly morbid premise. Black comedies are a tricky business; you need them to feel somewhat dangerous or it doesn’t really work. Weekend at Bernie’s has just enough of an edge to make it kind of enjoyable.
What doesn’t work is that the plot is really convoluted. Larry Wilson (Andrew McCarthy) and Richard Parker (Jonathan Silverman) are shlubs at an insurance company, and of course you have the dynamic that one of them is rigid and uptight and one of them is a lazy party guy. Richard can’t summon the courage to talk to the beautiful temp Gwen Saunders (Catherine Mary Stewart) and when he does he keeps getting caught out in lies he tells to impress her. While working over the weekend he uncovers a case of fraud that the guys bring to their boss Bernie Lomax (Terry Kiser), who invites the pair to his Hamptons home for Labor Day weekend to go over the numbers. In fact, Bernie is the one skimming from the company and he chooses this fairly involved ruse in order to have the boys killed. For this Bernie enlists the help of a mobster named Vito (Louis Giambalvo) that he is working with, when not having an affair with Vito’s girlfriend. Vito sends his hitman Paulie (Don Calfa) to whack Bernie instead, which will be discovered (much) later through an unlikely sequence with an answering machine and a fake suicide note. The story, like Bernie’s plan, is absurdly over-complicated. I’ve barely begun to list the different things that occur in this 97 minute movie. It’s all too much. This would have been much more effective with a much shorter, more streamlined approach. It might have made a very effective tv show.
While the premise is absurd, and so is the movie, I kind of enjoyed Weekend at Bernie’s and understand why it has a lot of fans. It certainly will never get a second viewing by me, but I know it’s a cult classic for a lot of people and I can see that. I realize that there was a sequel, but my interest only goes so far. I can’t imagine how they made a second one with the same actors and am sort of afraid to look it up. Besides, I do know that Catherine Mary Stewart isn’t in it…#dealkiller…
You want one more picture of Catherine Mary Stewart? Ok, but this is the last one…
[schema type=”movie” name=”Weekend at Bernie’s” description=”A pair of losers try to pretend that their murdered employer is really alive, but the murderer is out to “finish him off.”” director=”Ted Kotcheff” actor_1=”Andrew McCarthy” actor_2=”Jonathan Silverman” actor_3=”Catherine Mary Stewart” ]
Hard to know what to say about a movie I avoided like the plague for 30 years & only watched because of the anniversary. It was as expected.
Spoiler-free Movie Review of Revenge of the Nerds:
After 30 years of indifference, I watched this movie for two reasons:
because it is celebrating an anniversary and I figured that some people who actually liked the movie would be interested to see a review
because it is mentioned in Anorak’s Almanac (http://readyplayerone.com) as one of James Halliday’s favorite movies.
That’s James Cromwell on the right, billed as “Jamie Cromwell”.
I didn’t see this in the day, so it’s really hard to be open-minded about this movie. It often is the case that viewing movies for the first time far after their sell-by date makes for a difficult time – it’s really hard to separate how you view it now versus how you think you might have perceived it at the time. But usually when that happens, in my case anyway, it’s because of an oversight – I just haven’t gotten around to seeing a movie – there are a lot out there, after all. In this case it’s a little different, as I have intentionally avoided this movie because it looked horrible.
So, I don’t know, I might have enjoyed this more at the time because it was the 80’s, or because I was younger and more appreciative of the “humor”. So I really don’t want to be too tough on this movie, even if it lived down to my expectations of sophomoric, moronic, raunchy gross-out humor with absolutely zero cultural sensitivity. The sad fact is that there always have been and always will be stupid movies like this, so long as man craves boobies and bad behavior. This isn’t even the worst of them (by far).
Watching Revenge of the Nerds for the first time in 2014 was a penance – punishment for never watching this crap movie when I was in middle school and might have found it funny or at least enjoyed the nudity. Instead I spent 90 joyless minutes wondering what on Earth I was going to say about it. And now I’m done…
[schema type=”movie” name=”Revenge of the Nerds” description=”At a big campus, a group of bullied outcasts and misfits resolve to fight back for their peace and self respect.” director=”Jeff Kanew” actor_1=”Robert Carradine” actor_2=”Anthony Edwards”]
I don’t understand why this movie got lambasted with such bad reviews. It was good, with an original if simple story and some unique sci-fi.
Spoiler-free Movie Review of After Earth:
Some movies get a reputation pretty early on in the life cycle. Our critical nature as people and as a culture, coupled with the “me first” nature of the internet has definitely led to a tendency to jump all over a picture right away in order to be able to be the first snark on the scene. That’s fine, I guess, but it does grind up a lot of good stuff in the grist mill.
Occasionally this works to the project’s benefit with individual viewers – when your expectations have been significantly lowered, you are more easily impressed. But this doesn’t work on a large scale – the word has already gone out and perception is now reality when it convinces people not to give a picture a chance.
So it is with After Earth. I thought the trailers looked fantastic when they premiered. To my eyes, it looked like a good sci-fi picture, another entry in the series of modern films that envision a darker future for humans, due to our treatment of the environment. If you think you’ve seen a lot of these movies now, just wait – we’re only going to see more stories set in this environment. Why? For the same reason modern movies incorporate the internet – it’s our new reality.
After unsuccessfully convincing my daughter to go see it with me, I missed the chance at After Earth in theaters. I have to admit that all of the negative press was a factor in not trying harder to get out to see it; I’m as guilty as the next person at following the hype. The loss was mine – and yours – because it is a good picture.
After Earth, as the title implies, takes place in a future where we’ve had to abandon the planet after trashing the place and we settled on a new planet, Nova Prime. Unfortunately, there was some competition for the place (indigenous or other settlers is unclear and one of the early signs of sloppiness) and the “aliens” set loose creatures called Ursas, who are completely blind, sensing the pheromones humans give off when scared in order to hunt. (Not a bad idea, although again, I’d like to have heard more about this. Were they specifically bred for hunting humans? Do they sense fear in other creatures?)
Will Smith plays Cypher Raige (really), part of the United Ranger Corps who helped everyone evacuate Earth and are now tasked with saving the human race from extinction at the hands of the Ursas. He is able to completely suppress all fear and emotion, rendering himself invisible to the Ursas – “ghosting”. By teaching other Rangers, they turn the tables and are able to survive on Nova Prime. (Yet again, this exposition happens in a blur and you don’t really understand the current situation – have they succeeded? Are they still in danger? Where are the aliens that loosed the Ursas – do they do any of their own fighting?)
Meanwhile, between being physically distant off fighting and emotionally distant from ghosting, Cypher is a hero to all and a stranger to his family, particularly his son Kitai (Jaden Smith), whom Cypher unfairly blames for an Ursa killing his daughter Senshi (Zoë Kravitz). Kitai is training to become a Ranger but has yet to conquer his fears in the field and is denied advancement. Cypher takes his son along on the last trip before retirement, where of course things go pear-shaped. The ship crashes on Earth, now a dangerous and inhospitable place that Kitai must traverse on his own after his father is seriously wounded. The two survivors must trust in each other in order to get off the planet.
That’s a really good story. Will Smith came up with it based on a reality show with more or less the same father-son survival story and turned it into pretty solid sci-fi – once Gary Whitta and Shyamalan cleaned it up and wrote the screenplay. (It was further polished by Stephen Gaghan & Mark Boal.)
It’s really hard to do good science fiction and not have it be totally derivative or fundamentally unsound, and this avoids both, in my opinion. As I said, it’s not 100% fleshed out and while some audiences may have been itchy with a longer runtime, I would have enjoyed more depth. You definitely get the sense that some serious editing took place. As my wife pointed out, they didn’t do enough with the environment – “Earth was just an obstacle course”. I’m actually interested in reading some of the companion books they put out since I imagine there’s a lot more that was conceptualized than appeared in the film. This is always the case, particularly with sci-fi films, but since the movie was only 100 minutes, I’d guess there’s even more background than usual.
I found the movie entertaining and well-conceived. The sci-fi elements that you need to have (good tech, visuals, unique ideas, exotic creatures, realistic assumptions) are all there. A number of the devices and technologies are totally new to me and welcome – I love the suits, the cutlass, and the breathing capsules – all unique.
The film looks good – the production design is fairly standard, nothing terribly original but it’s not hugely derivative. The Ursas are very menacing, even if we don’t get enough time with them, and the ships are very cool. The effects are about what I expect them to be on a big 2013 movie. I thought they were mostly very good, some weak, some exemplary.
The acting seems to be another one of those divisive issues. I didn’t find anyone particularly impressive, but neither did I think it was poor. Both Smiths adopt this weird accent that I don’t totally get but I appreciate them trying to do something new. The best thing about the acting is that it is certainly the first film in which Will Smith doesn’t try at all to be charming and witty. He had an idea for a character and went with it. Kitai is probably over-whiny for most people, but I think that’s the point. I appreciate the father/son dynamic of the story as written and think the Smiths did an adequate job of expressing it. Maybe not the highest praise, but it’s certainly not criticism.
While I do a bit of research when writing these reviews, I generally try to avoid looking at what anyone else had to say about a movie, lest it inform my opinion, but I was terribly curious with this one. What was it about this movie that everyone hated so much?
Turns out that the movie was not so universally reviled as I thought. That impression was arrived at by how viciously it was treated by some. From some reviews you’d think that this was Plan 9 from Outer Space without a sense of humor. Some compare it to Battlefield Earth. (Note: I guess some people claim there are a lot of Scientology parallels in this movie. I don’t have any idea about that. The movie follows the Joseph Campbell model more than anything.) But it seems pretty divisive. For every review that calls the effects awful, another one calls them amazing. Some call it unoriginal, others call it unique. It’s really an oddly mixed bag. In my own house, I turned to my wife afterwards and said, “I don’t know what everyone was complaining about. I thought that was really good.” and was greeted with deafening silence and then something like “It wasn’t atrocious…”.
I find it interesting that while the movie bombed in the States, it was very successful overseas. Perhaps the press responded differently or maybe people simply aren’t as swayed by negative reviews?
After Earth was supposedly going to kick off a series of films, which is never going to happen based on its box office – at least in the US. Probably for the best, as while I like the setting, I’m unsure how you’d continue the story. The movie is unlikely to gain an audience at home that it missed in the theaters, but maybe it will gain some traction when it hits cable, which it is certain to do. I really did enjoy the movie – not in the “I can’t wait to watch that again” way, but I appreciated it and am glad I took the time to watch it. I recommend you do so as well, and make up your own mind.
[schema type=”movie” name=”After Earth” description=”A crash landing leaves Kitai Raige and his father Cypher stranded on Earth, a millennium after events forced humanity’s escape. With Cypher injured, Kitai must embark on a perilous journey to signal for help.” director=”M. Night Shyamalan” actor_1=”Will Smith” actor_2=”Jaden Smith”]
A crash landing leaves Kitai Raige and his father Cypher stranded on Earth, a millennium after events forced humanity’s escape. With Cypher injured, Kitai must embark on a perilous journey to signal for help.
Incredibly clever and funny send-up of both dubious Best Picture winner Shakespeare in Love and the Star Wars legacy. Very cute this is…
Spoiler-free Movie Review of George Lucas In Love:
A great reminder of the innovation and creativity found in short films, George Lucas in Love is a perfect satire and simply a lot of fun.
The story finds a young Lucas at USC film school in 1967 with a case of writer’s block. Everywhere around him are interesting characters, but he’s still struggling to finish his screenplay. With the help of fellow student Marion, he sees the world around him anew.
This film is just a ton of fun. Sight gags and Star Wars references are everywhere. It’s cutesy and gimmicky of course, but it’s a short film. By the time you start to wonder how long they can sustain this – it’s over. If you haven’t seen it, you’re in for a (short) treat!
Poster:
Trailer: (Actually, the whole thing)
Bechdel Test & The Representation Test Score:
Skipped for short films.
[schema type=”movie” name=”George Lucas in Love” description=”1967 film student George Lucas has writer’s block trying to finish his “Space Wheat” script, until a beautiful fellow student with a familiar hairstyle teaches him that the best stories are in plain sight.” director=”Joe Nussbaum” actor_1=”Martin Hynes” ]
1967 film student George Lucas has writer’s block trying to finish his “Space Wheat” script, until a beautiful fellow student with a familiar hairstyle teaches him that the best stories are in plain sight.
In the case of Purple Rain, which is really just a long-form music video, the original audiences for the film probably experienced this to a much smaller degree, as the soundtrack album dropped only days before the film’s release. (Although the single “When Doves Cry” had been out for months.) For me, seeing this movie for the first time after listening to the soundtrack for 30 years, it was hard to get past. I was even more impatient during the filler story scenes than I perhaps would have been otherwise.
In Purple Rain, Prince plays The Kid (really), an arrogant, pretentious, self-absorbed, misogynist jerk who also is a phenomenally talented songwriter and musician – he’s Prince. Oddly enough, he’s about the only person in the whole movie who doesn’t use his real name for his character. The story concerns his tumultuous family life, love life and band life during his residency at the First Avenue nightclub. His parents are abusive, so he’s abusive and completely unlikable. He also has a puppet.
Everyone in the movie plays themselves, really, although I have no idea exactly how autobiographical this all is – and I don’t really care. The movie is a joyless mess, with bad pacing and worse dialogue. Absolutely no one in this movie is at all sympathetic and the non-musical scenes are slow and boring. There’s possibly a real movie in here somewhere, with the story of the abusive father, but no one involved in this production knows how to develop it.
The musical performances are of course wonderful. Or at least the music is. It can be a little distracting to see Prince acting out all of his lyrics and he has a tendency to point a lot, but I accept this as a minor inconvenience and part of the aforementioned problem with knowing the soundtrack so well. You will also be subjected to two performances by The Time and an unwatchable Apollonia 6 song.
When I saw the music videos played ad nauseum in 1984, I always thought it looked really funny to see Prince in his leathers and frilly shirts out by the lake. Turns out it’s even more ridiculous over the course of 111 minutes – just a guy and his heels, out in nature…
Finally, although these are generally spoiler-free reviews, I have to call out the denouement of this one, in which The Kid finally accepts the input of his bandmates and performs one of their songs, thus learning…wait, Prince? Accepting someone else’s input? The ending would have been more plausible if Morris Day turned into a dragon and ate everyone.
If you have somehow avoided this movie for 30 years, don’t break your streak now. Watch Sign O’ The Times…
[schema type=”movie” name=”Purple Rain” description=”A young man with a talent for music has begun a career with much promise. He meets an aspiring singer, Apollonia, and finds that talent alone isn’t all that he needs. A complicated tale of his repeating his father’s self destructive behavior, losing Apollonia to another singer (Morris Day), and his coming to grips with his own connection to other people ensues.” director=”Albert Magnoli” actor_1=”Prince” ]
