Monday, January 22, 2018

"Purple Rain" revisited (sort of)


Believe it or not, this is the first time I ever watched “Purple Rain” in its entirety. I saw bits and pieces, and just seeing a tiny dude acting like a badass makes me laugh. It works for some people like Sean Penn but for Prince…it is funny.
The story is of a young talented musician who rocks a local hip club.
We find out the guy just known as The Kid has a horrible domestic life where his father, a failed musician beats on his mother. But the story isn’t about that. It’s about The Kid’s rise to fame despite that. He also takes on a protégé, which we’ll come to see as Prince’s modus operandi. In this case, it’s Appollonia played by…Appollonia. This is not so dissimilar to Honk Kong movies where the actor essentially play themselves.
To be honest, I never considered Prince to be on par with my guitar gods. Even though he out-flamboyants the likes of Jimi Hendrix, he still seemed so effeminate. Even as he’s yelling angst ridden dialogue. Let’s be clear, the dialogue awful. To today’s standards, it doesn’t pass. OR maybe it’s the performances. It’s hard to gauge, since no one, aside from Clarence Williams III is actually a trained actor.
What this movie has is Prince’s charisma. Which he flaunts and peacocks to which Mick Jagger himself would envy.
The music does take you back to those Ronald Reagan times. Carefree as a child.
For a movie about the birth of a artist that would go on to be an icon (he was pretty famous even in those days), it’s actually pretty good. No corniness of “Cool as Ice” and on par with “8 Mile”
I would also say, had I seen Appollonia  back then and wasn't so damn against seeing Prince queer out, I would've seen this:

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