Lust in the Dust

LUST IN THE DUST
(R, New World Pictures, 84 mins., theatrical release date: Mar. 1, 1985)

Long regarded as the Uncanny Valley of instacamp Western burlesques, Paul Bartel's LUST IN THE DUST finds the black comic master of Death Race 2000 and Eating Raoul wandering self-consciously into John Waters-burg. This was more of a passion project for wayward heartthrob Tab Hunter, who'd been wanting to produce his own offbeat spin on the desiccated genre for a while (the title comes from Joseph Cotton's nickname for the 1946 epic Duel in the Sun) and found himself energized by his experience on Waters' Polyester. The coupling of him with the heavyset transvestite Divine proved a match made in heaven (Criterion announced Polyester as a September 2019 release as I write this), and Hunter no doubt recognized the potential in placing Waters' MVP atop a burro and shipping him off as a dance hall diva. There was even a role for Edith Massey, another inextricable member of Dreamland, which was cut tragically short because of the Egg Lady's declining health.

Perhaps as much a hurdle as the Waters associations was how 1985, the year Bartel's movie went into wide release, was raring to be clogged with attempts to bring back the Western. If it wasn't Lawrence (Silverado) Kasdan or Clint (Pale Rider) Eastwood, it was Lust in the Dust's closest competition at the multiplex, the Tom Berenger vehicle Rustler's Rhapsody, another featherweight satire. And a year later, John Landis' Three Amigos! came along and was ultimately rewarded the hipster cult audience that came naturally to the unflappable if glib Landis. Basically, 1985 was the year of the cult movie, some more intensely marketed than others, but it felt like all under-performers of 1985 would go on to build their own rabidly defensive fanbase.

Lust in the Dust, however, seems to be one of the lesser cult movies of that crazy, crazy year. How could this be?! You had Divine and Tab Hunter reunited so shortly after the trash masterpiece that is Polyester. There were goofy supporting roles for Geoffrey Lewis, Courtney Gains, Henry Silva, and Cesar Romero. And then you had Lainie Kazan, so hilarious as the Jewish mother with eyes for Peter O'Toole in the magnificent My Favorite Year, in a corset trading mesquite-grilled barbs with Divine, who was finally being recognized outside of Waters' own Baltimore creative hub. And Paul Bartel was no novice, either, although he sadly didn't get as much respect as he deserved based on some disheartening evidence found in the bonus features of this Vinegar Syndrome release.

Bartel and co. labored so hard to put the vamp in "revamp," and yet Lust in the Dust has the reputation of a saddle sore to this very day. Why?

The fact that Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles, held up by a lot of cranks as the last bastion of political incorrectness translated to riotous comedy, continues to cast a shadow over every attempted Western comedy is inevitable. Neither Bartel nor scriptwriter Philip John Taylor (making his sole foray out of TV programming) were ever going to compete with Brooks or ZAZ on a joke density scale. Lust in the Dust presents Tab Hunter as a Man With No Name-style drifter only to christen him Abel Wood, which never rises above groan-worthy pun status despite the frothing horniness Lainie Kazan, going full Mae West, brings to the brassy saloon owner, Marguerita Ventura. Same goes for Courtney Gains, as...well, Red Dick!

None of these nudge-wink nicknames can compare to the sheer majesty of Divine's playacting. Rosie Velez would be a stock ingénue in a less ironic parts; Divine gooses the role with enough offhand humor and force of personality that his charisma remains consistent. "Always the little ones got something to prove," she deadpans, with true Lily Von Shtupp sarcasm, upon finding the dwarf sidekick to bandit Hard Case Williams (Geoffrey Lewis) between her legs in the middle of the night. When she interjects upon Kazan's musical number, "South of My Border," it is the perfect encapsulation of the playfully bitchy chemistry between them. Nothing stops Divine; even a line like "My ass is on its last legs!" solicits a guilty chuckle when he delivers it.

Rosie, of course, arrives in Chile Verde, New Mexico, the archetypal small town rumored to possess gold in their hills. There are a broken map and a limerick as clues, although the former's assembly will be become obvious once you immediately deduce the bawdiness inherent in the words "two butes." And it all ends with the characters on receiving ends of gun barrels, even Marguerita's most aged prostitute, Big Ed (Nedra Volz, in the role that Edie Massey read for). The plot is certainly as flimsy as the wardrobe on Gina Gallego as the least eccentric senorita of the saloon, Ninfa, and for as much energy as the cast brings, this plot doesn't bring Leone down a single peg. It's the Clue conundrum all over again: amped showmanship which doesn't make up for the lack of real ambition or the hoariness of most of the jokes.

Certain moments in Lust in the Dust do solidify the playfulness Bartel labors to bring to the movie. Henry Silva, in what has to be his funniest role since Alligator, is a hoot as the trigger-happy Bernardo, addressing the Chile Verde Rotary Club in his attempt to rouse a mob to silence the already stoic Abel. Kazan's big musical number is so outrageously horny, she grinds upon Henry Silva's inanimate body and manipulates him like a puppet, and it slays me every time. Divine belts out "These Lips Were Made for Kissin'" in all his hoarse but pitch-perfect glory, and there is a solid running joke about the way Rosie's loins tend to literally smother any prospective lovers. It pays off at the end, complete with a tasty "Come and get it!" in regards to the film's other primary focus of lust away from Tab Hunter. And Geoffrey Lewis as Hard Case Williams, the son of a Boston preacher ("may he rot in hellfire"), adds to his rogue's gallery something truly hilarious.

The comedy of Bartel's film is, like Eating Raoul, situated at the crossroads of straight and loony, which is high-risk, high-reward. Trouble is that Eating Raoul felt more novel and had more of an axe to grind at swingers and bondage cases, which gives it more of an edge compared to this softer R-rated romp. But that was Bartel's own unique sensibilities at work; Taylor, meanwhile, is merely transgressive for a television writer, and he doesn't measure up to what a Paul Bartel or a John Waters could do in peak mischief. I don't agree with Graeme Clark's assertion that Tab Hunter doesn't get one funny line, as there is a bone tossed in his confession scene with Cesar Romero's man of cloth about "lockjaw Indians." But he does have less personality than the Eastwood-style desperado he cosplays, and for all the eccentrics bouncing off him, Hunter feels less vital here than he did as Divine's hopeless infatuation from Polyester.

There is no doubt a small cult devoted to Lust in the Dust, as Lainie Kazan's own gay fans will attest to, and singling out Divine for a Worst Actress Razzie nomination is mean-spirited in a petty way, hardly worthy of Waters and Bartel at their most enjoyably catty. I'll take Lust in the Dust over a St. Elmo's Fire or a Teen Wolf in a heartbeat. But if one can be completely objective about such security blanket subversives as Clue or Better Off Dead or even The Goonies, and can put aside any further Mel Brooks or John Waters comparisons, Lust in the Dust looks weak in the presence of the more truly gonzo highlights of 1985, be they Re-Animator or Pee-Wee's Big Adventure or The Last Dragon. Those pure entertainments knew how to go over the top with the best of them; Lust in the Dust isn't so tarnished, but it wheezes by like a lonely tumbleweed.

Funny thing happened when Anchor Bay released this on DVD for the first time in 2001: though not shot in CinemaScope, their transfer reframed the film to a 2.35:1 aspect ratio to mimic the look of its inspiration. No information exists as to whether it was screened as such theatrically from its festival premiere in '84 to the wider release around the same time as The Sure Thing, and Bartel isn't here anymore to supervise or elaborate on if 2.35:1 was a conscious decision. The original aspect ratio appears to be 1.85:1 as befits a low-budget 35mm production. The Vinegar Syndrome "Halfway to Black Friday" exclusive release preserves them both, and they appear to possess the same overall picture quality.

Which is good, because they've located the original 35mm negative and made it sing for this 4k scan. This is the real Divine Madness the way our lady Glenn appears, and everyone and everything on show looks astoundingly crisp. Floral print dresses, bloomers and corsets are as robust as the sweat, mascara and lipstick on the performers. Black/blue levels in nighttime sequences never smear, and there is a light, natural grain to an otherwise error-proof transfer. The 1.0 DTS HD-MA mix is exquisite, with clean dialogue throughout and dynamic musical cues, especially the opening ballad. Though the track is monaural, there is atmosphere to the sound effects, and the optional English SDH subtitles are more accurate than most VS transcripts.

The 15-minute "More Lust, Less Dust" featurette produced for the Anchor Bay disc by David Gregory  is carried over, which is generous with on-set footage and even includes the audition tape of Edith Massey reading the part of Big Ed. Producers Tab Hunter and Allan Glaser are on hand, as are actors Lainie Kazan and Gina Gallego (sadly, no Courtney Gains), and there are enough production details to satisfy, as well as some choice audio clips of Divine and Paul Bartel. Real life couple Hunter and Glaser return, a decade and a half later and before Hunter's death in 2018, for the 20-minute "Return to Chili Verde," produced by Automat Pictures (I Am Divine), which elaborates further on the pre-production process (Shirley MacLaine as well as Chita Rivera were initial choices as Marguerita) as well as Divine's involvement ("Mr. Producer" was his pet name for Glaser), with a third Hunter/Divine vehicle that, tragically, never came to be. Both do a great job conveying the rugged nature of setting and outfits.

"The Importance of Being Paul" is Gregory's 16-minute overview of Bartel's career, featuring input from Roger Corman, Mary Woronov, Bruce Wagner, and John Landis among others. Since Lust in the Dust was elaborated upon further in Gregory's other featurette, much of the doc focuses on Eating Raoul, which Bartel made on no budget and through personal favors (Landis would order extra film for his own concurrent studio pic and donate to Bartel). There are minor discussions of Death Race 2000, Scenes from the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills and Bartel's extensive resume as actor, but it's his late career downfall that hits the hardest. His last feature film from 1993, Shelf Life, was unable to find major distribution in the wake of studio switch-ups, where executors could care less about Death Race 2000 or Eating Raoul. Bartel was unable to get his sequel to Eating Raoul, "Bland Ambition," which had a completed script as early as 1986, into production before his death in 2000, with financing secured the day prior.

Topping things off are a newspaper archive gallery set to the tune of "Tumbling Tumbleweed" and a TV spot for the movie. You can still secure a limited edition copy at Vinegar Syndrome, complete with slipcover. Here's the proper theatrical trailer, though, which isn't included on that release which I just reviewed:

The Identical

THE IDENTICAL
(PG, Freestyle Releasing, 107 mins., theatrical release date: Sept. 5, 2014)

The idea of "faith-based" entertainment is not without its virtues. Whether optimistic or misanthropic, a film instilled with some kind of moral angle can prove stimulating, if not transcendental. But the deal breaker, the most important aspect I look for, is that is has to be tangibly grounded. Capra understood this, even if one's path is blocked by the rising corn stalks. Archetypes work better with a real environment, if not other all-importants as credible dialogue or a biological allergy to arrogance. Dipping my toes into today's Christian-baiting cinema, alas, has not made me feel newly baptized.

I singled out the atrocious Old Fashioned as a ground zero offender in this movement. The rust belt condescension, its disturbing romantic doctrine and the pervasive leadenness of Rik Swartzwelder's driving hands has haunted me since first watch. But in today's culture of heightened ironic appreciation, Swartzwelder's homely regression has nothing on THE IDENTICAL. Much like the Cannon movies of yesteryear or the current crop of midnight movie figureheads, some people laugh off the unhinged shoddiness as a defense mechanism. And Dustin Marcellino has given this cult the Bible-thumping successor they've craved, knowingly or not.

You can easily deduce this as fan fiction from a church organist gone to the Land of Nod, borrowing freely from the biography of Elvis Presley as it drifts off into madcap Zionist screeds and pining for the edgeless assimilation of Pat Boone. In Howard Klausner's script, the King's mythically-stillborn twin Jesse Garon Presley survived birth and was raised as the dumbfounded adopted son of a tent show minister, breaking away from his daddy's idea of living and embracing divine career consultation. Had this been written for the secular market, the premise could have had a chance at prestige. Crafted for the modern day pulpit, it's more hysterical than the apocalyptic barrage of imagery in Nick Cave's "Tupelo."

The Identical begins in Depression-era 1935, where William and Helen Hensley (Brian Geraghty, Amanda Crew) arrive via boxcar to start a family in Decatur, Alabama. With employment not being so gainful, William picks cotton while house-sitting Helen gives birth to two baby boys. William frets over the financial woes posed by this fruitful circumstance as he takes in a sermon by Reverend Reece Wade (executive producer Ray Liotta), a traveling preacher who, in the midst of declaring "better to give than to receive," reveals his wife Louise's (Ashley Judd) infertility in a show of vulnerability. And thus the Hemsleys painfully agree to give up one of their tots to the Wades, with a shoebox burial staged for the absent Dexter Ryan Hemsley.

This child, now simply known as Ryan Wade, grows up under Reece's God-fearing tutelage and parameters. Ryan instinctively develops a love for music to where the crux of his teenage rebellion is sneaking into juke joints to hear R&B, never once smoking or drinking unlike his rowdy best friend Dino (Seth Green). But Ryan (Blake Rayne) is not the only one; his twin brother Drexel Hemsley (Rayne) heeds the same call and becomes a superstar in the process, nicknamed "The Dream." But because of their separation at birth, Ryan remains unaware of his lineage even as his resemblance to Drexel thrusts him into the limelight as "The Identical," playing Drexel's hits to audiences just as oblivious as he. It's not long until Ryan's attempts at independence finally lead him to both the secret of his bloodline and the path of righteousness.

A lot of specifics were left out of that synopsis, but it's those details which turn this potentially engrossing film into a ridiculous pretender. Begin with one of the most unavoidable topics: the American South in the 1950s. Were dusk-till-dawn road houses there really alive with the sound of black music back then? Did we achieve integration that easily and civil rights was never an issue again? Isn't it odd that the stereotypical redneck officer makes more of a fuss over Ryan than the people who had every right to fear for their safety at this point in time? When Elvis burst onto the scene, it was inflammatory to both sides of the racial divide, whereas scandal is scrubbed clean away in The Identical. There's even a couple of stereotypical mammy surrogates (a house maid, a nurse's aide) thrown in mindlessly.

Putting aside that revisionism in the name of "alternate reality," it's amazing how much Elvis is in this movie, which couldn't be more anti-Elvis if Michael J. Fox played a supporting role. Rather than try a different tack for Ryan and Drexel's musical awakenings, Marcellino & Klausner lift all the basics from the Elvis Presley timeline. There are impromptu concerts while in the Army, recording sessions in a faux-Sun studio, a private getaway called Dreamland, and even a kitschy beach blanket pastiche called "Sunrise Surfin'" which was done better in Top Secret! In fact, since the King's music remains out of the producers' reach, the original soundtrack tries for facsimiles of the classic Elvis sound that are nowhere near as uncanny as when Val Kilmer sang "Straighten Out the Rug." Drexel Hemsley is even spiffed up Jim Morrison-style in his later years, and he's still no huckleberry let alone Mr. "Hound Dog."

And yet, in a pivotal scene where Ryan shuns his Drexel-impersonating fame on the grounds of not being able to work in his original songs, Klausner has the irate manager scream "There's only one Elvis!" This is easily the most hilarious line in the movie, especially considering Drexel and Ryan are played by Blake Rayne, who we all know was cast for his striking resemblance to Fabian. No, Rayne is actually the screen name of Ryan Pelton, an Elvis impersonator who gets to parlay his act toward leading man stature. An identical playing an identical of an identical…of an identical.

Not that Rayne is given a chance to channel Elvis in any way but appearance's sake. The real life dichotomies of the once-in-a-lifetime singer of both "One Night" and "In the Ghetto" are glossed over to focus on Ryan's blandly overfamiliar growing pains. This allows not only for the pervasive chasteness and multi-periodic anachronisms, but also for Dustin Marcellino and his extended clan (including father Yochanan, who plays a record executive whose label boasts the same name as his production company, City of Peace) to work in a more Judeo-Christian angle than expected. The first clues are there in that Depression prologue, in the dialogue and design. By the time it's rendered explicit with a messianic lecture about the Six-Day War, such a quirky tack fades away to reveal yet another "faith-based" movie where the inspiration doesn't merely take a back seat to the agenda, but is pushed out of the car and off of the bridge.

The Identical is a hard movie to fully hate, which is a blessing in itself compared to Old Fashioned. I am touched by certain themes of reconciliation (watch for Chris Mulkey in a minor role) and uncertainty which play out in the arc of Ryan Wade. Ray Liotta, undergoing an unintentionally non-flattering aging process, convinces richly in several emotionally-charged scenes even though a couple, like when he holds infant Ryan in his arms on a dark night, are irredeemably hammy. And as a black sheep myself, I am open to a story about distanced siblings who never get the chance to truly unite. The highlight of The Identical is a genuinely moving scene where Ryan sneaks into the hospital room of his gravely ill birth mother and serenades her in a way that reminds her just enough of the boy she raised. Coincidentally, it's the sole time any of the overreaching original songs works in any scene.

But there's not a whole lot of struggling going on with Ryan, who should've been written and acted to be less of a nonentity. Marcellino's promo clip style favors senseless montages and repetitive musical cues at the expense of real engagement. At one point, Drexel appears at a contest to judge his own best impersonator, Ryan being the clear shoo-in. With the passing of Helen Hemsley and Ryan being told non-stop of his resemblance to Drexel (including from Joe Pantoliano's saintly mechanic), the stage is set for resonance which Marcellino doesn't capitalize on. Blake Rayne is just striking overrripe poses in his self-confrontation. The incident doesn't have any bearing afterwards, even as tragedy strikes from all sides.

These melodramatic contortions are made worse by the narration, which we come to learn very belatedly is voiced by the character of Jenny (Erin Cottrell), Ryan's sweetheart who lives up to her name by hopping in and out of the narrative to help this rock-n-rolling Forrest Gump believe in love. On screen, Jenny does precious little except join the gallery of subservient wives alongside Ashley Judd and Amanda Crew. Speaking aloud, Jenny is even more worthless, an insufferable vessel for solemn homilies, wishy-washy historical accounts and even repeating verbatim lines of dialogue spoken seconds prior. When Reece tells his wayward son "it's time to grow up and start being a man," it's terrible strategy to have the narrator parrot it from her POV.

Despite the involvement of Liotta, Pantoliano, Judd, and lifetime adolescent Seth Green (the Robot Chicken lampoon of his involvement here is preordained), The Identical is as cut-rate as they come. There is indeed only one Elvis, and no amount of innocuous plagiarism can erase that, let alone such pitiful tunes as "Boogie Woogie Rock and Roll," "Nashville Tonight" and "City Lights." I could easily re-christen this The Imitation for sarcasm's sake, but I deeply anticipate a RiffTrax commentary to take care of that for me. Indeed, The Identical may just be manna from heaven for guilt-free fans of Grease 2 or The Apple. Everyone else can leave the building.

Pirates of Silcon Valley + American Mary + Dancin' - It's On!

PIRATES OF SILICON VALLEY
(TV-14, Turner Network Television, 95 mins., broadcast premiere date: June 20, 1999)

A made-for-TNT, Y2k-era precursor to The Founder given how ‘80s survivor Anthony Michael Hall reinvents the passive yet playful geek persona honed from his John Hughes partnerships while assimilating the malevolence of his best known role of the 1990s, the varsity bully from Edward Scissorhands. Channeling Microsoft mastermind Bill Gates, Hall is as awkward as ever ("You must have really great bandwidth" is his pathetic seduction line at a roller rink) but resting on a hot wellspring of aggressive subterfuge. Gates is even introduced as the new Big Brother for another seething entrepreneur, Apple's Steve Jobs (Noah Wyle), who begins by addressing the camera in the manner of Michael Keaton's Ray Kroc. It is revealed that Jobs is speaking to Ridley Scott (J.G. Hertzler), the director of Apple's Orwellian Super Bowl ad.

Writer/director Martyn Burke splits his superficial if fairly agreeable docudrama (based on Paul Freiberger and Michael Swaine's Fire in the Valley) between the evenly competitive Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, their prickly, isolating ascendancies mitigated by good-humored layman's testimony from their respective right hands, moral compass Steve Wozniak (Joey Slotnick) and morally deficient Steve Ballmer (John DiMaggio, the second Bender to be playing foil to Hall). The Berkeley-educated Jobs goes from acid-tripping boy guru to capitalist emperor, blithely ruthless in matters both personal and professional. The hapless geek standing in Jobs' shadow, Harvard grad Gates hustles to outsmart IBM (a common enemy) and ultimately Apple in the same way Jobs himself got the best of Xerox. As Pirates of Silicon Valley progresses, their power dynamic shifts, the once-charismatic Jobs ("Better to be a pirate than join the Navy") now a wayward cipher and Gates the clever parasite holding the royal flush.

Burke energizes the starboard-storming ironies with wit (Hall's delirious comic energy negotiating with Albuquerque factory man Gailard Sartain and a couple of airport ticket counters) and a couple solid musical cues (The Guess Who and The Police, not so much the overworked Moody Blues). But whatever psychological acumen he could've afforded the script instead falls upon his actors, expert impersonators of the impersonal. The unflattering portrayal of Steve Jobs as a wannabe Jim Morrison does enable the saucer-eyed Wyle to overact cockily like he was soliciting membership in the Brat Pack rather than detonating his fame as Dr. John Carter. Even in his subtler moments, which hint at a lost optimism amidst the rampant petulance, Wyle isn't as entertainingly heated as Hall. Gates gets the loot and Jobs walks the plank, where Martyn Burke awaits to chew the flesh clean off his bones.

AMERICAN MARY
(R, XLrator Media, 103 mins., limited release date: May 31, 2013)

Canadian ravens Jen & Sylvia Soska, a.k.a. the Twisted Twins, pull themselves up by their jet black back-straps for this heady extreme horror follow-up to 2009's Dead Hooker in a Trunk. Surgeon-in-training Mary Mason (Katharine "Ginger Snaps" Isabelle) goes from suturing literal turkeys to figurative ones when, having fallen behind on her student loan payments, she stumbles upon the lucrative "body modification" craze. A man-size Betty Boop named Beatress (Tristan Risk) cajoles Mary into performing an operation on her equally plasticine friend, Ruby Realgirl (Paula Lindberg), who yearns for the asexual physicality of a Barbie doll. That success leads Mary to cultivate a hardcore portfolio as well as enact revenge on the side after her med school professors take brutal advantage of her.

The Soska Sisters simultaneously pervert and subvert the mad doctor trope by virtue of Isabelle's poised performance and the outlandish subculture they advocate. Once she cuts herself off from the debasing rigors of academia, Mary finds a bizarre renewal of agency in the inundation of misfits who willfully request split tongues, implanted horns and, in the case of the Soskas themselves as German siblings, an elaborate act of Siamese oneness. Isabelle's busty physique is frequently on show (specifically to taunt Antonio Cupo's desensitized strip club owner), a Kraut "slasher" jovially namedrops Mengele and the gleaming array of saws are laid out fetishistically (Eli Roth gets a dedication, although this is more perceptible in the manner of a Sam Raimi/Wes Craven showdown). Still, Mary is a unique anti-heroine in a genre which frowns upon objective female identification outside of the whimpering, hysterical Final Girl U.

Mary's criminal nature does result in some routine torture and milquetoast investigation (the only male voice of reason is a kind-hearted bouncer who values Mary's knack for transmogrification), and the third act suffers from copious plot strands which fail to take. "Ave Maria" is thematically co-opted (it sure beats the silly "Bloody Mary" tag the clientele bestows upon Mary), yet American Mary sputters on its operatic take-off despite Katharine Isabelle's final moment of gory pathos. But exploitation movie sketchiness is inherently a bitch to overcome. At their wickedest and funniest, the Soska Sisters are ennobled by the proud legacies of David Cronenberg or Clive Barker. The extreme horror genre could stand for more kinky reveries in the style of those veteran Nightbreeders, and the Soskas show potential for transcending grisly provocation in favor of psychological squeamishness and gleefully outré dark comedy. And unlike Eli Roth, who as of 2017 has regressed to self-parody (The Green Inferno) while the Soskas settled for plug-in proficiency (See No Evil 2, Hellevator), there's still potential in Jen & Sylvia.

DANCIN' - IT'S ON!
(PG. Medallion Releasing, 89 mins., theatrical release date: October 30, 2015)

"Want a pickle?" Schlock City's doddering Davids have nothing left to offer compared to the Twisted Twins. Dancin' - It's On! unites David Winters (Thrashin') and late screenwriter David A. Prior (Deadly Prey) for a youthsploitation danceateria that was miraculously declared the Worst Film of 2015 by Brad "The Cinema Snob" Jones, beating out such faith-based madness as Old Fashioned and War Room. It's also a vehicle for two victors of TV's Dancing with the Stars and So You Think You Can Dance?, paired off a la Justin & Kelly as romantic leads who make the amateur Latino youths of Boaz Davidson's Salsa look like Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey. Never you mind the vapid, derivative plot; like Salsa and From Justin to Kelly, there's nothing to feel here.

Jennifer August (an awkward Julianne Hough replicant named Witney Carson) is Winters' millennial Baby, grudgingly spending her summer vacation in infomercial-scenic Panama City, where even the dump trucks are painted hot pink, to visit her estranged father (Gary Daniels) at his Hit Parade Hotel. The staff includes a sad-faced mime for a shuttle accessory, desk clerks who quote Shakespeare while holding the room key to 2B, some Dr. Seuss refugee on stilts, and "The Captain" (Russell Ferguson), a dreadlocked doorman who pops, locks and drops bon mots. There's even impersonators of Rhett and Scarlett so that Jenn can namedrop "her favorite movie" with less enthusiasm than she demonstrates on the floor, which I'm afraid is terminal. Wandering the lobby, she meets both Danny (Matt Marr), the weaselly bellhop whom her father has arranged to be her guide/boyfriend, and Ken (Chehon Wespi-Tschopp, that's not my head hitting the keyboard), the dishwashing dreamer who captures her fancy.

Advertised/pawned off as a successor to Dirty Dancing, High School Musical and The Karate Kid(?), what Captain A-Rab (who takes a supporting role as an instructor with a Tragic Past) hath truly wrought is a less accomplished mockbuster of Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo! Say what you will about Sam Firstenberg's Crayola-bright gift to rubberneckers, but it was far more reverent of musical tradition, coaxed an infectious community theatre spirit and didn't lean on chintzy wipe transitions. The niceties of film-making have so completely eluded Winters to the degree where one worries if he's in the throes of Alzheimer's: "guerilla" camera angles from yards away made sense if you stole shots from the Cote d'Azur (as in The Last Horror Film), but it's death for a dance movie. With a minor exception for the hammy Ferguson as the Magical Negro, every other performance stiffs colossally, transparently ADR-ed dialogue sounding listless enough to match the forgettable faces. And not a single cliché sleeps all the way up to the Big Competition complete with Go Ahead, Kiss Her!

Save for some slick, silly moves in the opening credits when Ken is putting a literal spin on his busboy vocation, even the dancing is beyond perfunctory. They're diluted even further by cut-rate, montage-minded pop, some voiced by Harry Styles and Katy Perry imitators, and all boasting laughably on-the-nose lyrics ("I'll sleep with a snake in my bed/Just to prove I love ya"). If ever a party needed to be crashed by Tommy Hook and the Daggers, it's Dancin' - It's On! It's garbage.

Graffiti Bridge

GRAFFITI BRIDGE
(PG-13, Warner Bros. Pictures, 91 mins., theatrical release date: Nov. 2, 1990)


Under the Cherry Moon, Prince's directorial debut from 1986, was a tough movie to evaluate. I can't possibly give the movie any higher than three out of five stars, which is still kinder than anyone who caught it first-run (excepting J. Hoberman). I watched it multiple times in the wake of Prince's passing and struggled to come up with some kind of critical closure. There's a part of me that really admires Prince for playing up both his glamour and humor, as well as championing Jerome Benton, but I felt something close to nothing towards the coupling of Prince and Kristin Scott Thomas. It didn't live up to the standards Prince set as a musician, but I could at least see it as a lark, and it provided more entertainment than I get from most vanity projects.

The term "vanity project" seems like an oxymoron if you watch enough movies in your lifetime. These days, I even take it as given. Aren't all movies "vanity projects" in one way or another? A writer or director clearly has a point-of-view which they are trying to sell a viewer, frivolous or not. It defines the performances, dictates the wide spectrum of aesthetics and is self-important enough to attract financing and marketing to goad someone into a screening. This is how auteur theories start, when you realize a filmmaker is directly selling you his perspective, sometimes often enough that they become themes. To me, it doesn't become damning until a filmmaker's display of ego is devoid of almost all niceties as wit, style, intelligence, empathy, or just plain amusement.

Which brings me to Prince's Graffiti Bridge, his second and final go at movie directing and one in which he branches out to screenwriting. In the wake of Under the Cherry Moon's mass rejection, this was as straightforward a follow-up to Purple Rain as most people wanted from Prince. It's once again centered around musical and romantic competition between a serious artist and a shameless underling, Prince's "The Kid" and Morris Day as...er, Morris Day. The film's soundtrack was again almost single-handedly attributable to Prince. There are return appearances from Jill Jones (this time as a fickle lover who breaks up with The Kid by removing her panties in public), imaginary letters to the father who "took the easy way out" and a ballad-heralding finale ("Still Would Stand All Time"). It would be the safest possible successor to Purple Rain were it not for the existence of Under the Cherry Moon as well as the fact that in 1990, things were much different for Prince in the six years since his cultural dominance.

By order of the Paisley prophet, The Revolution, Prince's backing band, were no more by the end of 1986, as were Morris Day & The Time. Much like Pete Townshend's Lifehouse/Who's Next, an entire concept for an album ("Dream Factory") was abandoned and the resulting song cycle streamlined into what became the brilliant double-LP Sign o' the Times. Prince was ready to throw another curve in the form of The Funk Bible/Black Album, which was infamously recalled a week before release in a drug-induced epiphany of conscience and replaced soon enough with Lovesexy, which The Artist himself considered "a gospel album." But Prince's commercial prospects were diminishing, with lead single "Alphabet St." climbing as high as #8 U.S. in the summer of 1988 and then dropping swiftly. The A-sides to follow ("Glam Slam," "I Wish U Heaven") tanked. Lovesexy eked out mere Gold-certifiable sales by the end of the year.

Prince was falling behind the popular times as 1989 arrived, especially upon the arrival of what was called "new jack swing," a forceful new R&B sound driven by hip-hop technology. Incidentally, it was former Time members Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis who pioneered this sound with Janet Jackson's Control (and later Rhythm Nation 1814), which was taken over the top by genre-defining producer Teddy Riley, particularly through collaborating with Bobby Brown on Don't Be Cruel. Janet and Bobby both made forceful proclamations of independence ("What Have You Done for Me Lately," "My Prerogative") and full-on bangers ("Miss You Much," "Every Little Step") under the new jack swing sound, eclipsing Prince's star in the process.

His rebuttal, as quoted from the opening verse of the first song heard in Graffiti Bridge: "Pardon me for living, but this is my world, too."

This is from the defensive "New Power Generation," one of the few tracks written expressly for Graffiti Bridge and the name of Prince's early 1990s backing group, making their debut here. It's Prince's own "My Prerogative" in sound and attitude, showing that he clearly absorbed the "brand new funk" which he instigated through Minneapolis brethren Jam & Lewis. Issued as the third single of Graffiti Bridge's soundtrack, it trailed in the wake of two more successful predecessors, "Thieves in the Temple" and the Tevin Campbell-sung "Round and Round." These were the other debut compositions Prince wrote, as the remainder of Graffiti Bridge's soundtrack had existed in some form, spanning as far back as 1981's Controversy ("Tick, Tick, Bang") to the aborted "comeback" album for The Time, Corporate World, which, like their past releases, was simply Morris Day singing over Prince's music & lyrics (the actual band wouldn't write/play their own material on record until Corporate World was overhauled to become 1990's Pandemonium).

But Prince's multi-instrumental dominance was already made plain on the evidence of the Purple Rain and Parade soundtracks. Graffiti Bridge is historical in Prince's timeline because it is his one and only filmed screenplay (recall that Purple Rain director Al Magnoli co-wrote it with William Blinn and Under the Cherry Moon was penned by Becky Johnston). Originally written with Madonna in mind in the fall of 1987, the unfortunate star of Shanghai Surprise and Who's That Girl rejected the first draft with outright disgust. After courting Kim Basinger during the Batman blitz, Prince reconfigured the film for Vicki Vale herself, but they separated in early 1990. The shooting script was finalized a month later with a new romantic lead in Ingrid "The Spirit Child" Chavez, Prince's companion/muse for the Lovesexy and co-writer of Madonna's 1991 breathy chart-topper "Justify My Love" opposite Lenny Kravitz, whom Chavez sued for muscling her out of a credit.

More than Prince or Chavez, Graffiti Bridge is perhaps best appreciated as a vehicle for the reassembled original line-up of The Time, Jam & Lewis included. The New Power Generation's B-boy gallery can't help but look anonymous against these flashy funksters, whose sassy party-starters are in direct combat with The Kid's more "spiritual noise." The plot of the movie is your basic bad vs. evil showdown: Morris Day is elevated to Big Boy Caprice-level villainy as owner of the Pandemonium club and shareholder of The Kid's Glam Slam hangout, whose patrons are driven away by the less carnal "Love God" messages in The Kid's jams. As Morris extorts, vandalizes and continually one-ups him, The Kid finds solace in a hard knock seraph named Aura (Chavez) and her equally mystical prolix. "It's just around the corner" is her spectral advice, referring to The Kid's potential for redemption and victory.

Having buried his farcically aggressive Christopher Tracy persona from Under the Cherry Moon, Prince straightens out his curls and stubbles up on his glowering Purple Rain presence. He goes from abnormally charismatic to blankly enigmatic in the process, a narcissistic void best filled with production numbers. Prince gets a couple of great moments, particularly the alleyway gyrations of "Thieves in the Temple" and the desperate lust of "Tick, Tick, Bang," but he serves Morris Day & The Time two annihilators with "Release It" and "Shake" (the latter is not a Sam Cooke cover, but rather the missing link between ? & The Mysterians and The Dust Brothers). The fifth highlight belongs to Tevin Campbell, 13 at the time and previously scouted for Quincy Jones' Back on the Block album. He beat Kris Kross and Another Bad Creation to the punch with a confident delivery of the irresistible "Round and Round" (sadly, Tevin vanishes from the film afterwards). His mom, Melody Cool, played by gospel-soul legend Mavis Staples, finds her own tavern's financial assets coveted by Morris as much as those of the man behind the Clinton Club (guess who!).

With its central conflict involving the owners of four different clubs, Graffiti Bridge lives up to its promise as a musical. The problem is that, compared to the performances in Purple Rain, Prince the director approaches them like generic music videos, complete with rudimentary framing/editing techniques, scads of women dancing in cages (including Robin Power, Morris Day's statuesque girlfriend, who is better flattered in the glow of strobe lights) and egregious lip-synch fails. Despite the combined showman powers of Prince and Morris Day, a majority of their performances tend to fall back on flash at the expense of passion. "Thieves in the Temple" and "Round and Round" prove exceptions by going outside the club milieu, as well as showcasing Prince and Tevin Campbell's respective talents. But as fine as the soundtrack is (even with a lyric like "I'm testing positive for the funk/I'll gladly pee in anybody's cup"), Prince can't get the music to explode off the screen the way Purple Rain did over and over again.

There's also the chemistry problem from Under the Cherry Moon come back to haunt Graffiti Bridge, too. Whereas Kristin Scott Thomas at least proved a game foil for Prince's arrogance, Ingrid Chavez's character is explicitly a plot device, a ponderous pixie as light as the white feather she carries around. Even before the character experiences a clumsily-crafted "noble sacrifice" under the wheels of a runaway Jeep, Aura's attempts to give the movie a New Age gravity is likely to stir cynicism, especially when saddled with Prince's wishy-washy characterization and prattling prose. Put this deficiency next to a one-note Prince performance and the result is more superficial than spiritual.

In all fairness, I do not doubt Prince was genuinely trying to create a soulful but sexy plea for brotherhood and sanctification. And much like Under the Cherry Moon, there are plenty of entertaining moments to be gleaned, especially whenever Morris Day glides onto the screen. He's the callous hotshot elevated to Fool, if you get my drift, fumbling a pose by the Porsche, passing around a jar of hot peppers to test his lackeys' fealty or engaging in a "Dueling Banjos"-scored cash contest with right-hand man Jerome Benton. There's even a gay panic gag which slightly works because of Morris and Jerome's extended bug-eyed awkwardness (only for them to retch the laughter away). These are such crack comic talents, even Kevin Smith can recognize.

But Graffiti Bridge is ultimately Prince's vision, first and foremost, and the flow is treacherous. All of his eccentricities, personality shifts and single-minded visions are aired out in this movie even more than in his two previous vehicles. With its back lot recreation of Minneapolis' Seven Corners and Grease/Can't Stop the Music vet Bill Butler's cinematography, Graffiti Bridge posits a waifish-looking Prince as clubland's Saviour, but it's his boundless gifts as a musician/songwriter rather than his limitations as writer/director/actor that convinces you of such. Thus Graffiti Bridge makes a greater impression as a compilation album than a coherent movie, and once Prince devoted himself full-time to music afterwards, even if it meant crusading against Warner Brothers with "slave" on his cheek, his discography truly became his gospel.

And it is through these equally personal but far more soulful and frisky chapters of Prince's career (yes, that includes Emancipation and The Rainbow Children as well as his post-Musicology public revival) which I best recommend you honor the legacy of Prince. Visit the Tidal store and ride the wave of faith. But seek out Graffiti Bridge at your own peril, for it's enough to test your faith in the existence of angels.

Under the Cherry Moon

UNDER THE CHERRY MOON
(PG-13, Warner Bros. Pictures, 98 mins., theatrical release date: July 2, 1986)

The year is 1986: The Golden Raspberry Awards, in its seventh year of existence since a group of armchair critics declared Can't Stop the Music to be the nadir of 1980, has tabulated its first tie vote. This ceremony, which has since persisted in piggybacking off the Oscars but has proven just as inconsequential as the Golden Globes, seemed to take one good look at the turkey gallery of 1986 and couldn't settle on one "winner." Given how most objective critics at least have a single solitary movie per year to decree their least favorite viewing experience, it seems dodgy that the GRAs would call a draw.

Which one...I mean, two of the year's worst would go neck-and-neck? There were tempting choices, to say the least. Blue City, for instance, was the nail in the coffin for the so-called Brat Pack by virtue of casting Ally Sheedy and Judd Nelson in their most badly-received dual vehicle, although time has not been as kind to St. Elmo's Fire as the Razzie committee was in '85. Why Schumacher & Kurlander weren't creamed with a "Worst Screenplay" nod, I'll never understand.

Maybe Sylvester Stallone, whose Rambo and Rocky sequels were easy Razzie targets the previous year, would come away the victor for the deserving Cobra, an inept attempt at turning the Italian Stallion into the new Dirty Harry from the producers of non-nominee The Apple?

Or what about the dreaded Shanghai Surprise, which was every bit as bad as its reputation when I finally wrote about it?

Hell, maybe John B. Wilson would prank us and spring a dark horse winner? Maximum Overdrive? American Anthem? King Kong Lives? Tai-Pan?

Nope, 1986 was another fish-in-a-barrel year for the Razzies as they unanimously declared both Howard the Duck and Under the Cherry Moon the Worst Movies of 1986. Dino De Laurentiis, you lose again.

But why these two instead of one or the other? Or for that matter, Shanghai Surprise, which unlike Howard the Duck or Under the Cherry Moon has not developed a contrarian cult following and remains as adamantly disliked now as it was then. If it's a question of ego, then George Lucas and Prince would seem small potatoes compared to the combination of Sean Penn and Madonna.

In a word: publicity. The Raspberry committee was well aware of the poor receptions of both in all the various trades and papers, ubiquitous in their flopdom. These were the safest possible bets, and even an institute like the Raspberries took the bait unquestioningly.

The strangest thing about Howard the Duck since its release is that the film has actually been embraced in some horribly nostalgic way. I can't say I have a mental list of the three worst movies I'd single out in 1986, but rest assured that I probably would count Howard the Duck as one of my finalists. It was an affront to the legacy of Steve Gerber's scabrous Marvel comics, a colossal plummet from the brain trusts responsible for American Graffiti and a sad career point for all three principal actors. It was to Lea Thompson what Dirty Grandpa is for her daughter, Zoey Deutch. It was even more regrettable for Tim Robbins than Fraternity Vacation. And though Jeffrey Jones' disgrace as a sex offender remains fresh in my mind, could it be any less queasy-making than the botched interspecies romance between Beverly and Howard?

And Thomas Dolby's soundtrack was clearly a rip-off of what Prince had been doing to perfection ever since 1980.

The news of the passing of Prince Rogers Nelson has left a hole in my heart, to say the least. Of all the 1980s pop icons, from Michael to Cyndi to Madonna and (perhaps) Phil Collins, none of them were ever as consistent as The Artist Forever Known as Prince. From the moment he dressed himself down to a trench coat and bikini briefs on the cover of his Dirty Mind LP at the start of the decade, to the musique-concrete funk of his surprise chart-topper "Batdance," Prince satisfied some major sonic rumbles at the height of his fame. He did so-called "new wave" better with his brazen kinkiness, cross-pollinated genres with the precision of a true wunderkind and always kept people stymied at the growth he demonstrated from one project to another, even when the results were maddening.

Yet in 1986, Prince swept the Golden Raspberries with Worst Actor, Worst Director, Worst Original Song, and a joint Worst Picture for Under the Cherry Moon. Jerome Benton, who survived The Time to be with Prince's Revolution band, emerged scathed with Worst Supporting Actor. Newcomer Kristin Scott Thomas and screenwriter Becky Johnston must have narrowly avoided their respective nominations. In short, all the goodwill Prince gained with Purple Rain came crashing down in a rubble of hubris and gross miscalculation.

But the death of Prince has led me to evaluate both his narrative-based feature directorial efforts, Under the Cherry Moon and Graffiti Bridge. I carry a monumental reverence and sadness as I go, well aware of Prince's many notorieties and boundless talents. I can declare to the world (or at least those reading this) that there will never be another Prince in our future, no matter how hard Justin Timberlake, Kanye West or others may try. Even though my primary interest is film, I can listen to Prince's records, especially Sign o' the Times, and hear a genius in every groove.

As for the movie, it...doesn't quite suck like many have said. I'd watch Under the Cherry Moon over Howard the Duck or Shanghai Surprise or Cobra every time. The real dilemma is how much of my enjoyment is from vicarious train wreck fascination or simple allegiance to Prince.

Based on the massive cross-promotional popularity of Purple Rain, Prince decided to switch things up several notches cinematically as well as musically. His subsequent LP, 1985's Around the World in a Day, flirted with Beatles-era psychedelic textures and string arrangements. Legend has it that Prince was incubating this sound in his head even before the blockbuster soundtrack to Purple Rain made the rounds. Furthermore, the impetus was a demo tape cut by Wendy Melvoin & Lisa Coleman, paralleling the friction on screen in the movie. That follow-up's "The Ladder" even included a co-writing credit for the real-life paterfamilias John Nelson, who came out to support his estranged son by this time.

Despite Prince's resistance to established promotional means like pre-release singles, concert tours and promo videos, Around the World in a Day spawned a couple of hits, by turns randy ("Raspberry Beret") and skeptical ("Pop Life"), not to mention fan favorites like "Paisley Park" (the name of Prince's distribution label) and "Condition of the Heart." But the teller is the closing track, an eight-minute grind called "Temptation" which morphs from burlesque to damnation in as wild a manner as only Prince can concoct. Imagine "Automatic" from 1999 interjected with the pitch-shifted voice of God which opened that album:

"Oh, silly man. That's not how it works. U have 2 want it for the right reasons."
"I do."
"U don't, now die!"
"NO! NOOOO!!"

This beginning to see the light ("Love is more important than sex. Now I understand") is baked into the courtship plot of Under the Cherry Moon, as Prince was set off on the great thematic push-pull dynamic which would be blown four sides open with Sign o' the Times. His Royal Badness still dressed in flamboyantly sexy ways and celebrated being "in the mood for drawers," but the time had come for making soul connections. Thus Christopher Tracy, Prince's alter ego, ends up compromising his gigolo ways for deeper courtship of 21-year-old heiress Mary Sharon (Kristin Scott Thomas).

Christopher Tracy, not just the pseudonym Prince was credited as on The Bangles' "Manic Monday," is a piano-plinking lothario who sets his lascivious sights on the unsatisfied debutantes of the French Riviera. Flanked by his fellow Miami émigré Tricky (Jerome Benton), Tracy catches wind of the ultimate grift in the figure of Mary, a prim but not-completely-repressed society child worth $50 million. He crashes Mary's birthday gala with seduction in his eyes and dollar signs on his mind, but in patented princess vs. pauper screwball fashion, Tracy antagonizes himself to her immediately. Tracy and Mary will inevitably make up/out in the manner Prince sang about in the pursed-lipped hit single which inaugurated the film, but not without reprisal from her powerful papa Isaac (Steven Berkoff).

Aside from evoking tradition in Becky Johnston's script, where class and gender conflicts are compressed into snappy repartee, Under the Cherry Moon was beget with the kind of production troubles which doom vanity projects from the word "go." Kristin Scott Thomas was scouted in the waning days of pre-production after Madonna and Susannah Melvoin fell through, whereas Terence Stamp quit two weeks into filming and was replaced by Mr. Berkoff. The black-and-white photography was conceived after filming, thus going further against the expectations set by Purple Rain. Perhaps most controversial was the decision to jettison Mary Lambert, who directed the retro-minded video for Madonna's "Material Girl" amongst a couple of her other MTV staples ("Borderline," "Like a Virgin"), and demote her to "creative consultant."

Whatever the sordid details of his ultimate control over the project, at least Prince had some of his work cut out for him. German DP Michael Ballhaus, who would become a regular collaborator of Martin Scorsese's from After Hours to The Departed, makes a paradise of Nice and displays plenty of fluid compositions which make more sense monochromatically. Esteemed production designer Richard Sylbert and returning costume designer Marie France also excel in their contributions to the candle-lit grottos and outré fashions, giving Prince a convincing Valentino-style makeover (it's a better tribute to the idol than Bolero, for damn sure) and fitting Thomas in sparkling flapper wear. And the background score of Prince & The Revolution originals, released as Parade, is a four-star assemblage of stylistic detours swirling in rococo minimalism ("Do U Lie," "Venus de Milo") and transcendent permutations of Prince's finger-snapping pop-funk ("Girls & Boys," "Kiss," "Christopher Tracy's Parade"). By the time it wraps up with the eulogy "Sometimes It Snows in April," even the more ordinary moments ("Life Can Be So Nice," "Anotherloverholenyohead") can be accepted on their own terms.

Alas, Parade remains a tight 41 minutes long whereas Under the Cherry Moon lasts 100 minutes in a journey not as wholly rewarding. To be clear, it is not because Prince moulds it into the opposite of Purple Rain, cutting way back on the musical numbers (the only performance piece, "Girls & Boys," is rendered diegetic through use of a boom box; everything else is laid over) and pushing harder towards goofy comedy as opposed to the gloomy melodramas which dogged The Kid. This is a Bugs Bunny-style cartoon of himself rather than a diminutive Jimmy Dean, and Prince camps it up with gusto whether making "Bela Lugosi eyes" at his landlady or poking at the racial dissimilarities between him and Tricky ("Butterscotch...chocolate"). Jerome Benton is equally refreshing in a more substantial comedic role than as Morris Day's mirror-toting foil ("I'm my own man, just like Liberace!"). And Mary's first lesson in Ebonics ("wrecka stow," which kinda sounds French) is rightly embraced as a show-stopper. 

Purple Rain was tailor-made for Prince's magnetism as a stage performer. There's a reason why the movie ends with three back-to-back songs, benediction demanding an encore. It would seem wise that Under the Cherry Moon instead highlight his boisterous, subversively frisky persona, the kind which appalled AOR-damaged sheep, censorious senators' wives and fuddy-duddy film scribes ("Am I black or white? Am I straight or gay?" and "Don't you wanna play?"). Though Tricky later acts as a mouthpiece for divine union, he's dressed up in the same button-studded ensemble Prince used to promote "Kiss."

Prince radiates challenging such sex appeal, and Kristin Scott Thomas puts up an ample fight against Tracy's irritating disarmament whilst looking just as attractive. Which brings me to the one flaw which ultimately undoes Prince's amnesty as an actor: Christopher Tracy and Mary Sharon hardly make an impression as a romantic couple. Yes, we see them make passes over the telephone. They frolic along the beach and make goo-goo eyes at each other. They engage in heavy petting in a payphone. But Prince's direction and Johnston's script never convincingly thaws out either party's defensive personalities to really attain the romantic union Prince seeks as an alternative to lust.

Just like the last time an 80s pop idol tried to anchor a modernized screwball comedy, I must decree that Under the Cherry Moon is no The Sure Thing.

Mary is presented as a carefree soul who casually flashes spectators at her birthday party [side note: one of Mary's friends is played by Pamela Ludwig, a favorite of teen drama specialist Tim Hunter, known for the classics Over the Edge and Tex] and plays drums impromptu. At first, her relatable animosity towards Tracy is equal parts class contempt and mistrust over his intentions. The movie should progress with her desires for love and independence opening her up to Tracy's idea of "fun" and making her less brittle, but it never happens. She stands up for herself in a compelling diatribe to her mother late in the game, but Mary remains a klutzy mix of virginal cipher and upper-crust cookie.

And then there's Prince.

I'm not a big fan of the Pet Sematary movies, and trading in one pop video director for another probably wouldn't mean a wide gulf in quality. But speaking as a cineaste, I think the best director for Prince was virtually anyone but himself. There comes a point when Tracy should tone it down, just as much as Mary, but again, nothing of the sort. This spells disaster for the chemistry between Prince and Thomas, as the one convincing moment of emotional growth is a poem read off screen ("An Honest Man") as Mary lies alone in the grotto. Prince may have been sincere in his studied allusions to Golden Age opposites-attract movies from America and Europe, but here the will is hardly as strong as the flesh.

Which is a shame, because Prince is gracious enough even at his most overheated to allow his fellow performers moments to bare their talent, most beneficially Jerome Benton. When Tracy and Tricky debate their seduction and business rivalries, Benton is endearingly cocky and deflates tension with a solid one-liner. When Tracy is ultimately felled by the Coast Guard, Tricky seems genuinely mournful even when he mutters a recurring, maternal scold. Putting aside any homoerotic accusations against the buddy dynamic between them, Under the Cherry Moon lives up to its potential whenever Prince and Jerome take the screen together.

All in all, it's impossible to take Under the Cherry Moon seriously, which may have been Prince's intention. Whereas Purple Rain preached that "We are gathered here today to get through this thing called life," the philosophy guiding Under the Cherry Moon is that "Life is a parade" (if not a cabaret, Kander/Ebb-style). Removed from 30 years of infamy and in the light of countless re-evaluations of Prince's inimitable legacy, I feel like Under the Cherry Moon's disastrous reputation seems fairly out of proportion. It's never going to be hailed a masterpiece, as the movie goes from laissez faire to lackluster without as much insinuating bravado as Christopher Tracy himself demonstrates.

But as someone who wouldn't have minded if Jerome Benton had a supporting role in a Kid 'n' Play comedy, one who can contextualize the "Kiss" B-side "Love or Money" (the Worst Original Song of 1986, sez the Razzies) as being a test run for the Camille persona Prince made great on "If I Was Your Girlfriend" and just someone who really wishes Prince the same happiness in the afterworld that the end credits here offer (a music video for "Mountains," complete with Sapphic chanteuses Wendy & Lisa, Eric Leeds on the sax and the mighty Dr. Fink), I can't hate Under the Cherry Moon like I do most of the famous fiascoes that come my way.

The bonus music videos featured on the DVD helped to sway my opinion, since there were no other extras to be found besides the theatrical trailer. The video for the bona-fide classic "Kiss" remains a cheeky blast, with Prince writhing in tight black pants with a veiled dancer in black lingerie, all the while Wendy Melvoin struggles to play straight woman. The other clips are also quite joyful, from a color-corrected re-edit of "Mountains" to a scorching live version of "Anotherloverholenyohead" taped from Detroit (incidentally, the show was held on Prince's 28th birthday as part of the Revolution's soon-to-be-final tour). But the odd gem out is "Girls & Boys," which works in footage of the entire, extended band this time around and ends on a sublimely ridiculous note courtesy of...who else, Jerome Benton.

If the ghost of Prince were to haunt Jerome ("Boo!"), I can only hope that the latter's reaction remains no less than ham slam. Thank you, man.

Cannon Fodder: The Apple (1980)

THE APPLE
(PG, Cannon Films, 86 mins., theatrical release date: November 21, 1980)

[Welcome to Cannon Fodder, in which I endure a handful of "classics" from the Golan-Globus production team in advance of my review of Mark Hartley's Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films. I will tackle as many different movies from various points in the duo's timeline, from the early success of Operation Thunderbolt to the infamous Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. We begin with one of the early Cannon efforts, and the first of many in the "so bad it's good" legacy they've achieved. "It's an actual, actual, actual desire..."]

I broke down 40 minutes into The Apple, when Barbarella's vocally-deficient kid sister tried to belt a raucous anthem about America's need for "speeeeeeeeeeed." My palate needed cleansing, therefore I went to YouTube and pulled up a popular clip from Teen Witch.

You know what I'm talking about...

"Top That," with its Beastly Boys and pathetic ideal of adolescent cool, is still a better number than anything in The Apple.

I shouldn't have to write a review on The Apple. The comparison should speak for itself, but The Apple is low-hanging fruit in a sequined thong.

Menahem (remember to pronounce it as Mun-Ackum) Golan and Yoram Globus had just bought Cannon Films at this time, and it looks like they wasted few precious moments cementing their legacy as the ghastliest, gaudiest production company to ever schmuck up the cinemas.

The story was originally conceived as an epic Hebrew musical theater production by Coby and Iris Recht. Overhauled by Golan himself as writer/director, The Apple ended up another in the late 1970s spate of opulent disco cash-ins, released the same year as Xanadu and Can't Stop the Music. Disco Demolition Night was a year old by the time The Apple played, and with the exception of Olivia Newton-John's songs from Xanadu, this trio of turkeys drove America further into the arms of AOR. We as a nation went from the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever to Hi Infidelity so capriciously.

Obviously, it didn't help that the premiere screening of The Apple at the El Capitan turned into Comiskey Park 2. Audience members who were given complimentary vinyl versions of the soundtrack album eventually started hurling them at the screen. Menahem Golan was apparently suicidal over the movie's poor reception back in Europe, but recovered soon enough so that the world was given such questionable gifts to film-going as Death Wish II, The Last American Virgin and his own Enter the Ninja.

To quote the main villain of The Apple, "Nostalgia is always dangerous." What better explanation is there for why The (Rotten) Apple has rode such a wave of retroactive awe that it washed up in my shores?

Set a decade after the Orwellian boiling point that was 1984, The Apple pillages from established junk culture in both popular music and movie musicals yet harbors loftier ambitions beyond its cavalcade of gold lamé, vampire teeth and repeated crimes against the earlobe.

In a future where pop music rules society, the 1994 Worldvision Song Contest is the stage for an Old Testament-copped struggle between good vs. evil. The latter is represented by Satanic agent Mr. Boogalow (Vladek Sheybal) and his assistant Shake (Ray Shell, the Meshach Taylor of his era), as well as their hedonistic star singers Dandi & Pandi (Alan Love, Grace Kennedy). Opposing this fey foursome are Alphie & Bibi (George Gilmour, Catherine Mary Stewart), lovey-dovey folkies from Moose Jaw, Canada. After nearly causing an upset which Mr. Boogalow and Shake manage to suppress, these beaten babes are enticed to join Boogalow's circus of glam and ham. Alphie is deterred by apparitions of Eden-style temptation as he tries to sign the contract, but Bibi bites easy and hard, becoming Boogalow's latest protégé and driving Alphie to destitution.

As the mindless masses fall under the spell of Boogalow International Music and their pop-rock propaganda, Alphie soon finds salvation in a commune of hippies (led by Joss Ackland in a role more worthy of regret than De Nomolos from Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey) and is joined by lapsed disco dolly Bibi. When Mr. Boogalow tracks them down and demands Bibi's arrest for reneging on her contract, a power greater than the Devil himself arrives in a gold Rolls ("Marc Almond! No?! BOOO!!!") to take the teens to their final destination.

Catherine Mary Stewart, looking in the film for all the world like a young Kelly Clarkson (while the equally underperforming Gilmour, in his only credit, arrives as Warren Beatty), talked about how Golan aspired to be "better than Ken Russell," but The Apple isn't so much Tommy. For all its kitsch, Golan never once has Stewart writhe sensually in a flood of creamed vegetables. No, it's apt to see The Apple instead as a Godspell-Phantom of the Paradise hybrid knock-off with more transvestites than The Rocky Horror Picture Show and less infectious tunes.

A friend of mine who's married to an online critic (who, incidentally, gave this film a sincere rave, the lunatic) knows musician friends who bought The Apple as industry satire, mocking a machine so prefab and crass that the only way out is through unwavering integrity and a pinch of divine intervention. While I see things in The Apple which could support their enthusiasm, there are more dead-bang jokes in Phantom of the Paradise and This Is Spinal Tap. The height of intentional wit in The Apple is to parachute in Miriam Margolyes as Alphie's Bubbe-esque landlady, a bit of comic relief that cannot light the menorah once followed by the infamous "National Bim Hour" montage, a fitting prelude to the hospital dance-a-thon in Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo.

More than any Biblical pretense or bizness lampoonery, what The Apple is really about is, naturally, music. This 86-minute film has about an hour's worth of production numbers, songs written exclusively for the film by musician Coby Recht and lyricists Iris Yotvat & George S. Clinton, the latter a Cannon employee not to be confused with the leader of Parliament/Funkadelic. Nigel Lythgoe choreographed the dance moves, and would go on to fulfill one of The Apple's half-baked prophecies as executive producer of American Idol.

Unfortunately, every moment in which The Apple breaks into song-and-dance stops the movie cold. Like Robert Christgau reviewing David Bowie's over-the-top singing on Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps), if the awfulness of the music here is supposed to be a joke, it's not worth the pain. Lyrics are awkwardly crammed into subpar melodies, for one. Aside from the futility to make a hook out of the phrase "Life is nothing but show business in 1994," the opening number "(Do the) BIM" has a chorus constantly drilled into your skull which threatens that "BIM's on the way." I heard "BIM's the only way," although they could have been also singing "BIM's Yahweh." The point is there are tons more non-rhyming, repetitive blunders meant to condescend to refugees of the current vapid pop scene.

The music of The Apple is processed late 1970s cheese all the way ("Hey, hey, hey!!!"), flavorless slices of imitation Supertramp, Bonnie Tyler and The Carpenters (where's Paul "Swan" Williams when you really need him?) to garnish your Bim Burger (I'm not making that up, there is an actual restaurant in the movie which sells those). The Karen & Richard connection applies to Alphie & Bibi, whose own showcase songs are no less cringe-inducing than Boogelow's blooze. Their utopian schmaltzfest "(Love) The Universal Melody" doesn't convince at the start, but the duo's nadir is the mopey rock ballad "Cry for Me" ("Where has all the pity gone?"), a song which makes REO Speedwagon sound like Big Brother & The Holding Company.

There is a weird novelty to a couple of these abortions, it must be said. Never has a synthetic doo-wop duet (call it "Since I Don't Have ‘Since I Don't Have You' ") been voiced by a deathless Roger Daltrey clone and the dim ingénue he has just drugged. Never has a barnacle of a cod reggae song been mangled by a thick-accented Machiavellian who gloats into the ear of his pretty puppet. And if you wanted something to put the "o" in solo but were just too bashful to admit you owned "More, More, More" by the Andrea True Connection, well, The Apple has another thing "Coming." 

The Apple is one of those movies impossible to NOT make sound like a majestic monument of manure. This is a film in which the heroine is allowed the easiest possible escape all because Pandi has fucked the BIM away (and is subsequently slapped by the sissy black guy). One where an extra with a hoser accent yells at the heroes to "Go back to Moose Jaw!" One in which you could deduce major penis envy from its creator stemming from being denied entry into Studio 54. But given the combined non-efforts of the terrible music, the ridiculous dancing (BIM's prime directive is to pull no punches against the oxygen) and Menahem Golan's pedestrian sense of style, my first viewing of this was arduous.

It only got worse the second time I watched.

My nutty suspicion about the Israelis of Cannon is that as filmmakers, they were such fine producers. I will elaborate further as I go along, but suffice to say that Golan is genuine in his lack of finesse. The Apple is over rather quickly and has a sliver of showmanship important to the success of any musical, but there are Italian Road Warrior wannabes which are filmed more proficiently and look more believably dystopian.

And hippies, Mr. Golan? Seriously?!

 

The Dead Inside (2011)

THE DEAD INSIDE
(Unrated, Drexelbox Films, 99 minutes, screened April 3, 2011 at the Phoenix Film Festival)

Meet Harper and Max, married survivors of the zombie apocalypse who wander the desolate, sun-baked earth foraging for food. Alas, it’s not all so peachy keen, as the lovebirds have long turned into the walking dead themselves, and the locked door they approach is where they hope to find fresh meat to feast upon in solace from the rest of the pustulating pack. Their brains may have atrophied but they still have their wits, as they bicker over Harper’s moaning for brains reducing them to a cliché (anyways, she’s “more of a large intestine girl”) and Max futilely suggests they turn the handle. They face a challenge, as does their creator, series novelist Fiona Cella (Sarah Lassez): “How do I open this f***ing door?”

The Dead Inside is not to be confused with another film of the same title released in 2011 nor the 2013 British movie, both of whom have lower IMDb scores. No, this is from Indiana indie filmmaker Travis Betz, and this Dead Inside is not a movie I am wholly unfamiliar with, having first seen it at the 2011 Phoenix Film Festival on  my 27th birthday before its DVD release through Monarch Home Entertainment in 2012. Betz won the year’s Dan Harkins Breakthrough Filmmaker Award, as well as a couple other accolades in Los Angeles, one of which was for Best Score.

That aforementioned query from Fiona is not simply stated but sung, for The Dead Inside is also a musical, with original songs written by Joel Van Vliet (no relation to Captain Beefheart) and Betz. As Fiona, nicknamed Fi, frets over her ever-debilitating struggle with writer’s block, her photographer boyfriend Wesley (Dustin Fasching) returns from another unfulfilling assignment wondering where his heart went. With both of their respective muses having fled, Wes and Fi romanticize a real-life zombie apocalypse that would give Wes more time to be with Fi so they can rule the world themselves.

If only fate was so fortunate. Fi fails to cope with a form of violent anxiety which reveals itself as supernatural and highly possessive. Wes tries both admitting her to psychiatric care and conducting an exorcism after she’s found having sliced her own finger off and levitating over their bed in the middle of the night. It soon becomes clear that Fi’s body has been taken over by the spirit of a deceased woman named Emily, and a battle of wills develops between Wes and the manipulative entity determined to live forever within Fi.

Betz has fashioned a movie from three distinct tones centered strictly around one setting and two actors, although The Dead Inside is aptly named in regards to the themes of dry comedy, romance and drama which he juxtaposes. First, there’s the fictional Harper & Max siege which, in actuality, serves to lighten the load whenever the focus shifts to them. These moments bleed into the main conflict in the real world once Harper falls under a hex which renders her human again, but that doesn’t stop Betz from having Max test Harper’s condition by forcing her to eat a dog’s severed leg. The Dead Inside also refers to both the stunted ambitions of Wes and Fi as well as, ultimately, their own personalities once Emily’s ghost takes residence.

Lassez and Fasching are counted on to act as three separate characters, although the former has the trickier task since one purely exists as the host for another. Fi is drawn with a fair amount of quirks, such as pitching a makeshift fort in the living room whenever she gets depressed, as well as a propensity for profanity in song, but she doesn’t come across as well as her portrayal of Emily, whose depth eclipses that of Fi. Lassez does well enough to differentiate both personas physically, but the clearer arc is demonstrated by Fasching’s Wes, who at least tries to understand Emily’s tragic back story involving an abusive lover and an unborn son but deduces that she hasn’t told him the bitter truth about her death, which plunges him deeper into a mentally-unbalanced fury. Ultimately, the film forgoes black comedy completely to reach at tragedy, although not without considerable strain on its momentum.

There are also the songs to deal with, which include not one but two breakdown-themed vehicles for Fi (“Leave” and “Control”) as well as a tender ballad from Wes concerning his signature on the release papers that will place his girlfriend in the sanitarium. The highlights amongst them are the “Zombie Apocalypse” love song, the contentious tango of “Doomsday” and the self-descriptive “Emily’s Story,” which allows Lassez to demonstrate an impressive lilt in her voice. These are not just the best songs in the batch, finding emotional resonance outside of the pitfalls of novelty value, but also fine showcases for Betz the visual stylist. The songs uniformly work better in the movie rather than as standalone listens, though.

The best hook to be found is how The Dead Inside plays early on with the notion of metaphorical undeath in regards to artistry, with Fi’s schizophrenia and self-mutilating impulses lending a visceral edge that jibes well with the cutaway zombie gags. It doesn’t tie together as well as it should the more it continues, but Travis Betz does show potential to do a lot with limited resources and an undiluted feel for the multi-faceted macabre.