Category: Musical

UNDER THE CHERRY MOON

By Marc S. Sanders

Prince!  The vanity on this guy!!!!!  Watching his second film, Under The Cherry Moon, is to indulge in Prince’s pride, Prince’s ego, Prince’s conceit, Prince’s vanity.  The Purple One, of which I’m an admitted fan of his music, directs his own picture here in beautiful black and white cinematography, compliments of Michael Ballhaus.  That is where the accolades end though.

The film is set along The French Riviera.  Prince never speaks French in the film, nor does anyone else.  So why are we in France again?  He plays a kid named Christopher and along with his best pal, Tricky (musician Jerome Benton) spend their days glorifying Christopher (or Prince as Christopher) and swindling wealthy heiresses as they continue to live a life decadence in outrageous outfits, high heels and a modicum of makeup to especially keep Prince-I’m sorry-Christopher looking gloriously sexy, pretty and handsome.  At night, while putting on music acts in various drinking establishments, they seek out their female prey. 

When Christopher notices Mary (Kristin Scott Thomas, in her feature film debut), he and Tricky go to work.  Somehow Tricky falls instantly in love with Mary.  (I think.  The two hardly have a scene alone together.  Prince monopolizes most of the space.)  Chris plays the “Prince Adonis” with teasing flirtations, ridiculous get ups and so on.  Later, he will fall in love with Mary.  We are supposed to believe Mary falls in love with Chris too.  But let’s come down to reality here, please.  Tricky grows angry and blah blah blah.  You’ve seen this tripe in better fare from the minds of Looney Toons shorts.  A side story character is Mary’s wealthy possessive father, Isaac (Steven Berkoff, playing the same kind of villain he did in Rambo and Beverly Hills Cop).  What do you think he’s here for?  Right!!!!!  He disapproves of Christopher and refuses to let Mary see him.

Beyond the terrible acting of this piece with vomit inducing kissing scenes involving Prince and Thomas, the film is an annoying, pesky love letter from Prince to Prince.  It’d be impossible for me to count how many close ups he does of himself.  Prince is a poet and a brilliant lyricist as well.  However, the script is littered with expressions and slang that feels like they popped into Prince’s head at one time or another.  He must have jotted it down on napkins, and then he passed it all on to the credited screenwriter, Becky Johnston,  instructing her to work this stuff into the dialogue.  Things are uttered out of nowhere, for no reason.  Conversations don’t make sense at times.  Certain words feel like the have a good rhyme.  So, make it work Becky! Mmmkay!

On other occasions, Prince and Kristin Scott Thomas will share scenes together just sitting there with nothing to say, as if it is a director’s (Prince’s) own artistic choice.  Prince is no Terrance Malick.  The gaze and the pose (of Prince!) says it all.  Calvin Klein commercials have more depth.  A phone call scene between the two goes on for a good three minutes.  They never speak into the phone.  They just hold it to their ears.  The edit goes back and forth on them and again…they don’t speak!  Prince makes it exciting by chewing on a cracker.  In another film, this would’ve been cutting room floor material.  You would think this is behind the scenes stuff and the actors were waiting for the sticks to snap and “Action!” to be called out.

Samples of Prince’s music are peppered throughout the movie.  The sounds are good for the most part, but that’s all they are.  Just random sounds.  Most of the music is not complete and seem like samples that were experimented on in a kid’s garage.  The music does not cue up anything.  None of it heightens any developments or drama or comedy.  At times the tunes will obnoxiously interrupt a scene, much like a mariachi band may intrude on an intimate dinner at a quiet restaurant.  Prince loves his music though.  So, he wakes up and tells his film/sound editors to put this and this and this into the film.  Context man.  Context!!!!!!!  What about the context?????

Under The Cherry Moon is an immature film, made by an immature filmmaker with a very mature photographer (Ballhaus).  It’s tripe of the most shamelessly vain kind.  It’s been three days since I saw the picture, and I have yet to think of another film more ridiculously conceited and egotistical.  My Cinephile colleague, Anthony, is a proud Prince fan.  He has a wealth of knowledge on the famed musician.  He’s learned to be forgiving of this film’s shortcomings.  I assured him when we sat down to watch this that I was going in with an open mind, especially when the gorgeous black and white shows up on the screen.  When the movie was over, however, I explained that this might have become something with an admirable B movie cult following, had Prince at least agreed to welcome another director to oversee the picture.  Someone needed to be watching the one in charge and humble the poor guy because if I want to look at various captions of Prince, all I need to do is lay out his album covers on my bed and pick up a Rolling Stone magazine.  I did not have to subject myself to Under The Cherry Moon.

MAMMA MIA!

By Marc S. Sanders

So at the urging of a close friend of mine, Alicia Spiegel, we all jumped in to watch the Dancing Queens, from the celebrated musical, Mamma Mia!

It’s a fun family film full of gorgeous, eye popping colors.  REALLY EYE POPPING!!!!!  Stay for the closing credits.  Wow Pierce Brosnan! You sure took a huge leap from James Bond here, that’s for sure.  Liberace, and maybe Elton John, would even blush at having to wear some of the costumes on display.  Naturally there are the big musical numbers as well, and big, I mean HUGELY ASTRONOMICAL MOMENTS OF JOY AND CHEERFULNESS!!!!  Jeez, the excitement of Meryl Streep, Amanda Seyfried, Christine Baranski and company make happiness look like an incurable disease. 

The sugar coated, dipped in maple syrup, and showered in Jolt Cola corniness of Mamma Mia! is so sweet, you’ll have a fresh cavity by the time the film reaches its halfway point.  Still, during these challenging times,  it’s not so bad I guess, and likely just what we all need.  

The film concerns itself more with having fun than anything else amid a simple story of a young bride secretly inviting three likely candidates (Brosnan, Colin Firth and Stellan Skarsgard), one of which is potentially her biological father, to her upcoming nuptials, which will take place on the Greek Islands.  This welcomes awkward moments for the gentlemen when they each reunite with Streep.  It’s all very sitcomy.

The soundtrack uses the disco book of ABBA, complete with Waterloo, Take A Chance On Me and of course Mamma Mia!.  Though I appreciate the music of ABBA, my main issue is that other than two numbers (Slipping Through My Fingers and my favorite The Winner Takes It All), I could not see how any of the remaining music meshes with the story.   How do the lyrics of these songs drive the story of the musical?  I could not make a connection, and so I found myself asking why are they suddenly breaking out into Dancing Queen, for example.  What does this show stopping number have to do with the structure of the story?  The cast could have just as easily broken into We Will Rock You or Walk Like An Egyptian, and the lyrical relevance to the plot would have been just as separated.  No character sings a song that identifies with their respective purpose to the story.

Meryl Streep always challenges herself.  No two characters of hers are really ever the same, and thus she’s able to pull off a musical lead effectively.  I heard people frowned on Pierce Brosnan’s vocals, but I didn’t take issue.  I liked his duet with Streep.  Seyfried is a good compliment to Streep in a mother/daughter relationship as well.  Christine Baranski as Streep’s best friend is welcome and over the top silly escapism.

It won’t ever be my favorite film musical, but if I’m at a friend’s house and the majority wanna turn this on, then I’ll watch and enjoy the whole gang getting swept up in the Greek Isle setting of Utopian celebration and happiness.  I just won’t need to snack on my Mike & Ike’s or sip on my extra large Coke.  There’s already enough sugar emanating from the screen.