so, late pass on something prince did

Wrecka sto

So, I'm an awful blogger. Awful awful awful at this. However, I thought I'd write about this odd film I saw today (and hey, I'll write about films too, it's my blog dammit) by the name of Under the Cherry Moon. If you didn't know, it's directed by Prince. It's a weird one.

The follow-up to over-extended music video Purple Rain, Cherry Moon has Prince playing an actual character (!) rather than Purple Rain's Kid and, eh, he gets on as okay as somebody with that much natural charisma has. He plays Chris, a gigolo who steals money from rich French women with the help of his half-brother Tricky (Jerome Benton, now and forever the guy from The Time who holds the mirror up to Morris Day during "Jungle Love"). For their latest heist, they hear about an heiress by the name of Mary Sharon (Kristin Scott Thomas in her first screen role) and decide to take her $50 million trust fund. Then there's some stuff about her father and his corruption, as well as Chris' gig as a pianist, but really now, all that stuff, pssh, it whizzes by.

People hate this movie. Hell, Kristin Scott Thomas hates this movie: "When I left drama school...I was more afraid of not working at all than of the actual material I was being offered. And if you look at my very first film, you'll understand exactly what I mean." It won (is "won" the right word to use here?) five awards at the 1986 Razzies. It can't quite decide what film it ever wants to be: it is a screwball comedy, a rom-com, a heist film, a melodrama, and Prince is pretty much doing whatever the hell he wants at any given time. Nobody is really acting on the same quality level at any given time (when Prince cries, it's always funny) and the script is, er, an acquired taste. Oh, and did I mention that it's set entirely in Cannes during a time period that mixes together the 80s and 40s without ever truly deciding on which decade?

But because I'm weird and like films other people hate, I turned out kinda liking Under the Cherry Moon. It reminded me of Idlewild, the OutKast vehicle from a few years back, and Prince's film was probably a massive inspiration on that film for the idea of making a film set in a total fantasy world. Sure, the movies do that more than anything, but both Idlewild and Cherry Moon are obsessed with artifice, with cliche, with movie people doing movie things that only ever happen in movies. There's no need for the heiress' father to have the cops on his payroll and basically be corrupt, but hey, it's been done before - same goes for Benton's hysterical sidekick (he yells his way through this film and I really dug it) and Scott Thomas' totally inconsistent vamp/virgin/rebel. The main reason I liked Under the Cherry Moon is because it is a total fantasy, an illusion, a true movie. Mash cultures and times together, mash the characters together, mash the genres together. It's messy, but it's devoted to the artifice that we all kinda take for granted by watching better films.

Oh, and the soundtrack's great (released under the name Parade). Here's some songs from it:

Prince - Life Can Be So Nice
Prince - Mountains
Prince - Sometimes It Snows In April