Purple Rain and the Castro Theatre are a film/venue combination of a perfection that might be matched only by screening Milk at the Castro, or The Hippie Temptation at the Red Vic, or Das Boot at Opera Plaza. Naturally, Friday night’s Purple Rain screening was an event to dress for, and in addition to the requisite spectacular drag ensembles, many wore their flashiest ’80s regalia: distressed denim, winged eye shadow, pumps with lacy anklets, bangles, bangles, and more bangles. Prince’s costar in Purple Rain, Apollonia, gracious and looking somehow younger than she did in the movie, chatted with Peaches Christ before a worshipful audience, later signing posters and posing for photos. The line of fans snaked through the second story of the house during the show and long after. I don’t know that I’ve ever found the experience of watching such a bad film to be so moving. And it is definitely an exquisitely bad film that has gotten even worse with age. The story and dialogue do not merit discussion, and Prince still claims his throne at the nadir of pop-star film-acting (and the rest of the cast almost manage to upstage him in this regard). He stares, paces, swats at things, and resumes staring. It’s odd that such loin-frostingly awkward sex scenes nearly garnered the film an X rating — the ham-handed boob kneading, the kissing like two Brillo pads sniffing each other while the director yells, “Put some neck into it!”
Fabulousness times two: Apollonia and Peaches Christ
The only shocker is the film’s blasé stance on violence against women. Morris throws a female fan into a dumpster in what is evidently a comic moment. The Kid (Prince) slaps Apollonia several times, and with such force, we are asked to believe, that she slams into the ground. The only reprimand he receives is her “Why can’t you just let me love you?” weeping and the club owner (who is apparently Cee-Lo Green)’s remark that he’s turning into his abusive, tortured father, an insult met with stare #403. One is left to assume that his soulful, stareful performance of the abstruse power ballad of the title (written by the humorless lesbian stereotypes he spent the rest of the film dismissing) indicates that he’s reformed. (continue reading)
I’ve talked before about how helpful it is for galleries to offer food and refreshments at openings, that a lot of art seems more beautiful, profound, socially conscious, and politically relevant to the well-fed and slightly tipsy. I lamented the shocking lack of cheese cubes as well as the austere Kruschev-era-style Perrier-rationing at 49 Geary, an unfortunate state of things on its own, but especially piteous in light of something I heard at the most recent first Thursday. A couple of stalwart art lovers who’d attended the monthly art walk since 2001 said that in former days of plenty, not only did the galleries there serve more generous amounts of water, champagne, and wine — and in glasses made of glass rather than plastic – but in what now seems like an ecstasy of largesse, offered entire wheels of cheese. I was ready to despair that America’s best days really were behind it, and that that behind, happily fattened on bries as fragrant as the feet of French angels, had waddled away forever. (continue reading)
Writhing in Apathy 