Prince Films... were they really that bad?

geechiedan

Rising Star
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Under the Cherry Moon, All style & like nothing people were expecting.
 
Sign of the Times was basically a concert movie, so it doesn't really count. As far as the others, Purple Rain obviously was the best. Under the Cherry moon wasn't good, however I applaud Prince for firing his director and doing his movie, his way. Even if the results weren't good. Grafitti Bridge had a weak storyline and looked as if it were filmed right at Paisley Park. Oh my bad, it was! Again, not very good and the music was very weak and really couldnt support a film. However, being the Ultimate Prince fan that I am, I found a way to see some of the redeeming factors that these two movies had and was able to appreciate them even though honestly they were not very good. I guess I appreciated the artistry and vision.
 
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Cherry moon was bad lol. But its Prince, theres always something u can take away from his stuff.

Graffiti Bridge was like Purple Rain-lite, just one long music video. Cool for what it was, an inside look into Prince's mind imo.

Purple Rain is undoubtedly his best film....and a good film too.
 
Okay if we're going to be real. I mean really 'real'. Then yeah, all of his movies were pretty terrible.
But I grew up watching Purple Rain so I have nostalgia for that movie. And for every bad thing in that movie there is something good. Morris Day spent half the movie laughing like he was auditioning for the role of the Joker. But everything with Apollonia was :rise:. And the movie did a great job balancing the scenes with bad acting by cutting to great musical numbers.
 
Purple rain was good for an 80s movie. Most of them are bad, and were bad then. Under the Cherry moon had a decent storyline, and the light hearted banter between Prince and Jerome kinda worked. Graffiti bridge though......... That shit was terrible. Watched it once and never again...
 
Prince on film....he tried..bless his heart...

About Graffiti Bridge:
According to Terry Lewis, the film was originally a vehicle for The Time, but "in the end the story got lost and it became a Prince picture. But that was cool. I think our rapport with Prince is better now than it's ever been, because there's a mutual respect in the air… Plus we got to hang out for six months on somebody else's budget." Morris Day explained: "A sequel to Purple Rain is what it ended up being. And the role that The Time plays is, well, crooks. In Purple Rain we were small time crooks and now we've graduated to the big time. We own and control this area called Seven Corners – which is really four corners and four clubs – and everyone answers to us. It's really about the rivalry between us and The Kid (Prince), who is the picked-on, felt-sorry-for hero. But in the end he gets the girl and he beats us with a ballad. He changes our hearts and minds and makes us into good, church-going individuals with a song [laughs]
 
Under the Cherry Moon, All style & like nothing people were expecting.
UTCM was extremely ambitious for Prince to try to helm. It seems like it was a cross between new wave and 50's noir which is something I don't think many accomplished directors would want to attempt.

You know who would actually have had a field day with that...Baz Lurhmann... MAYBE scorsese.. in fact in his lifetime its a shame that he didn't get Baz to do some flicks with. :smh::smh: That would have actually revitalized his film career...But his ego wouldn't allow him to do that..unless theres something in the vault...:idea:

There must be 50 ways for a rock star to screw up his/her movie career.

There's the Elvis Method, for example, in which the rock star lets somebody else (like Col. Parker) choose foolish film projects for him.

And there's the Madonna Method, in which the rock star picks the foolish projects herself.

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But the most mortifying way for a rock star to mess up is for him to direct the dumb movies he stars in. This is the Prince Method.

Prince didn't direct Purple Rain (1984), the first film he starred in, but he did direct the next, Under the Cherry Moon (1986). For his latest effort, Prince has further expanded his involvement: Not only is he the star/director of Graffiti Bridge, he's also the screenwriter.

This is not progress.

http://articles.orlandosentinel.com...011080122_1_krays-graffiti-bridge-purple-rain
 
Recently, I saw a short clip where Prince was being held up by Time drummer Jellybean. Prince then broke away from him, turned around, and punched him in the face. It looked like it may have been an outtake from PR. Was there a director's cut of that movie or does anyone know what movie that was scene from?
 
Recently, I saw a short clip where Prince was being held up by Time drummer Jellybean. Prince then broke away from him, turned around, and punched him in the face. It looked like it may have been an outtake from PR. Was there a director's cut of that movie or does anyone know what movie that was scene from?
After doing some research this scene is one of many that didn't make the final cut of PR.

Snippets of those scenes can be found in the WDC & LGC videos. Hopefully WB will release a DC of PR after recent events.

Rumor has it a 2nd sex scene was so explicit it had to be cut completely and the one that made the film had to be edited to avoid a 'X' rating.

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purple rain was the sheit! :yes:

under the cherry moon was bearable.

graffiti bridge was painful to watch. but the music was good.
 
Purple Rain was the greatest collection of music videos and live performances. It was a musical.

Cherry Moon and Graffiti Bridge were no way as effective.

Sign of the Times was just a great live concert experience.
 
can someone explain to me how graffiti bridge was purple rain 2?

i never understood that

purple rain was dope

graffiti bridge was weird with the chick always saying "its just around the corner"

i havent watched that shit in 20 yrs but i still dont get the connection
 
let me rephrase that...i know him and morris day still were battling

but i didnt get his love interest in graffiti bridge

was she supposed to be an angel or some shit
 
let me rephrase that...i know him and morris day still were battling

but i didnt get his love interest in graffiti bridge

was she supposed to be an angel or some shit

Prince preens more than prances in his latest extended video concept - excuse me, movie.

Welcome to a huge studio set. On this set are a bunch of nightclubs. Most of them are owned by Morris Day (playing himself), but one of them is co-owned by The Kid (Prince) and Day.

Day wants to buy The Kid out, but The Kid won't go for it. Without a club, where could he play his music? Day's nasty remarks and brutal antics (he urinates on Prince's palm tree, then sets fire to it) don't make any difference. The Kid hangs on.

Encouraging him is Aura (newcomer Ingrid Chavez). She's a bit of a beatnik who writes poems and sits on a bridge, when she isn't materializing and dematerializing without rhyme or reason in various nightclubs.

Aura whispers her poetry in voice-over: ``Abandoned on the street at the tender age of seven

/How could I ever know the real meaning of heaven?''

She also gets to say, ``It's just around the corner'' again and again. Sometimes the phrase is echoed. Sometimes it's not.

Ostensibly, ``Graffiti Bridge'' is about a battle between the ``spiritual'' music of The Kid (Prince) and the money-grubbing music of Morris Day. Because Prince wrote all the songs anyway, it's hard to see what all the fuss is about.

Prince's onstage performances are less fun than they've ever been. He's smitten with the idea of himself as a holier-than-thou rock icon. Day recycles his two jokes from ``Purple Rain'' - combing his hair and looking in the mirror - while ogling every chick in sight. This is stale stuff.

The film's subtext is far more interesting. For those trying to pass the time while watching the movie, it's fun to theorize about this actor-director's deep sexual confusion. While Prince-the-cinema-auteur is obsessed with fitting strapping Amazonian lasses into black leather bikinis, Prince-the-screen-persona is equally adamant about bringing back coy, off-the-shoulder, form-fitting Valley Girl fashions in the '90s - for boys, that is.

He also seems to have joined Michael Jackson in a Diana Ross lookalike contest - which he's winning because he's got the right hairdo (never mind the three days' growth of beard).

Androgyny is all very well - but what does it mean when it's accompanied by homophobia and misogyny? Prince wouldn't dream of slithering around anything that wasn't female, and when Morris Day and sidekick Jerome Benton accidentally kiss, they gag and have spasms. The only woman who isn't dolled up in go-go gear gets hit by a truck. Pretty liberating.

Technically, the film is a compendium of stale MTV gimmicks - dry ice, stylized sets. It's a neo-Expressionist tempest in a teapot. Sure there's dancing, but Janet Jackson does it better. Sure there's singing, but it's so obviously lip-synched that it comes across as feverishly inert. Even cameo appearances by gospel singer Mavis Staples and funk-surrealist George Clinton fail to add any energy.

``Graffiti Bridge'' 's biggest flaw, however, is that it's about such a tiny, tiny world. This guy needs to get out of the house more! The film is a trite miscellany of ``one-inch thoughts'' (to borrow a phrase from David Bowie).

Sorry, but this viewer just couldn't fit into them.

http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19901103&slug=1101982
 
can someone explain to me how graffiti bridge was purple rain 2?

i never understood that

purple rain was dope

graffiti bridge was weird with the chick always saying "its just around the corner"

i havent watched that shit in 20 yrs but i still dont get the connection

Aw shit i forgot bout dat pasty ass annoying angel bitch! Fuckin TUUUUURIBLE! I truly blocked her out my mind lol
 
Cherry moon was bad lol. But its Prince, theres always something u can take away from his stuff.

Fruity.

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Graffiti Bridge was like Purple Rain-lite, just one long music video. Cool for what it was, an inside look into Prince's mind imo.

Quirky.

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Purple Rain is undoubtedly his best film....and a good film too.

Musical.

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Purple Rain is a cult classic.

Under the Cherry Moon was terrible.

Graffiti Bridge was terrible too, but I did appreciate the visual aspect of it. The scenery was beautiful and colorful.
 
50 SHADES OF PURPLE??

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Despite being presented as the guy viewers should root for, Prince isn’t the hero of Purple Rain. He’s actually much more of a villain.

Aside from the extended concert scenes, the main narrative that repeats itself throughout the movie is that Prince’s the Kid is an emotionally manipulative, abusive, egocentric, and insecure man. His antisocial tendencies surface throughout the film both as he relates to his bandmates and how he treats his romantic interest, Apollonia. Let’s first discuss his relationship with Apollonia. When the Kid first meets Apollonia, he walks behind her, puts on superfly bug-eyed shades, gets uncomfortably close, and just stares at her. She doesn’t seem terribly bothered since Prince is so damn sexy.This is intrinsically creepier, however, than sexting over Tinder or whatever other creepy things men do nowadays to seduce women.

To reduce the awkwardness, Apollonia tells him, “I really liked your song, too.” But when she turns around, he’s gone. Because the Kid thinks it’s super hot to be mysterious like Batman so that a woman can’t regularly expect much from him or hold him accountable for anything. The Kid is sending an early sign to Apollonia that she shouldn’t expect him to be consistently available.

Ten minutes further in the film, and the Kid begins his tactic of negging Apollonia, which can have the effect of bringing down a person’s self-esteem and making them emotionally vulnerable. When she says she’d like to “make it” as a singer, he demeans her with his scoffing tone and replies, “That’s what turns you on?”

The Kid acts as if her ambition is something she should be ashamed of. He also utilizes a sexual phrase, turned-on, because he uses sexuality to make his girlfriend feel unworthy. He does this again when Apollonia tells him they can’t go to her place (because her “place” is actually a dumpy hotel). His immediate response is to interrogate Apollonia if she’s having another man over. She replies, “Why do you always think there’s somebody else?” Because the Kid is so cold-hearted, it’s believable to viewers that he’ll leave Apollonia stranded by a lake after she attempts to purify herself in the waters of Lake Minnetonka. When Apollonia gets out of the water cold, naked, and soaked, the Kid leaves her behind and takes off on his motorcycle. He eventually comes back to pick her up, but for a minute the audience is led to believe that the Kid is just going to leave her stranded there. Which isn’t a believable behavior for a hero. Of course, the Kid was just reminding Apollonia once again that he controls the relationship. He’s like the dom in an S&M relationship devoid of actual consensual kinkiness.

For whatever reason — maybe it’s Prince’s incredible sex appeal, maybe it’s because of past abuse during Apollonia’s psycho-sexual development, maybe it’s because Apollonia is lonely in a city she’s new in — Apollonia keeps coming back. Even though she’s so poor that she’s running away from cab drivers she rips off and is staying in decrepit hotel rooms, she scrounges up enough money to buy the Kid a guitar he wanted. So how does he repay this loving gesture?
Within a minute of receiving this gift, the Kid HITS HER IN THE FACE.

He hits Apollonia because she said she was going to join Morris Day’s group, who is the Kid’s musical rival. She says he should trust her, which seems pretty sensible. But instead of expressing trust, right after the Kid smacks Apollonia he turns the situation back onto her by asking, “Apollonia, don’t I make you happy? … Don’t you like the way we are?” Apollonia shakes her head, which probably has something to do with her just having gotten slapped around.
This event inspires the Kid to write “When Doves Cry.” A great song on its own (with an incredible music video you should check out), the movie gives the tune a much different connotation. It’s partially about how the Kid’s abusive relationship with Apollonia mimics the way his dad beats his mother.

Hezakya Newz and Entertainment
 
50 SHADES OF PURPLE??

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Despite being presented as the guy viewers should root for, Prince isn’t the hero of Purple Rain. He’s actually much more of a villain.

Aside from the extended concert scenes, the main narrative that repeats itself throughout the movie is that Prince’s the Kid is an emotionally manipulative, abusive, egocentric, and insecure man. His antisocial tendencies surface throughout the film both as he relates to his bandmates and how he treats his romantic interest, Apollonia. Let’s first discuss his relationship with Apollonia. When the Kid first meets Apollonia, he walks behind her, puts on superfly bug-eyed shades, gets uncomfortably close, and just stares at her. She doesn’t seem terribly bothered since Prince is so damn sexy.This is intrinsically creepier, however, than sexting over Tinder or whatever other creepy things men do nowadays to seduce women.

To reduce the awkwardness, Apollonia tells him, “I really liked your song, too.” But when she turns around, he’s gone. Because the Kid thinks it’s super hot to be mysterious like Batman so that a woman can’t regularly expect much from him or hold him accountable for anything. The Kid is sending an early sign to Apollonia that she shouldn’t expect him to be consistently available.

Ten minutes further in the film, and the Kid begins his tactic of negging Apollonia, which can have the effect of bringing down a person’s self-esteem and making them emotionally vulnerable. When she says she’d like to “make it” as a singer, he demeans her with his scoffing tone and replies, “That’s what turns you on?”

The Kid acts as if her ambition is something she should be ashamed of. He also utilizes a sexual phrase, turned-on, because he uses sexuality to make his girlfriend feel unworthy. He does this again when Apollonia tells him they can’t go to her place (because her “place” is actually a dumpy hotel). His immediate response is to interrogate Apollonia if she’s having another man over. She replies, “Why do you always think there’s somebody else?” Because the Kid is so cold-hearted, it’s believable to viewers that he’ll leave Apollonia stranded by a lake after she attempts to purify herself in the waters of Lake Minnetonka. When Apollonia gets out of the water cold, naked, and soaked, the Kid leaves her behind and takes off on his motorcycle. He eventually comes back to pick her up, but for a minute the audience is led to believe that the Kid is just going to leave her stranded there. Which isn’t a believable behavior for a hero. Of course, the Kid was just reminding Apollonia once again that he controls the relationship. He’s like the dom in an S&M relationship devoid of actual consensual kinkiness.

For whatever reason — maybe it’s Prince’s incredible sex appeal, maybe it’s because of past abuse during Apollonia’s psycho-sexual development, maybe it’s because Apollonia is lonely in a city she’s new in — Apollonia keeps coming back. Even though she’s so poor that she’s running away from cab drivers she rips off and is staying in decrepit hotel rooms, she scrounges up enough money to buy the Kid a guitar he wanted. So how does he repay this loving gesture?
Within a minute of receiving this gift, the Kid HITS HER IN THE FACE.

He hits Apollonia because she said she was going to join Morris Day’s group, who is the Kid’s musical rival. She says he should trust her, which seems pretty sensible. But instead of expressing trust, right after the Kid smacks Apollonia he turns the situation back onto her by asking, “Apollonia, don’t I make you happy? … Don’t you like the way we are?” Apollonia shakes her head, which probably has something to do with her just having gotten slapped around.
This event inspires the Kid to write “When Doves Cry.” A great song on its own (with an incredible music video you should check out), the movie gives the tune a much different connotation. It’s partially about how the Kid’s abusive relationship with Apollonia mimics the way his dad beats his mother.

Hezakya Newz and Entertainment


Interesting analysis. You can actually find a lot of what one could deem "misogyny" in Prince and the The Time's early work and behavior. Didn't Morris Day and Jerome throw a woman in a dumpster in that movie? And they always had a pimp vibe about them. Along with Prince putting the Vanity 6 and Apollonia 6 out there as singing prostitutes.
 
Interesting analysis. You can actually find a lot of what one could deem "misogyny" in Prince and the The Time's early work and behavior. Didn't Morris Day and Jerome throw a woman in a dumpster in that movie? And they always had a pimp vibe about them. Along with Prince putting the Vanity 6 and Apollonia 6 out there as singing prostitutes.
They threw that chick in the garbage as a SIGHT GAG:smh::rolleyes:.. if purple rain came out today this would be the reaction in the theater

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:lol::lol::lol:
 
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