Thursday, December 9, 2010

Under The Cherry Moon.

Under The Cherry Moon, 1986, directed by Prince. Written by Becky Johnston.
starring: Prince, Jerome Benton, Kristin Scott Thomas.

Yes, well this was quite bad.

I don't think I'd ever even heard of it before, so when I read the synopsis I was a little intrigued. (Two friends from Miami are in the Mediterranian are enjoying life by scamming money off of rich women...)


It took me three separate occasions to get through this, but I suppose I'm glad I stuck with it in the end as it's seriously the best thing from this list so far (which isn't saying much, really). Don't get me wrong, it's definitely horrid, but I could maybe dig a little of what it was trying to do, which was to be a Prince production of a faux art film. If you've seen An American in Paris or anything from the French Poetic Realism/ New Wave genre, you'll probably note the influences, although in this film they're flat and extremely cheesy: talking to French kids on the streets, tight extreme close ups on Prince's face, mostly during the beginning, the whole doomed relationship aspect, and so on. It's almost as if Prince went to the library and looked up FRENCH CINEMA, HOW TO: 


"these films often center on characters living on the margins of society, either as unemployed members of the working class or as criminals. After a life of disappointment, these shabby figures find a last chance at intense, ideal love. After a brief period they are disappointed again, and the films end with the disillusionment or deaths of the central characters." (Bordwell and Thompson, Film History, An Introduction, Second Edition, 2003).


When it comes to cinema, I tend to agree with Harry Dunn in that I DON'T KNOW, LLOYD, THE FRENCH ARE ASS HOLES. . . French filmmakers are skillful and they're obviously creative and brilliant, but this is just not really my thing. More on this during Mafia March when I'll try to tackle the Italians. . . 


Moving on. There are two things that could have saved this film
1. Having it be silent, as in no dialogue whatsoever, I'm not kidding, or
2. Getting an actual writer to do it.


There were a few moments that I kind of enjoyed, one was VICTOR MAITLAND (Beverly Hills Cop!) as the father, and secondly, the song Kiss just starting up suddenly when they're in that convertible, and honestly, I fricking hate that song but somehow it worked. 

2 comments:

Donald said...

I give Prince for trying to do something different. I don't understand why so many musicians start acting just so they can make a movie about their rise to stardom. Eminem did it, Mariah did it, Britney did it. Heck, even Prince did it, but at least his follow up was some kind of weird film noir period piece.

Oh, and it's awful.

Donald said...

"I give Prince props" I meant to say above.

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