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"Wrecka Stow" posted September 1, 2004 at 11:57 PM

If you want campy melodrama with googley eyes, dressed in lace and do-rags, with a precocious funkiness and naive emotions, with a dash of old Hollywood slapstick, a pinch of rude Americana, and a teaspoon of Frenchified pomp, and you want it all in 1980s black & white, I insist you go rent the new DVD release of Under The Cherry Moon.

Widely regarded as one of the worst movies ever made, it is nonetheless one of my favorite movies ever made. It's Prince's follow-up to Purple Rain, but breaks out of that cliched rock-n-roll movie mold in a major way. Prince and his sidekick Jerome Benton are so bizarro-funny (and so ridiculous, and tres gay) in this movie that you will shake your head in bafflement and wonder. And guess who the love interest is--Kristin Scott Thomas, in her first feature film. She's great, actually, throughout the whole thing.

Prince directed the movie himself, and despite the general consensus that it sucks, I think he did a pretty good job. The music, the writing, and the camerawork all come together in a strange and endearing way. And I just learned something that made me shudder: the cinematographer for this movie is none other than Michael Ballhaus, the man who shot many of the Fassbinder films I've discussed here as well as a bunch of Scorsese flicks.

A work of genius, it ain't, baby. But a laughable curiosity with great music and insane costumes is never a bad thing, is it?

Special bonus: Those of you who spend a lot of time with me will recognize many lines from the film--which have been part of my standard rep since my teen years ("I never dance with my clothes on!" etc.).


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