Purple Rain: DVD Review

First of all, I'd just like to thank all of you that offered your kind words of support in the aftermath of last night's little incident involving myself and The Racist. I know I'm still having a hard time believing it even as I sit here staring at the 6 subsequent emails he's sent me in the past 12 hours. As anybody who's ever had to deal with such a situation can attest, that level of nastiness is enough to make a man just wanna lash out. But I think it helps to keep in mind that what we're dealing with here is a very sick person. We can't sink down to his level. What Oliver Wang needs is for us to show him how much we love him, regardless of how he feels about our various ethnic backgrounds. And I think later on tonight, we're gonna find a way to show him just how real that love is. No homo.

As far as this actual film is concerned, it doesn't really need any introduction. If you haven't already seen it at least 20 times, you just aren't with it. Unless you're a kid or something, in which case I guess you've sort of got an excuse. But if that is the case, then I'm gonna have to go ahead and suggest that you not bother with school, or whatever it was you were planning to do today, and, instead, get thee to a video store and check this shit out immediately. It's that important.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THE REVOLUTION

It's too bad they weren't able to re-release this into theaters and instead only put out some 20th Anniversary Special Edition DVD this year. Speaking of which, I don't actually have that new DVD of this. The one I'm checking out is that some old one that everyone's had since back in the day. Mine was actually damaged in a minor flood about 4 years ago, but still works fine.

WAS APOLLONIA TURNING TRICKS?

Ever notice how Apollonia shows up in town with that handful of sweaty $20 bills? Where'd that come from? I always assumed she was some kind of high priced prostitute who one day decided to run away from her pimp by catching a bus to Minneapolis. If they were gonna do a sequel, they could actually have the guy come looking for her.

PLAYA ON A BUDGET

If he did, he'd have to contend not only with Prince, but with my man Morris Day, who's just a trip in this movie. I think the most amusing thing about his character is the fact that he's actually broke to the point where he can hardly afford to buy a bottle of J. Roget to impress Apollonia and, in fact, has to order his manservant Jerome to go get his change. You have to figure that since it's Minnesota in the mid '80s most of the chicks were probably broke too though, so there was really just a whole lotta frontin' going on from everybody.

"HE'S CRAZY! LOOK AT WHAT HE'S DOING TO ME!"

So the the chick who plays Prince's mom in this isn't a very good actress. Like I said, I don't have the fancy DVD with the audio commentary to know, but I'm gonna go ahead and assume that she was somehow related to somebody who was involved in producing this. Or maybe she just blew them. As Clarence Williams III said, that woman was a sinner!

FAT BLACK MEN IN JOGGING SUITS

The guy who plays Billy in this is also rather amusing. For whatever reason, he appears to be wearing a Detroit Tigers hat despite the fact that this shit is supposed to be taking place in Minnesota. Also, you have to wonder if he's wearing that suit because the costume lady on this was that much of a genius (which I could believe) or because that was the only thing they had that would fit. Or maybe he just showed up in it and it was just too perfect to have him change into anything else.

LAKE MINNETONKA MY ASS

Speaking of which, I like how this movie was supposed to be set in Minnesota, but you can tell pretty much all of it was shot in some Warner Bros. back lot out in LA. I guess they figured nobody actually knows what Minneapolis looks like anyway.

LET'S HAVE SOME ACTION!

Probably the most amusing non-performance scene to me, personally, is the one where some chicks were trying out to be in Morris' new girls group, but the bitches just weren't trying hard enough, so he had to jump up from his seat to berate them in true pimp fashion. Those lazy bitches.

JIGS IN MINNESOTA ARE FUCKING TALENTED

Another amusing sequence is when they have that one scene where Jerome tries explaining to Morris what the password is (I'm still not sure what it was) and then, the next scene you've got Prince using some odd little puppet not only to show off his skill for talking down to women but ventriloquy as well.

I'M PRETTY SURE MORRIS DAY DOESN'T JUST GIVE OUT GUITARS

One of the major points of conflict comes when Apollonia decides to join Morris' girl group, and so he gives her enough money to buy Prince that brand new white guitar he had his eye on. As we've already gone over, it's not like Morris had money to just throw around like that. I'm sure that bitch gave him something a little bit more than word that she would perform in his group. I'm not saying he should've slapped her, but I understand.

ANSWER ME, MOTHERFUCKER!

And there's also the fact that Prince's daddy in this is a crazy, woman-slapping motherfucker. Eventually, he ends up shooting himself in the head (not fatally though) but only after Prince finds out that he's actually a failed musical genius, at which Prince is inspired to actually put lyrics to the song his bandmates Wendy and Lisa helped him write, basically the crux of the film.

But of course it's way more exciting if you actually see it, especially since what must be the bulk of the runtime is actually made up of the most amazing (-ly retarded) performance footage ever captured on film (not an exaggeration). In that sense, it's basically a 90-minute music video, but a really good one with some really nice T&A about halfway through it.