'Purple Rain' still hot after 2 decades

By Terry Lawson
Knight Ridder News Service

The 20th anniversary special edition of the motion picture "Purple Rain" features powerful musical sequences. Gannett News Service

When it was released in 1984, the drama about a musician known only as the Kid who is struggling with identity and ambition in Minneapolis surprised critics and the public by being something deeper than the usual jukebox musical cash-in. It also exposed Prince to an audience that had been willing to dismiss him as another MTV-made novelty. The performance footage undoubtedly sold more than a few concert tickets.

Seen 20 years later, what was good about "Purple Rain" — how the Kid was affected by his parent's volatile marriage, Prince's cocky confidence, the nightclub scenes and the humor — remains good. "8 Mile" may be a better-made and more realistic movie, but the debt it owes "Purple Rain" is obvious.

The film's shortcomings, however, are also obvious, especially in its casual misogyny and the abuse the Kid heaps on the adoring Apollonia Kotero, who was no more an actor than she was a singer.

Still, the musical sequences retain all their power, and the climactic performance of the title tune is stunning.

The extras on the second disc are just passable. They include a look at the First Avenue nightclub where Prince's craft was honed and his reputation was made, interviews with former members of the entourage (excluding his foil and protege, Morris Day) and a look back at '80s fashions. The inclusion of the music videos made to support the album and one for Apollonia 6's "Sex Shooter" is very welcome.

The success of "Purple Rain' inspired a follow-up, 1986's "Under the Cherry Moon" (Warner), a stylish but embarrassingly bad romantic comedy notable only for being the first film by future Oscar nominee Kristin Scott Thomas and for including snippets of the songs that would show up on "Parade." That was followed by a lamentable sequel of sorts, 1990's "Graffiti Bridge" (Warner). Taken together, the two fed into a growing perception of Prince as an ego-driven exhibitionist and a very unreliable judge of his own strengths and weaknesses.

If anybody's asking, though, I'd love to see a DVD release of the blistering 1987 concert film "Sign 'o' the Times."

The who in 1970

An opportunity to see another legendary band in its glory is provided by "The Who Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970," (Eagle Vision), the first release of a brilliant rock festival set that has been previously extracted in the documentaries "Message to Love" (1997) and "The Kids Are Alright" (1979).

Pete Townshend, who talks about the band and the concert in a 30-minute interview included on the disc, personally approved the remastering and the excellent remix.

Sonny & cher comedy

Some even more esoteric artifacts from the rock era get a DVD airing this week. From 1967, "Good Times" (MGM) alerted the world that Sonny & Cher might have a future beyond "I Got You Babe." It has them playing themselves in a comedy in which they are signed to make a movie and then fantasize about what kind of movie — Western, jungle adventure, detective thriller — it will be.

One would have to conclude that drugs are responsible for the cult rep of 1971's "Zachariah" (MGM), a stoner-Western-religious allegory starring Don Johnson and partly written by members of Firesign Theater. It includes a soundtrack that has original music by jazz giant Elvin Jones alongside tunes by Country Joe and the Fish and the James Gang.

Weirder yet is 1980's "The Apple" (MGM) a rock musical that makes "Godspell" look profound and that has been revived in recent years as "Rocky Horror"-style camp item for its abundance of bad dialogue, ridiculous costumes and absurd story about a pair of songwriting innocents who are exploited by a slimy music industry executive who is apparently the Devil. ("The Apple" — get it?)