Prince Purple Rain – FlixChatter Film Blog

AprilRecap

Spring is in the air!! It’s still relatively cool this weekend and the sun was being bashful yesterday so we spent some time at Minneapolis Museum of Art on Saturday during its Art in Bloom exhibition. It’s so lovely to see cherry blossom tree bloomin’ at the park across the street… it was a perfect Spring day!

MplsParkSpring

So here are movies I saw this month:

New-to-me Movies

(click on image to read my reviews on those marked w/ an asterisk)

Films watched at MSPIFF

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I ended up seeing only nine films at MSPIFF on the big screen. Alas, I didn’t have time to watch any of the online screeners, but I hope to watch them later this month. If I had to pick three out of the ones I’ve seen at MSPIFF, it’d be The Fencer, Beeba Boys and Sing Street. So in total I watched 17 new-to-me movies which is quite a lot by my standards! I’ve reviewed pretty much ALL of the MSPIFF films except for Sing Street which I will do so next week!

Rewatches

Of course I’ll always make time for Sam Riley, so I rewatched the WWII drama Suite Francaise with my girlfriends on movie night on the first week of April, and Control which is still as cool and heartbreaking as the first time I saw it. There’s always time for period dramas too, of course, so I did manage to fit in the BBC miniseries of Sense & Sensibility after I saw the delightful Love & Friendship that’s based on Jane Austen’s epistolary novel. I also watched The Mummy, we weren’t planning on it but saw it came across the screen as we’re browsing Netflix and thought, what the heck. It was still pretty entertaining, though the whole time I was thinking about Brendan Fraser’s dismal career trajectory. So apparently the reboot starring Tom Cruise is set for June 2017!

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MOVIE(S) OF THE MONTH

I’ve watched quite a few music-related films lately, be that biopics or fiction, and I’ve enjoyed them quite a bit. It was tough to pick just one favorite this month given how many great indie films I’ve seen this past month. But I picked two that no doubt have awesome 80s-themed soundtracks as well as being immensely entertaining. So it’s three for three for John Carney, as I’ve enjoyed all three of his feature films so far (the first two being Once and Begin Again). Nice to see Carney went back to his Irish roots with Sing Street.

As for Purple Rain, it was a bittersweet experience watching it. I can’t believe I hadn’t seen it before yesterday, but I certainly ended April movie watching with a bang. The live performances were really the reason to see this, but Prince were decent in the dramatic scenes too, plus it’s a treat to see Minneapolis (esp First Avenue club) being featured prominently. Of course I teared up during the Purple Rain scene. Prince was absolutely phenomenal as one would expect, but that song was also very emotional in the context of the film (in which his character dedicated to his dad) and also emotional given the music icon’s no longer with us.

MoviesOftheMonth

Well that’s my recap of April. What’s YOUR favorite film of the month?

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Oh what a day it’s been… It’s another sorrowful day for music lovers as another music icon just passed away. I had prepared this post for community links & highlight some new trailers, but in light of Prince’s death, there’s obviously a change of plans. But before we get to that…

Let’s get to those awesome blog posts…

My friend Cindy posted her monthly series sharing music, books, and films that absorbed her

The Minneapolis Wizard World is coming next weekend. Well, Mikey posted some fun cosplay pics from the recent Edinburgh Comic-con!

My pal Mark is hosting another Decades Blogathon, I urge y’all to take part!

Rodney just reviewed the Aussie-set drama The Dressmaker, which I’ll rent for Kate Winslet!

One of my fave films that premiered at TCFF last year, It’s Already Tomorrow in Hong Kong finally got a wider release. Check out what Nostra thought about the film.

Alex talked about music covers that are better than the originals

Steven reviewed his April Blindspot pick, Killer (1989)

Zoë reviewed a 90s classic, Good Will Hunting

Allie of the lovely duo Flick Chicks blog just posted a trio of reviews

Last but not least, Margaret posted another great ‘Hit Me With Your Best Shot’ entry on her boy du jour Harrison Ford’s earlier work, Witness.

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It’s a sad day for music lovers… well sad year really given that we just lost David Bowie in January. But given that I’m practically a Minnesotan, this is an especially tough day and I haven’t quite processed it yet. In fact, it’s just before lunch that my colleague shouted that Prince had died and then he retracted saying, ‘no, someone died on the premise of his Chanhassen studio.’ But of course minutes later it was confirmed that it was Prince himself had died and my heart sank.

My hubby drove to Paisley Park after work today to take some photos. Even the gloomy sky seemed to have mourned the icon. There had been traffic jam in the area since the news broke early afternoon and it apparently hadn’t let on. First Avenue, the club appeared in his film Purple Rain, is currently hosting an outdoor concert tribute for him as I’m typing this.

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Though Paisley Park is less than 20 miles away from my home and I used to drive by his studio every week as my church was within 5 minutes from it, I’ve never actually met Prince in person. I haven’t had the privilege of seeing him live in concert either [yes I know, bummer!] but I’ve heard many stories of my friends/colleagues’ encounter with him, whether at First Avenue or at Caribou Coffee house (which is as numerous as Starbucks in my neck of the woods). One of my good friend Tom actually bumped into Prince, literally, and said how he only came up to his chest. Tom wasn’t even 6 feet tall so Prince must not have been wearing his high heels then.

PurpleRain

Despite his small stature, Prince was a giant in terms of his contribution to the music industry. On my way home today, MPR was covering the death of an icon by interviewing journalists, as well as First Avenue’s general manager Nate Kranz, and even they had a hard time defining the Minneapolis Sound is that Prince pioneered. Apparently it’s a hybrid mixture of funk, rock, pop, synthpop and new wave…well whatever it was, it certainly sounds cool to me.

I feel so inadequate posting a tribute for him… there are far more qualified people who has followed his career faithfully from the late 70s and has been influenced deeply by whether directly or indirectly. But at the same time I still want to honor his amazing legacy as an artist and what better way than to feature even just a tiny sampling of my favorite Prince’s music.

Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to celebrate Prince’s music…

https://vimeo.com/150445815

And of course, this being primarily a film blog, I had to include this clip from Tim Burton’s 1989 BATMAN, as the music is certainly one of the best parts about that movie.