Madonna: Truth or Dare. A Review (Review #1603)

 

MADONNA: TRUTH OR DARE

Few pop stars have been as loved and hated in equal measure as Madonna Louise Ciccone. Madonna: Truth or Dare chronicles her Blonde Ambition Tour, though whether it was meant to positively or negatively portray our fair diva is left to the viewer.

Traversing from the rainy season in Japan down to the North American and European legs of her tour, Madonna shares her insights in voiceover on various issues ranging from her "emotionally crippled" backup singers and dancers to how displeased she is that Kevin Costner thinks her show was "neat". There are the various difficulties technical and otherwise: from heavy rains in Japan that she was unaware of or prudish Toronto police threatening arrest to the Pope finding her mockery of Catholic ritual objectionable.

As she tours around the world, from London to the Bay, apparently nothing is off-limits, much to the irritation of her then-boyfriend Warren Beatty. I figure sometime during the Blonde Ambition Tour they broke up, because during Truth or Dare she is open about planning to seduce Spanish actor Antonio Banderas. Unfortunately for our temptress, "Antonio Bandaras" as she calls him was then happily married. As the tour ends, she bids farewell to her ersatz family, the mother who must let her children fly.

To say Madonna has a healthy ego is an understatement. Few people would think twice before almost gleefully discussing their seduction plans only to dismiss said subjects of seduction as having a small penis when they fail in their conquests. I am somewhat puzzled by how someone who shrewd in managing their image would at times have no issue coming across as vain to vapid.

At times, I got the sense that she was performing, fully aware that cameras were recording. As such, she had to play "diva". Somehow, despite what is meant as a behind-the-scenes glimpse, I never shook off the sense that she was showing us what she wanted us to see versus what really was.

Even if Madonna wanted to be open about her life, calling her metaphorical children "emotionally crippled" or being somewhat dismissive of a former friend's near-naked plea for help does not make her look good. At times, Truth or Dare is a bit cringe-inducing. Moira McFarland, the childhood friend fallen on hard times, asks the Material Girl to be her latest child's godmother. From what I saw and remember, Madonna's noncommittal response suggests a woman who sees her former friend as more a bother than a person.

To be fair, Madonna does appear to let her guard down at times. During one of the truth or dare games she plays, her immediate and somewhat mournful response of "Sean" when asked who the love of her life was suggests that despite the misery that she and Sean Penn put themselves and each other through, she still would not trade it for anything.

Maybe trade it for erasing all copies of Shanghai Surprise, but who is to say.

She also appears to be a loving, even protective daughter to her father Tony, leading a mass singing of Happy Birthday when she performs in her hometown of Detroit and joyfully irritated that he wonders if she can get him and his wife tickets to a show.

As for the now-infamous moment of her visit to her mother's grave, I did not think it was as ridiculous as it has been reported. It was a bit peculiar her lying next to the gravesite, but I do not mock people for mourning their parent in their own way.

Truth or Dare splits sequences between black-and-white for the non-concert footage and full-blown color for her various performances. For me, it does make me wonder what a full concert film would have been like. It is clear Madonna is proud of her show. This is clear when her anger erupts over technical issues, though how her frequency is different from that of her emotionally crippled backup singers I can't guess at.

As a side note, I do not know why that phrase, "emotionally crippled", has stuck with me, though to be fair I do not remember if she thought it was her backup singers or dancers who got this peculiar title.

If you see her perform such hits as Holiday, Vogue and Express Yourself, you will be entertained. I found this version of Like a Virgin a bit silly versus erotic, though I find the idea of anyone flopping about on a bed more hilarious than titillating. 

However, Truth or Dare is not about Madonna's concert tour. It is a portrait of the artist as a diva. Warren Beatty appears both perplexed and irritated by how incessant the cameras are and how she is almost maniacally going along with the chronicling. "She doesn't want to live off-camera, much less talk", he observes. It suggests he wonders not only why Madonna wants everything documented but also whether the documentation is to showcase her own sense of brilliance.

There is only one moment that I can remember her not allowing cameras in. To me, it was a minor point over a technical issue early on during the tour. For reasons I cannot guess at, this was more detrimental to her image than seeing her perform fellatio on a water bottle. 

Perhaps I did not end up thinking much about Madonna: Truth or Dare because I had seen Julie Brown's spoof Medusa: Dare to Be Truthful long before I saw the object of Brown's mockery. That take was intentionally hilarious and succeeded wildly in that department. Whether or not you think Madonna: Truth or Dare is also intentionally hilarious or not I leave to viewers. For myself, I found the concert scenes more revealing than the backstage scenes.

DECISION: C-

Shanghai Surprise: A Review (Review #1595)

 

SHANGHAI SURPRISE

Upon its release Shanghai Surprise was painted as one of 1986's biggest bombs and one of the worst films ever made. Now, with nearly forty years since it became infamous having passed, perhaps one can look at Shanghai Surprise free from its notoriety. I confess to enjoying Shanghai Suprise, as well as finding it a pretty bad film.

In 1937, mysterious opium smuggler Walter Faraday (Paul Freeman) disappears in Shanghai. A year later, prim and proper Helping Hands missionary Miss Tatlock (Madonna) is told by her superior Mr. Burns to hire Glendon Wasey (Sean Penn) to help her find the lost opium stash. Wasey has no interest in searching for "Faraday's Flowers", which he dismisses as a myth. However, Tatlock is set on finding the opium, which she believes will help ease the pain of wounded soldiers.

Essentially bribed into helping, Wasey and Tatlock begin the search for Wu Ch'En She (George She), Faraday's former valet who stole Faraday's Flowers as Shanghai was engulfed in chaos. Unfortunately, they are not the only ones searching for this stash. It isn't long before Wasey and Tatlock are both pursuing and the pursued. Everyone from warlord Mei Gan (Kay Tong Lin) to baseball-obsessed gangster Joe Go (Clyde Kusatsu) and even Faraday's frenemy Willie Tuttle (Richard Griffiths) work with or against them in their pursuit. 

We even get Faraday's former mistress China Doll (Sonserai Lee) and the ever-present yet unexplained Justin Kronk (Philip Sayer) into this mix. Faraday's Flowers may not be what people think they are, and neither may some other figures milling about. Ultimately, Wasey's glow-in-the-dark ties may be the key to get at this treasure, with Gloria Tatlock as a bonus prize.

The summary of Shanghai Surprise is actually more straightforward than the film itself, as Shanghai Surprise pretty much jumps from one point to another with nary rhyme or reason. Is it a comedy? It is an adventure? Is it a drama? Is it a romance? Is it a musical? 

Trying to make it all of them does not work, especially since at each point it fails.

I admit I did laugh at one particular scene, when Victor Wong offered "the reverend lady" insurance on her body parts in exchange for information. His offer to insure her "twin pagodas" or "haven of celestial bliss" made me laugh, but more in a cringe manner than in a hilarious one. A lot of the laughter from Shanghai Surprise comes from how inept and illogical the John Kohn and Robert Bentley adaptation of Faraday's Flowers was.

I admit never having heard, let alone read, Tony Kendrick's novel. However, there is simply no way to make a man with porcelain hands remotely threatening. Lim's Mei Gan came across as a Dr. No spoof that even Austin Powers would think was too silly. It was such an over-the-top performance that somehow, a villain having porcelain hands that he apparently can use to crush an opponent's with seems almost rational.

There are other oddball elements, such as Joe Go constantly referring to himself in the third person and the various sexual techniques that China Doll might use on Wasey. Poor guy: he has to have sex with a beautiful courtesan to literally pump information out of her. When they visit Tuttle at his cafe/brothel, two women mistake Wasey for "Phil Borak", but there is never an explanation to this. Was this a fake name Wasey had used? Was it a genuine case of mistaken identity? Why is this important enough to bring up? Why was it not brought up again?

At the heart of Shanghai Surprise's failure are the figures who earned the nickname "The Poison Penns". Madonna simply embarrasses herself throughout Shanghai Surprise. A more generous interpretation can be offered in that Miss Tatlock had no consistency: one moment disgusted by Wasey, the next taking her clothes off to seduce him into staying on.

However, there are scenes and moments where you cringe at seeing how inept the Material Girl was. Throughout Shanghai Surprise, she did not act. She did not even really speak her dialogue. She instead seemed to just be there, saying things that did not appear to make sense to her, as if English was being created on the spot. Some moments were so bad in terms of acting, such as when she stomps up and down in anger, that it simply boggles the mind how someone who controlled so much of her image would look at that and think it should be released.

Penn, however, makes things worse. He is a trained actor and future two-time Oscar winner, but here he looks bored and unenthusiastic. His performance also suggests that he did not know whether Shanghai Surprise was meant to be serious or silly, as he switches between the two, sometimes in the same scene. 

Shanghai Surprise is remembered now, apart from its connection to the former Mr. and Mrs. Penn, for the songs the film's producer wrote for it. George Harrison's soundtrack, on the whole, I found fine even if not particularly great. I do not know why the title song needed to echo a James Bond opening credit scene (in this case, You Only Live Twice). Shanghai Surprise is rather curious, a song that I simultaneously like while also think is awful. 

I am puzzled why one number, The Hottest Gong in Town, had to be in Dixieland style. It sets that wild, almost schizophrenic manner to Shanghai Surprise, not sure what it wants to be. 

As I conclude my look at Shanghai Surprise, I am amazed that it has not been embraced as a midnight movie. I found Shanghai Surprise to be a "so bad it's good" film, a film that did entertain me, if perhaps if not the way it ended it to be. 

DECISION: C-

Body of Evidence (1993): A Review

 

BODY OF EVIDENCE

Madonna has done her damndest to carve a cinematic career. Apart from A League of Their Own, Evita, and perhaps Desperately Seeking Susan and Dick Tracy, however, she has pretty much failed in her Material Girl effort to become her generation's Marlene Dietrich. Body of Evidence, her erotic thriller, came on the heels of Sex, her book of erotic photographs, and the erotic album Erotica. Almost gleefully illogical but not completely camp, Body of Evidence is a curiosity.

Rebecca Carson (Madonna) has been charged with murder. What is the murder weapon? Her own body. District Attorney Robert Garrett (Joe Mantegna) alleges that Rebecca used sex, mixed with some cocaine, to kill her much-older lover Andrew Marsh. 

Did she do it: the murder, not sex, because there is a sex tape? Her defense attorney Frank Dulaney (Willem Dafoe) does not ask, but it is not long before the married Frank is seduced by our femme fatale. Rebecca is into a little S & M, bondage and pouring wax, luring Frank into her sordid web of sex games. 

This makes defending her difficult. This is made harder thanks to witnesses such as Marsh's loyal secretary Joanne Braslow (Anne Archer) and Rebecca's former lover Jeffrey Roston (Frank Langella). The latter, who like Marsh had a weak heart but unlike Marsh got heart surgery, gives evidence suggesting she might have tried murder through sex on him too. More "shocking" twists take place until Body of Evidence ends with the real murderess revealed and getting her due.

There is something of a plot in Brad Birman's script, but Body of Evidence is choppy, muddled and shifts from murky to laughable from one scene to the next. For example, Frank is seen with a woman named Sharon (Julieanne Moore) and a young man, Michael (Aaron Corcoran). Body of Evidence however never makes clear that they are married until well into the film. I thought they were just dating, and that Michael was Sharon's son from a prior relationship. We don't find out Frank and Sharon are married to each other until she confronts him about burn marks on his body.

Given that in an earlier scene, he used a towel to cover up his burn marks, how and when did Sharon discover them? Sharon confronts Frank about his liaison after Rebecca calls him, but according to Sharon, Rebecca never actually said they had an affair. In fact, Sharon discovers the indiscretion merely by the way Rebecca says "Frank". 

As a side note, Michael is never seen or mentioned again. 

Body of Evidence just rushes through things, never bothering to explain anything. Whether it was done to try and "surprise" viewers or through laziness, you marvel at the pretty much bonkers story. We very late in the film discover that the sex tape had something of a bonus feature: a clip of Joanne, nude, that Marsh had shot himself. Apart from wondering why a fellow attorney would bother watching a tape after it had appeared to have ended, one wonders why Joanne having a relationship with Marsh is a shock.

Over and over, things are introduced that become more and more oddball. Dr. Paley (Jurgen Prochnow), who gives damning testimony against Rebecca, is later discovered to have dated Rebecca! If it is a shocking twist, it was rather convenient to have Frank play voicemails from Paley to Rebecca at the ready. On the stand, Rebecca reveals she ended her affair with Rolston because she found him in bed with another man! Rolston, surprisingly still in the courtroom days after giving his testimony, only rises and nods at the allegation.

Rebecca and Sharon immediately recognize each other in the ladies' restroom, but as far as we know neither actually knows what the other looks like.

Logic, it seems, is not what Body of Evidence is interested in.

Instead, it is about the not-quite-graphic sex scenes between Madonna and Defoe, particularly ones involving hot wax. They are to be fair, shot in an artful style by director Uli Edel, but he should have spent more time directing his actors than setting up Playboy-lite sequences. Madonna displays her body, but nothing else in terms of acting.

She speaks her lines with disinterest, in the same way regardless of whether she is seducing dumb men or defending herself. Sometimes, it looked like was on the verge of giggling her way through her dialogue. Anne Archer was clearly embarrassed to be there, being almost zombie-like in her performance. It looked more like someone trying to get through a hostage video in an effort to escape than a genuine effort to act.

Moore tried, but there is only so much an actress of even her talent can do with such a silly script. Dafoe too made an effort, but like Moore could only get through it with as much dignity as he could muster. He is not believable as a man fallen to temptation. 

Mantegna, I think, had the right idea in Body of Evidence: ham it up for all its worth and have fun with something so utterly preposterous. He seemed to have figured this was nothing more than a Madonna vehicle, so instead of fighting it, Mantegna opted to show his cynicism for it all. 

Perhaps he saw how the light always hit Madonna's eyes and decided if the film was not going to try and be good, neither should he.

After watching Body of Evidence, it ends up coming across as a bad Basic Instinct knockoff. It does not help that Basic Instinct was released a year prior to Body of Evidence. This is a terrible film, yet I found it in some ways funny in its efforts to be so serious and neo-noir. The ending in particular had me laughing thanks to the performances and the actual conclusion. 

Blessed with bad performances, a muddled story, delightfully lacking in logic, I am surprised that Body of Evidence hasn't become either a cult or midnight film. This is less a body to die for and more to laugh at.

DECISION: C-

A League of Their Own: A Review (Review #810)

A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN

Homerun Girls...

A League of Their Own has done some many remarkable things.  First and foremost, it has ensured that a small part of baseball history is never forgotten.  Second, it captures the spirit of both its time setting and the time of its release.  Third, the film hits all the emotional marks, making this a film about baseball, about gender roles, and a film about people in their humor and heartbreak.

World War II is taking all the Major League Baseball greats.  Fearing that America's pastime might slip into obscurity or worse, fold entirely, owners seize on an original idea: let women play professional baseball (at least until the men return)!  Scout Ernie Capadino (Jon Lovitz) is sent to find the talent to form the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL for short).  He is highly interested in Dottie Hinson (Geena Davis), a catcher he spots in Oregon.  Dottie isn't interested in playing professional anything, satisfied in her life and waiting for her husband to come back from the war.  Her younger sister Kit (Lori Petty) on the other hand, yearns to get out of the farm and wants desperately to join.  After some arm-twisting on Kit's part, Dottie reluctantly agrees to the tryouts.  On their way, they pick up a phenomenal player, Marla Hooch (Megan Cavanagh), whom Ernie at first does not want to get because of her unattractiveness but who is forced to when both Dottie and Kit refuse to go without her.

At the tryouts, they encounter several other women of various social backgrounds, from a Southern belle and a (secretly) illiterate player to a couple of brash Nuw Yawkers, "All the Way" Mae Mordabito (Madonna) and her bosom buddy, bouncer Doris Murphy (Rosie O'Donnell).  I'll leave it up to you to figure out why her nickname is "All the Way" (here's a hint: I don't think it was her homerun skills, though I'm sure she managed to round the bases and was an expert in Grand Slams).  Dottie isn't intimated by them and they find themselves members of the Rockford Peaches.

Heading up the team is crusty, boozed-up, washed-up manager Jimmy Dugan (Tom Hanks), a former Cubs legend who is disdainful of both the idea of 'girls' playing professional baseball and of his career not what it was once before.  However, as time goes on, he starts seeing the genuine talent of the players, who show their skill, start bonding, and respecting each other.  Dottie and Kit, however, are starting to struggle with each other, one attempting to dominate and the other chafing to be free.  Kit is shifted to a rival team, and as things work out, they face each other in the championship.

In the end, the sisters do reconcile and now, going back to the beginning (as the film is an extended flashback), the various surviving players reunite at the Baseball Hall of Fame, which is having a special exhibition on the AAGPBL.  Dottie sees a display for Dugan and pauses, the impact of all she's lived through hitting her.  Still, this is a happy time despite the loss of others who shared the journey, for it is a reunion, and the real-life players take to the field one more time.

I'm pretty sure until A League of Their Own premiered, few people, even baseball aficionados, were aware of the short history of female professional baseball.  It was a pretty much forgotten story, until director Penny Marshall with screenwriters Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel (with the story by Kim Wilson and Kelly Candaele) brought what could have been a stuffy history lesson or a lecturing 'women are equal to men' scenario and put things together remarkably well.

The first is that the film makes its case for the equality of women without making us feel as if we are being force-fed the idea.  Instead, A League of Their Own made the wise choice of having us invest in the characters as individuals, particularly when we see the women playing ball so well.  It also reminds us of how women at the time were perceived when we get a sequence of the 'girls' having to undergo charm school.  With the dichotomy of seeing them as both women and as professional baseball players, the film keeps the balance where one aspect doesn't overshadow the other.

As I said, the film gives us a wide variety of personalities to work with, and as such, we see them as these complex people, who work at sports but who have extra burdens.  It is simply impossible not to have all the appropriate reactions: whether it's the comedy of the famous "There's no crying in baseball!" line or the tragedy of one of the players finding out her husband has been killed in action. 

In terms of performances, I think A League of Their Own is a showcase of veritable talent.  Geena Davis, to my mind, has simply never been better as the strong, assertive, no-nonsense Dottie.  Hanks owns every scene and always manages to make each scene he's in exactly as how it's suppose to be without overdoing it (be it the comic or dramatic side).  Even Madonna, who has had a hit-and-miss career in film (from the heights of Desperately Seeking Susan or Evita to the dredge of Body of Evidence or Swept Away) makes Mae into a brassy, tough, but also loveable and endearing girl who loves to dance and have a good time (a bit naughty but never horrid). 

I will confess one thing about A League of Their Own that I am not sure about.  Did Dottie really literally 'drop the ball' or not?

I found myself at the end of A League of Their Own totally enraptured by its story, so much so that I'm not ashamed to admit I shed a few tears at the end.  Thanks to A League of Their Own, the expression "you throw like a girl" can serve as a compliment.

DECISION: A-