Purple Rain

Starring: Apollonia Kotero, Prince Director: Albert Magnoli Original UK Premiere: 1984 Dvd Release: 24th May, 1999 Number Of Discs: 1 Format: PAL, Widescreen, Region 2 Encoding Subtitled In: Arabic, Dutch, English, French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish

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Purple Rain is a 1984 movie directed by Albert Magnoli & written by him & William Blinn. Prince stars in this semi-autobiographical movie, which is very clearly developed around him & his particular talents. the opening number Lets Go Crazy, Purple Rain & When Doves Cry. Much of the movies cinematography, by Donald Thorin, is closer to that of 1980s music videos than conventional film. Prince plays The Kid, an aspiring Minneapolis musician with a difficult home life. He runs into singer Apollonia Kotero & they become involved in an untidy relationship. The plot centres around Prince trying not to repeat the pattern of his abusive father & keep his group, The Revolution & his relationship with his girlfriend, together. His main antagonist is fellow musician Morris Day & his group The Time. But the plot is only a very light pretext for including the soundtrack. Oddly, excluding Prince, almost every actor in the movie uses their actual name for their character. The movie idea was apparently developed by Prince during his Triple Threat tour. Posters Of Purple Rain

While rock musical remains a phrase used by sadistic parents to give their offspring nightmares the genre does occasionally throw up the odd gem, Purple Rain being perhaps the shiniest example. Given the theatricality of Princes stage shows, it was only a matter of time before the diminutive pop potentate found himself a big-screen vehicle but few could have predicted that Purple Rain would become nothing less than a cultural phenomenon. The story, co-written by one-time Starsky & Hutch scripter William Blinn, may be a somewhat hackneyed tale with His Purpleness overcoming a troubled background & musical rival Morris Day to achieve his dreams of rock stardom. However, the cast, which also includes Prince protegée Appollonia, rises above the clichés to hand in a set of performances which, while never likely to trouble the Oscars, prove that all concerned can at least play a rough approximation of themselves with minimal difficulty. What really helped push the films box-office receipts through the roof, however, was its soundtrack featuring a clutch of hit singles, notably When Doves Cry, & which cemented our pint-sized heros position as one of the globes premiere performing artists. Sadly, subsequent attempts to re-bottle this particular brand of lightning with Under a Cherry Moon & Graffiti Moon would prove substantially less successful but Purple Rain still looks, and, more importantly sounds, rarely less than funktastic.

Born Patricia Kotero, Apollonia Kotero is a swimsuit model from California. She joined the Prince camp after the departure of Vanity from her starring role in the film Purple Rain & as leader of recording group Vanity 6. Kotero took part in nationwide audition & was cast in Vanitys role in the film. Prince re-named her Apollonia & she inherited the members of the de-functed Vanity 6. Purple Rain was a success & Apollonia became an overnight star. had one album in October 1984 with a hit Sex Shooter. Apollonia left the Prince camp in 1985 to pursue a role on television in Falcon Crest. She also had a solo album released in 1988. She has starred in other films like Black Magic Woman & Back To Back. Posters Of Purple Rain

Editors Choice: Purple Rain, View DVDology

Prince, known as from 1993 to 2000, is a popular & influential American musician. His music has spanned myriad styles including funk, pop, rock, R&B / soul & hip hop & is regarded as the definition of the Minneapolis sound. // Prince Rogers Nelson was born June 7, 1958 in Minneapolis, Minnesota at Mount Sinai Hospital to John L Nelson & Mattie Shaw. John L Nelson played in a jazz trio The Prince Rogers Trio, hence Princes birth name. There are a number of myths regarding Princes ethnicity & gender, some spread by Prince himself. The most pervasive is that he is the child of a black father & white mother, a myth later bolstered by the cult film Purple Rain starring Prince, Morris Day of The Time & pop singer Apollonia. Princes parents are, in fact, African-American. Princes parents separated & he had a troubled relationship with his stepfather causing him to run away from home. He lived briefly with his father, who bought him his first guitar. Later, Prince moved in with a neighborhood family, the Andersons & became friends with their son, Andre Anderson. Posters Of Prince

Editors Choice: Prince, Las Vegas, Purple Rain, Graffiti Bridge, Under The Cherry Moon, Sign O The Times, View DVDology

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