Purple Rain

This is one of the most popular rock movies to come out of the 1980s, by one of the biggest stars to come out of that decade. Labeled as a semi-autobiographical story, Prince was able to mix a strong storyline with enough drama to keep things interesting and some of the best heart pounding music to hit the screen in decades. With the explosion of the music video only a couple of years earlier, this entire film was shot with the feel, and speed of a videos, so that the action on the screen helps enhance the music experience instead of music enhancing the action of the characters.
The lead singer of The Revolution, The Kid, is having a hard time keeping his personal life separate from his professional life, and his anger, anguish, and strong sexual feelings bleed over into his music and lyrics. Having the entire battle between Prince and Morris Day take place on the music stage was shear genius and throughout the whole film you see the versatility of both artists within their music and their performances. As the film progresses you see the transformation of all the characters, so much so, that by the end you are cheering them on and wanting to know more about happens next. Even though the acting that is done here is superb, the true star of the film is the music, and just to prove that point the film won the Academy Award and the Grammy for Best Musical Score.
As his film debut, Prince hit a grand slam with this film, showing that he could do so much more than just play music and singer, and then with a soundtrack that people couldn't get enough of, this movie became a rock classic coming out of the gate. When I first show this film I couldn't believe the electricity that was just seeping off the screen, between Prince's performance and the feeling that I had just spent over an hour at a high powered concert, you walked away with sensation that you had just seen film history being made. Over the years I have watched this film repeatedly, maybe hundreds of times, and have never gotten bored or used to the story or the music. Every time I see watch it, I get those same feelings that I did back in 1984, and as I get older, if this is one of those things that I can watch to help me feel a little bit younger, its not a bad way to spend an hour and a half. So watch, enjoy and have fun recapturing those feelings of being young and not having a care in the world.