Guilty Pleasure: The Apple
This Friday people will be getting their 80’s Cock Rock on through the newest musical-turned-movie Rock of Ages. The 80’s was a great time for rock, but few remember it was also a great time for bad-musicals. No I’m not about to talk about unexplained cult-classic Xanadu. I’m talking about a musical so bad, so confusing that at it’s premiere the screen was damaged by audience members throwing their complimentary soundtracks at the screen. I’m talking about 1980’s confusing futuristic disco religion allegory The Apple.
The Apple takes place in the distant future of 1994. Compared to most science fiction predictions of the future… 2001: A Space Odyssey was a closer prediction… by a lot. For starters 1994 (based on this film) the world is still dominated by disco.
The film starts off in a futuristic convention center where an American Idol like singing contest is occurring, the winner will get a record contract to BIM (so I guess they got that right). Voting is based on heart-beats (sure).
Disco group Pandi and Dandi are the fan favorites but it’s a close call when canadian hippie duo Alphie and Bibi. Their song is about Love. They look like they’re going to win until they are sabotaged and booed off the stage. Alphie and Bibi refuse to take this sitting down and mark up to BIM owner Mr. Boogalow’s after party.
He’s impressed by their spunk and signs them. Quickly they are introduced into a world of drugs and sex. Alphie storms off but Bibi sticks around and drinks up the stardom. Eventually she realizes the evils of BIM (and the fact that Mr. Boogalow is clearly the devil) and returns to Alphie in a hippie community.
Now what happens next is what makes this movie fantastic. If you haven’t seen this film, but plan on it then don’t read the next paragraph because it’s so magical it will cause your brain to explode. In fact stop reading and watch the movie because I’m posting a picture too.
Mr. Boogalow and BIM arrive to arrest the hippie community when God arrives in a flying white Rolls Royce lands form the sky. He takes the hippies to ‘somewhere new, away from Mr Boogalow’s influence’ and flies away.
I can’t wrap my head around the writing and pitching of this movie and this sequence specifically but I don’t care. It’s the most magical moment in film history.
I’m a huge fan of The Apple. It’s cheesy and admittedly bad but I adore it. The music is surprising decent, the acting is… passable and the costume design is beyond flamboyant. The star of the show is how terrible the choreography is. Specifically since it was done by So You Think You Can Dance head judge Nigel Lythgoe.
This movie is one of those special films where they fail at almost everything. You must see it to believe it.
When he’s not watching Rock and Roll Musicals Matt Kelly is hosting The Saint Mort Show, Co-hosting the Reddit Horror Club Podcast, Writing in his blog Pure Mattitude, Tweeting and running Dollar Monday Promotions.
