{"id":1273,"date":"2024-07-24T03:42:43","date_gmt":"2024-07-24T03:42:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=1273"},"modified":"2024-10-13T19:23:28","modified_gmt":"2024-10-13T23:23:28","slug":"glitter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/07\/24\/glitter\/","title":{"rendered":"Glitter"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Glitter <\/strong>(2001) \u00a0 \u00a020th<\/sup>\u00a0Century Fox-Columbia\/Drama-Musical\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 104 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (some sensuality, language, brief violence)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Vondie Curtis Hall\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Kate Lanier\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Terence Blanchard\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Geoffrey Simpson\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: September 21, 2001 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Mariah Carey, Max Beesley, Terrence Howard, Da Brat, Tia Texada, Eric Benet, Valerie Pettiford, Ann Magnuson, Dorian Harewood, Grant Nickalls, Padma Lakshmi, Isabel Gomes.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $4.2 million (US)\/$5.2 million (World)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0While it\u2019s true that all that glitters isn\u2019t gold; the movie\u00a0Glitter<\/strong>\u00a0isn\u2019t as horrible as its reputation suggests. Oh, it\u2019s a bad movie alright. Singer Mariah Carey, in her acting debut, shows that her five-octave range does not extend beyond her singing voice with her one-note acting. \u00a0The plot is lifted directly from A Star is Born. It\u2019s filled with clich\u00e9s, bad acting and dippy dialogue. But it\u2019s so campy and unintentionally funny it earns a solid placement in the \u201cso bad it\u2019s good\u201d category putting it in the company of such musical non-classics as Can\u2019t Stop the Music, Xanadu, The Apple, Grease 2 and The Pirate Movie.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It\u2019s bad enough Glitter<\/strong>\u00a0was originally slated to open the final weekend of August, a slot traditionally filled by stinkers. Then its release was delayed by three weeks after Carey suffered a very public emotional breakdown. By the time it opened on September 21, its fate was pretty much sealed. Predictably,\u00a0Glitter<\/strong>\u00a0took a nose dive at the box office with a paltry gross of $4.2M against a $22M price tag. Critics savaged it, audiences avoided it like the plague, but I had a ball watching it.<\/p>\n

\u00a0We first meet future superstar Billie Frank as a child (played by Gomes) who gets placed in foster care after her alcoholic mother, nightclub singer Lillian (stage actress Pettiford), nearly causes them to burn to death by falling asleep with a lit cigarette. The story jumps ahead to 1983 with Billie (Carey) and her foster sisters, Louise (rapper Da Brat) and Roxanne (Texada, Third Watch), sharing an apartment and working as club dancers. That\u2019s where they meet T (Howard, Empire) who hires them as back-up singers for the talentless Sylk (model Lakshmi).<\/p>\n

\u00a0Club DJ\/composer Dice (British actor Beesley) discovers that T has been dubbing Sylk\u2019s voice with Billie\u2019s and immediately offers his services as her manager. He promises to pay T the sum of $100,000 in exchange for releasing her from her contract. Dice makes good on his promise of signing Billie with a major recording label. It doesn\u2019t take her long to achieve stardom. They start a relationship, but her sudden success threatens to end it. Her obvious attraction to another singer Rafael (R&B singer Benet) doesn\u2019t help any.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I LOVE the 1983 setting! I LOVE the early 80s club scene! I LOVE the unrealistically safe-and-clean streets of New York! It was filmed mostly in Toronto, but never mind.\u00a0Glitter<\/strong>\u00a0is lively and flashy; it\u2019s like an extended music video for the film\u2019s soundtrack. Speaking of videos, the scene where Billie films one for a difficult director is a riot. He gets off two of the movie\u2019s best unintentionally hilarious lines- \u201cThe glitter can\u2019t overpower the actress!\u201d and \u201cWe ask ourselves, is she black? Is she white? We don\u2019t care. She\u2019s exotic. I want to see more of her breasts.\u201d Wish granted, dude! Carey\u2019s breasts should have been listed in the credits as they get a lot of screen time. Looking at some of the dresses she squeezes into, it\u2019s no wonder one character calls her \u201cTitsy the Porn Star\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Carey is pleasing to the eyes and ears, but she\u2019s no actress. She has zero emotional range. She has two facial expressions in her repertoire. In some scenes, she\u2019s easily outacted by her cat. Oh yeah, about that cat. Are kids really allowed to bring their pets when they\u2019re placed in foster centers? Little Billie brings it with her and still has it when she\u2019s living with her friends. AHA, further proof that\u00a0Glitter<\/strong>\u00a0takes place in an alternate universe where the early 80s never ended and life is a collection of movie clich\u00e9s. Clich\u00e9s like the increasingly acrimonious relationship between Dice and T. Clich\u00e9s like Dice becoming increasingly frustrated over his decreasing role in Billie\u2019s career and life.\u00a0Glitter<\/strong>\u00a0is very predictable, especially if you\u2019ve seen any or all four versions of A Star Is Born (1937, 1954, 1976 and 2018).<\/p>\n

\u00a0The music is pretty good. \u201cNever Too Far\u201d is a beautiful song. The soundtrack also includes a few tunes from the era like \u201cLast Night a DJ Saved My Life\u201d (by Indeep) and \u201cI Didn\u2019t Mean to Turn You On\u201d (performed by Carey). Just one problem. \u201cRelax\u201d (by Frankie Goes to Hollywood) didn\u2019t come out in the US until \u201984, what\u2019s it doing in a movie that takes place in \u201983? It must be more alternate universe stuff.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Aside from Carey, the acting in\u00a0Glitter<\/strong>\u00a0ranges from passable to campy. Howard oozes sufficient menace as slimy T. Beesley has some appeal, but his performance is rather wooden. Magnuson camps it up as Billie\u2019s publicity agent. She even has a gay PA that gushes over every single decision. Musical drama isn\u2019t new territory for writer Kate Lanier. She also wrote the script for the 1993 Tina Turner biopic What\u2019s Love Got to Do with It. She knows a thing or two about urban culture (Set It Off, Beauty Shop). I\u2019d like to know what she was tripping on when she wrote\u00a0Glitter<\/strong>. In the midst of all the surrealism, she includes a subplot about Billie searching for her mother. It\u2019s almost as though it was included as an afterthought since it takes up only a few scenes scattered throughout the movie. The ending feels curiously tacked on.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The more I think about it, surreal is a perfect way to describe\u00a0Glitter<\/strong>\u00a0and the experience of watching it. It\u2019s a nice throwback to old school bad filmmaking. It\u2019s great fun if you dig bad movies. I realize that\u00a0Glitter<\/strong>\u00a0is still a sore point with Carey and she probably won\u2019t find this review very complimentary, but I actually love what she does in this movie. Her performance is so bad it achieves a level of awesomeness. In this case, it\u2019s the movie\u2019s faults that make it a camp classic. She should be proud and I\u2019m not being sarcastic.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Glitter (2001) \u00a0 \u00a020th\u00a0Century Fox-Columbia\/Drama-Musical\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 104 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (some sensuality, language, brief violence)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Vondie Curtis Hall\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Kate Lanier\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Terence Blanchard\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Geoffrey Simpson\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: September 21, 2001 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Mariah Carey, Max Beesley, Terrence Howard, Da Brat, Tia Texada, Eric Benet, Valerie Pettiford, Ann Magnuson, Dorian Harewood, Grant Nickalls, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1625,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-guilty-pleasures","category-musical"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Glitter-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1273"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1273\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1897,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1273\/revisions\/1897"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}