Musiq_One

I swear I could watch this over and over again. Everything about it is so awesome. the humour, the driving, the acting, the colours, the cinematography, the pacing. And the soundtrack is awesome, the Natalie Cole song is inspired.

The Jimmy and Queen Latifah buddy relationship is hilariously on point and not once was there any racial stereotype/ ethnic clashing type of jokes. So that's all good.

If you loved the Police Academy series you will love this.

Next time I need a good pick me up leave the Prozac alone and pop this in your DVD.

glit·ter n.

1.A sparkling or glistening light.

There is a light in this movie it's it goes by the name of Roxie and Louise (Da Brat and Tia Texada). They are the hilarious ghetto girls that are best friends with Billie (Mariah). Each scene with them is sparkling and Mariah actually looks more comfortable with them than with any of the other actors.

What other things sparkle in this movie? Well at times Mariah does. She looks amazing in the 80's and the first scene when she's shakin' her ass to Lime's Babe, I'm Gonna Love Tonight and then Blondie's Heart of Glass is a highlight. Padma Lakshmi was deliciously visceral as the pretty Sylk and Timothy Walker may have been a stereotype role of hot young producer but he does do an up to par job. The setting, the way the camera moved is so different in this movie. It takes me to my next definition of glitter.

2.Brilliant or showy, often superficial attractiveness.

This is what it was when Billie first sets eyes on DJ Julian Dice (Max Beesley) eveything stops and slow motion kicks in. The scenes over New York looked stunning. Everything screamed 1980's New York and club bohemia. If only this movie stayed in the clubs rather than it completely going off the rails into a fantastic fairytale. Our heroine Billie was at her most comfortable in the clubs. Mariah looked relaxed there. It was vibrant, exciting with so many references to the music scene, disco, dance, rock and early hip hop. After that it kind of just went downhill. The only thing that redeemed it after Billie took out of the clubs was the video director and her publicist. One thing I noticed there were a lot of Mariah Carey related jokes ("Show me of her breasts").

3. Small pieces of light-reflecting decorative material. The soundtrack was I guess "Bangin!" if anybody appreciates nostalgic music from the 80s you will love this movie. So many obscure tracks so many new tracks freestyles and dance routines it is just striking. Another piece of light is a scene Mariah had to fight to keep in the movie as the director tells us on the commentary. It portrays a solid peformance by Valerie Pettiford as Lillie with her child Billie using he to get money of her father. Her bi-racial background wasn't continued after that. It was a shame It could have really gone places the next time you see the mother is at the end in a surprising twist.

The movie doesn't deserve the rep it got. it fully defines Glitter and so what did you expect. This is a film really made for specific niches, the actors fans, the musics fans and the cult status. However the movie isn't really about Billie, Dice takes up most of the screen time anyway.

Steven Sandvoss (Elder Aaron Davies) and Jaqueline Bisset deliver two strong peformances. Sandvoss falter's a little in a crying scene, which I found hilarious. The movie dragged just after half of it. The length of the sex scene was like the Matrix Reloaded important to the script but too self-depricating. Wesley A. Ramsey (the love interest Christian) did a good job his crying was much better. Rebekah Jordan's character made me want to slap her silly.

Considering it being a low budget movie there was no excuse for the sets to look like Kenan and Kel. The rest of the supporting cast were good particularly Khary Payton and Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Amber Benson just got sexier.

All in all could have been a great movie but wasn't.