BIM Stars

If you are gay and of a certain age (as I am), you may remember a certain glossy "magazine of entertainment." This was AFTER DARK, which was the gayest non-porn magazine ever, and it was most popular during the 70's and 80's. People like Liza and Bette appeared on the cover, and lots of tasteful male nude and nearly-nude photos abounded. It was glitzy, heavily-mascared, skimpy underwear-clad, pre-AIDS fun.

That brings me to THE APPLE. Beyond the title number, set in Hell, which has to be one of my favorite bad rock movie free-for-alls (with horrid lyrics and extremely hard-working dancers), the "sex" number, with multiple beds full of women in slips and men in gold briefs, absolutely proves my point that this movie was merely a film transcription of the late, lamented AD.

If XANADU and GREASE 2 can be issued on DVD, why not a remastered and remixed wide-screen edition of THE APPLE? Call your local congressman or gay cult-film fan TODAY!

Vapid (largely due to the male lead's inability to act - not surprisingly, this was his only film), bizarre fantasy-musical-allegory. It gets points for its sheer audacity and the effort that was put into it - it was probably made on a relatively low budget, yet it manages to create a world of its own; apparently it was filmed in Germany, but it seems to be taking place on another universe altogether. For some reason, it reminded me of "Zardoz" (yes, and "Logan's Run" too): these movies are so bizarre that they belong in a league of their own, beyond "good" and "bad". Best song: "If you know how to be a ma-ster". (**)

This is one of the most delicious fruits I've tasted in a long time.

Yes, it's cheesy, but you can't beat a whole musical number of

seduction that ends with a literal orgasm, the chanteuse singing

"I'm coming, I'm coming...." Hysterical!

From a pop anthropologic perspective it's also an interesting

image of the transition from disco to early 80s wave and pop. You

can see the seeds of fashion later made popular by the likes of

Madonna, MC Hammer, and many other somewhat unfortunate

style makers. This is the missing link between two distinct genres.

One of the best parts about this movie is its prophetic vision of the

massive corporate take-over of the entertainment industry. While

we are not forced to where little plastic icons on our foreheads,

there is no denying the stifling and destructive power that major

conglomerates have on what we see, hear, and read. So, if not

other reason, I love this movie for how eerily true it rings today.

I've been waiting for this movie all my life.until now,my favorite film musicals were "xanadu","voyage of the rock aliens",and "the pirate movie", but this one far and away exceeds them all.I'd heard about it for a few years,and finally got the chance to see (and tape) it.this was about three weeks ago,and i've seen it at least a dozen times since then.my friends have stopped coming over because i keep "subjecting" them to it,but i don't care,i'm part of the BIM family now.my coworkers have been giving me strange looks just because i walk around singing "popping power by the hour-SPEED","light my way child of love", the entire APPLE SONG,which i know by heart,and of course"hey hey hey bim's on the way".they may think i'm crazy,but i know someday Mr. Topps will come down and take me away in his holy pimpmobile.

Probably made as a "please God, let what happened to ROCKY HORROR

happen to us!", project, THE APPLE is so audacious, so over the top, so

totally awful that it is simply wonderful. The songs are cheesy, the

acting horrendous, the costumes nightmarish, the concept bizarre etc.,

etc., but when all those negatives are put together, the result is a

positively guilty pleasure to top all guilty pleasures. Please, someone,

release a letterboxed DVD of this film so that all its rocky horrors

squeezed onto the small screen can be seen in all their garish terrible/wonderfulness.......