Review by Dan Taylor
It
would be transparently hypocritical of me
to suggest that I wasn't looking forward
to bashing Mariah Carey's big-screen star
vehicle to within an inch of its dopey life.
Hell, I nearly skipped into the theater
as I forsook a "sure thing" (the
Super Bowl champ Ravens versus the lowly
Bengals) in order to drink in a guaranteed
"so bad it's good" laughfest.
How many times can one man
be so wrong?
As it turned out, the trash-talking
Bengals backed up their brazen claims and
soundly beat the unusually mousy Super Bowl
Champs 21-10. (Cincinatti homicide detectives
were immediately placed on full alert and
security was tightened at area nightclubs.)
And GLITTER turned out to be a mostly joyless
affair, a leaden and inept rags-to-riches
tale that... holy shit... made me feel sorry
for its beleagured star. Frankly, it's no
wonder Mariah suffered a mental breakdown
at the very thought of people watching this
worthless effort.
Carey stars as Billie Lane,
the mixed-race daughter of a messed-up jazz
singer mom and wealthy, but deadbeat, dad.
(Billie's childhood is summarized in a credit-length,
colorless sequence that takes her from joining
Mom on stage at a smoky nightclub to being
carted away to an orphange of Dickensian
proportions with nothing but the clothes
on her back and her pussy... cat.)
From there the story jumps
inexplicably to 1983, where it traces Billie's
tumultuous personal and professional lives,
lives that become forever intertwined the
moment she hooks up with Dice (Max Beesley,
acting as if he's just been named the poor
man's Mark Wahlberg), a club dj who plucks
her out of her life as a backup for Sylk,
a slutty Vanity rip-off managed by the sleazy,
Fedora-wearing Timothy.
Friends, no points are awarded
for connecting the dots from here. And,
to show that I'm a good guy, I won't bring
up Vondie Curtis Hall's ham-handed direction
and "pacing," the sad presence
of Ann Magnuson (guess that Jamie Lee Curtis
show money is running out), or the bizarro
finale in which Carey, er, um, I mean "Billie"
takes the stage despite being hit over the
head with incredibly tragic news.
To be honest, making the leap
from music star to matinee idol is no easy
task, and even those that prove successful
at one point often have trouble recapturing
the magic. Elvis's promising movie career
was derailed by the Korean War and climaxed
with such inept efforts as CHANGE OF HABIT
and CLAMBAKE. Madonna made her mark with
DESPERATELY SEEKING SUSAN, but has made
fans and foes alike suffer through everything
from WHO'S THAT GIRL and DICK TRACY to EVITA
and BODY
OF EVIDENCE. Even Prince, whose debut
success must've been dancing in the heads
of the execs who greenlighted this ordeal,
has yet to show us any flashes of his PURPLE
RAIN charisma in ego-fests like UNDER A
CHERRY MOON and GRAFFITI BRIDGE.
Don't be fooled by critics
who have lumped GLITTER in with "so
bad it's funny" efforts like SHOWGIRLS.
No, this is nothing but a roadmap to mental
illness dragged out to an unmerciful 103
minutes.
