Great documentary

preppy-3

Documentary of Madonna's 1990 "Blonde Ambition" tour. Madonna had total control over this film so most of it was manipulated by her and she probably left off some of the really damaging material. Still, there are more than a few unguarded moments in the film with Madonna and her crew talking, fighting, complaining that can't be staged. Also there are a few hilarious moments with her then-boyfriend Warren Beatty.

The documentary, backstage stuff is in grainy black and white (with lousy sound) and the concert scenes are in bright color, great sound and (sadly) MTV style editing. Still, it's fun, entertaining, very dirty (but this IS Madonna) and a hilarious game of truth or dare played with her and the crew.

Low points: Director Alex Keshishain strangely has fairly extensive interview footage with the only straight male dancer in the group--Oliver Crumes. Crumes comes across an as obnoxious, homophobic and sexist jerk. He's actually surprised that all the other male dancers are gay! What planet did he grow up on? Also his dancing (what you see of it) is pretty lousy. And the portrayal of the gay dancers is not exactly positive. The film is too long (it could lose 20 minutes) and not all the songs are good. Still, worth seeing.

One BIG complaint--the video version has two extra added numbers--"Hanky Panky" and a Dick Tracy number--they're not on the DVD. Why not?

score 8/10

preppy-3 3 January 2002

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw0296512/