Madonna: Goddess of Pop

Year 18, Day 199 - 7/18/26 - Movie #5,379 - SQC DOC BLOCK FILM #18

BEFORE: Forgive the late posting yesterday, I had to go to WORK for the first time in over a week, both jobs have the summer slowdown thing going on, but you know, I worked a large amount in June and all that money has come in, so I should be OK, and things are going to pick up again next week. Then the Asian Film Festival is the week after that, so I should make some money there before this month ends and the cycle continues. Once I'm mid-way through August I can make some plans for September and beyond, it looks like I'll be going to North Carolina for a week during October, as usual, and then I'm flying down again for a few days at Thanksgiving to look after my Dad while my sister comes up to New York and works the Macy's Parade for the first time in a few years. Yeah I don't think I've ever traveled far during Thanksgiving week before, but I'm using SkyMiles and I picked early morning flights to try and minimize the damage - still, there just SO much that can go wrong. I hate to miss Thanksgiving in NYC with my wife, but this is a one-time request, inconveniencing only me, here's hoping. Anyway I don't THINK I have a Thanksgiving movie lined up, so I'll just finish whatever films fall into November before the trip and then wrap up the year and some Christmas movies when I get back. 

Sean Penn carries over from "Pamela: A Love Story" and I've been saving this state because I know it's where Madonna grew up - today's "Get to Know a State" profile is on MICHIGAN. I don't think I've ever been there, let's get that out of the way, and no immediate plans to go, so my record becomes 15 and 3.

Date admitted to the U.S.: January 26, 1837 (26th state)

Nickname: "The Wolverine State" or "The Great Lakes State". Whichever you prefer, I guess. 

Claim to fame: Detroit, so Motown I guess and all those great soul records. 

Prevalent language: Motown music

State Motto: "Si quaeris peninsulam amoenam circumspice" which is Latin for "Sugar pie, honey bunch"

State Flower: Apple blossom
State Fossil: Mastodon

State Fish: Brook Trout

State Duck: Wood duck

State Mammal: White-tailed deer

State Tree: Eastern white pine

State Beverage: Faygo sodas, and a cocktail called the Hummer (white rum, Kahlua and vanilla ice cream, yes please!)

Notable Sports Teams: Lions, Tigers and Red Wings (oh, my!) plus the Pistons in the NBA. That's it, each state should only get ONE team in each sport. 

Fun Fact: A large number of film directors and screenwriters seem to be from Michigan - like sure, I knew about Michael Moore, but now I just learned that Francis Ford Coppola, Jerry Bruckheimer, Roger Corman, Paul Feig, Mike Binder, John Hughes, Lawrence Kasdan, Neil LaBute, McG, Sam Raimi, Paul Schrader were all born there. And for actors there's Tim Allen, Byron Allen, Gillian Anderson, Kristen Bell, Elizabeth Berkley, Selma Blair, Jeff Daniels, Taylor Lautner, James Lipton, Loni Love, Ed McMahon, Gilda Radner, Tom Selleck, Dax Shepard and Lily Tomlin - a lot of Detroit people who made it to Hollywood. I had no idea - but they were all so willing to leave, does that tell us something? It's also the only state that's in two distinct pieces of territory (umm, right?), and the only state that borders four of the five Great Lakes. Also I know that Detroit pizza is rectangular and is baked in metal pans that were certainly never ever used for collecting the oil from cars. 

THE PLOT: This documentary gives you a real insight into the life and the career of one of the greatest figures in popular music. 

AFTER: Well, it seems I'm forced to watch another stock-umentary tonight, this one ran on the Fuse channel in those weeks just before I had to lock down my final chain, and it turned out that when I was trying to make 50 docs this year, I was still four or five short. Anyway, with the linking being the way it was, it was either add those last four I found, all of them, or don't add any at all, those were my choices. SO this year it's quantity over quality, at least at times. Look, I can tell from the choice of the "experts" they interviewed that this was made by the same production company that made "Elton John: Becoming Rocketman" and "ABBA: Super Troupe". These are the people they have on speed-dial. Well, at least they're interviewing somebody, and it's not 100% archive footage, but you know, it could have been, considering how little insight these "experts" bring to the table. One of them talks as if she's personal friends with Madonna, and I don't think anything could be further from the truth. 

We also don't really learn anything about Madonna that we didn't all already know. I don't think anyone watching is thinking, "WHAT? She was married to Sean Penn? How did that come to be?" We all had to live through that difficult time, man, it just wasn't pretty. Nobody could possibly have been shocked to find out Pamela Anderson was married to Tommy Lee, either, it's just things that everyone already knows. And those marriages didn't last, like, oh, what a shocker. You mean an actor and a pop star couldn't live together for more than three or four years without their egos getting in the way, or one of them cheating on the other. Again, nobody is a bit surprised. 

Madonna also took a stab at writing, in addition to acting and directing. Madonna developed a fake English accent after a couple years in London, married to Guy Ritchie. We've all seen this stuff on E.T. or Extra, if we've paid attention. Madonna made a coffee table book called "Sex" that was mostly nekkid pictures of her, posing as if she's making out with Vanilla Ice and/or Naomi Campbell. Well, sure, I knew this too however this might require additional research. You know, for science's sake. They mention boyfriends like Warren Beatty and Jean-Michel Basquiat, and girlfriends like Sandra Bernhard, but obviously they can't give us a complete list, because it's only an hour-long show. This was also made in 2012, so you know, her life list has probably doubled since then, she seems to be on a tear working her way through a line of young men right now. 

There's no real analysis of her songs, either, at least the ABBA doc got a bit into the hows and whys of certain songs, all they can do here is list a few - "Holiday", "Borderline", "Like a Virgin", "Papa Don't Preach" and "Like a Prayer" before they fast-forward up to "Ray of Light", in an attempt to prove that she's still got her finger on the pulse. And then "Give Me All Your Luvin", the single with M.I.A. and Nicki Minaj, the one that was being promoted around the time this doc was made. Oh, yeah, they did mention "Vogue", but where are "True Blue", "Crazy for You", "Into the Groove", "Dress You Up", "Live to Tell", "Open Your Heart" and "This Used to Be my Playground"? Also, she did a Bond theme song, "Die Another Day", isn't that worth a mention? 
I'm not even a Madonna fan, and I can tell they skipped a LOT here. 

You'd also think from this quickie doc that she only made a couple movies, they only talk about "Dick Tracy", "Evita" and "Shanghai Surprise", but she was in other productions - "Desperately Seeking Susan", "Who's That Girl", "A League of Their Own", "Body of Evidence" and "Four Rooms", that's not nothing. Yeah, they also mention "Truth or Dare" which was a doc she had made about herself, that's just a bit self-indulgent, but hey, at least she started talking about her fluid sexuality, that could have been inspirational for a lot of people out there. That and her kissing Britney AND Christina on stage during the MTV Video Music Awards in 2003 - which probably turned on a bunch of the men AND women who were watching. If there's a ripple effect in people coming out, that might have been the pebble dropped in the lake. 

Yeah, I get it, she's a controversial figure, but also one of the richest women in show business and one of the top-selling acts in the history of music, she's been around a long time, some might say too long, but she continues to shock people and make music, but come on, we know all this already. There's still no excuse to make a shoddy doc and not try hard to break new ground - but the goal here was just to fill up 90 minutes of programming, right? 

Directed by Maureen Goldthorpe

Also starring Ian Cohen, Paul Gambaccini (last seen in "ABBA: Super Troupe"), Lyndsey Parker, Ashley Pearson (last seen in "Elton John: Becoming Rocketman"), Jeff Weiss 

with archive footage of Madonna (last seen in "Lorne"), Christina Aguilera (last seen in "Killing John Lennon"), Antonio Banderas (last seen in "Paddington in Peru"), Jean-Michel Basquiat, Warren Beatty (last seen in "God Is the Bigger Elvis"), Sandra Bernhard (last seen in "Marty Supreme"), Naomi Campbell (last seen in "The Night We Never Met"), Christopher Ciccone, Dick Clark (last seen in "Devo"), Iggy Pop (ditto), David Fincher, Dan Gilroy, Big Daddy Kane, Carlos Leon, Lourdes Leon, M.I.A., Nicki Minaj (last heard in "The Angry Birds Movie 2"), Guy Ritchie, Britney Spears (last seen in "Child Star"), Justin Timberlake (ditto), Vanilla Ice (last seen in "Stan Lee"), Andy Warhol (also last seen in "Devo"), The Ramones (ditto), The Sex Pistols (ditto), The Temptations. 

RATING: 3 out of 10 Golden Raspberry Award Nominations