FILM
The Little Prince of Purple Rain
/ Rayvon Pettis
08.15.09
The Atlanta Plaza Theater is located at the heart of downtown old-money/new confusion Ponce de Leon Ave. I don’t know who’s overseen the planning of this essential stretch of East Atlanta as it’s evolved over the years, but collectively they deserve an award for the wonderful stream-of-conscious result. Diners, dance clubs, sports bars, gay bars, strip clubs, college dorms and grocery stores duke it out in a never ending war of commerce and conflicting mantra. The theater itself sits next to Urban Outfitters and a Methodist Church and after all these years it still looks great.
The Plaza is the oldest movie theater in the city and, like the Clairmont down the road, used to be regal, then used to be sketchy, and now just is what it is. The outside is all red lights and intrigue while the interior oozes thickly historic, warmly inviting weirdness waves, having been converted from a grindhouse venue to now promoting independent film and nostalgic midnight matinées. The highlight of this particular evening is an ’80s tribute of limited artwork (really just a handful of smallish, mostly airbrushed Prince portraitures, but I did see a cool one of Reagan fighting communist imperial walkers) and an original first run 32 millimeter screening of Purple Rain. It’s been twenty-five years since Purple Rain opened and with the recent passing of ’80s icons John Hughes (whose film Sixteen Candles was previewed in the screening’s previews) and Michael Jackson, the film works well for framing feelings of nostalgic remembrance many of us might be having.
The real appeal I think of the '80s is the idea of a brief age when anything could be considered sexy. Sex in the 1950s was outlawed, in the '60s overvalued, in the '70s possibly a wee profligate and mismanaged, and in the '80’s oversold. This is not to say the speed or frequency of actual intercourse increased (with the advent of AIDS, the result being quite the opposite), but it began to spread outward in every direction and could be, as a kind of conceptual theme, packaged with almost anything. As a person conceived in this period, when the value of sex was where the dollar is, today I can’t help wondering what random goofy over-synthesized moment resulted in my accidental existence. I like to think it was the last era unafraid to try absolutely anything and call it “hot.”
The Plaza is the oldest movie theater in the city and, like the Clairmont down the road, used to be regal, then used to be sketchy, and now just is what it is. The outside is all red lights and intrigue while the interior oozes thickly historic, warmly inviting weirdness waves, having been converted from a grindhouse venue to now promoting independent film and nostalgic midnight matinées. The highlight of this particular evening is an ’80s tribute of limited artwork (really just a handful of smallish, mostly airbrushed Prince portraitures, but I did see a cool one of Reagan fighting communist imperial walkers) and an original first run 32 millimeter screening of Purple Rain. It’s been twenty-five years since Purple Rain opened and with the recent passing of ’80s icons John Hughes (whose film Sixteen Candles was previewed in the screening’s previews) and Michael Jackson, the film works well for framing feelings of nostalgic remembrance many of us might be having.
The real appeal I think of the '80s is the idea of a brief age when anything could be considered sexy. Sex in the 1950s was outlawed, in the '60s overvalued, in the '70s possibly a wee profligate and mismanaged, and in the '80’s oversold. This is not to say the speed or frequency of actual intercourse increased (with the advent of AIDS, the result being quite the opposite), but it began to spread outward in every direction and could be, as a kind of conceptual theme, packaged with almost anything. As a person conceived in this period, when the value of sex was where the dollar is, today I can’t help wondering what random goofy over-synthesized moment resulted in my accidental existence. I like to think it was the last era unafraid to try absolutely anything and call it “hot.”