“BITE THE APPLE!”
Oh dear dear, dear me. I had heard about it. I knew it existed. I read a review here and there but I had happily forgotten what I had learned. And the reason why it was happy was that, years after I had been aware of the joys of both Can’t Stop the Music and Xanadu, I finally saw the third in the disco-musical-extravaganza troika of bizarroness, The Apple, courtesy of the fine folks at American Cinematheque on their nice huge screen at the Egyptian in Hollywood. And goddamn does this film ever take the cake.
Oh, I suppose you want to know more about the film — and you can find out easily enough, you can go here or here. But you know, don’t. Don’t ask anyone to explain anything to you. Don’t ask for any hints. I want to tell you but I don’t want to tell you, because I want you to come in cold and just lose your mind. It will be squelched, pulped and extruded and you will thank me for letting you all experience it just as it is.
Now I can say that, yes, part of its noteriety is that it was written and directed by that genius of rudely energetic suck Menahem Golan, and that indeed he and cousin Yoram Globus were Those Guys In the Eighties that produced all sorts of fun, and that it was filmed in Berlin in 1979 or 1980 with a stated setting of the film being 1994, and that it’s about music and starpower and temptation and redemption. And overtly Christian eschatology…sorta. And that it doesn’t drag, only ninety minutes, and that’s to the good.
And I suppose I can say that two scenes linger with me — well, the entire film lingers with me, but anyway. First, this gentleman, Mr. Boogalow:
…sings a song apparently called “Master” which can only be described as Noel Coward does reggae in cabaret hell. Second…well, as the film draws to its close, there can never ever be a more astonishing deus ex machina moment ever. The fact that there is ABSOLUTELY NO CONTEXT AT ALL for its happening is all the more important.
It’s out on DVD at the end of the month. Buy it. Rent it. Marvel. I say no more.