MADONNA MOVIES
1979 - A Certain Sacrifice
1984 - Vision Quest
1985 - Desperately Seeking Susan
1986 - Shanghai Surpries
1987 - Who's That Girl
1988 - Bloodhounds Of Broadway
1990 - Dick Tracy
1991 - Truth Or Dare
1992 - A League Of Their Own
1992 - Shadows And Fog
1993 - Body Of Evidence
1993 - Dangerous Game
1995 - Blue In The Face
1995 - Four Rooms
1996 - Girl 6
1996 - Evita
2000 - The Next Best Thing
While nowhere near as successful as her musical career, Madonna actually aspired to be an actress before a singer and has actively seeked out roles since the very beginning of her career. While her acting has often been trashed, she is in fact, a talented, natural actress. If you look closely, her bad performances are only in her bad films. She's only weak on screen when the film itself has nothing to offer. When the script and director can't support her she falls apart, but when it all works, Madonna can wipe up the floor with most of the actresses working today.
A Certain Sacrifice - Poorly shot, muddled idependent film features Madonna as Bruna, the leader of an under-explained group of sex slaves who is involved in an intense relationship with an unlikable, pretentious character named Dashiel (Jeremy Pattnosh). When Bruna is raped by the equally unlikable Raymond Hall (Charles Kurtz) Dashiel and she use Bruna's sex slaves to sacrifice Raymond Hall in the only scene in the film that has any emotion other than boredom. As Hall is tied to a stake the slaves entone a death chant. It's oddly disturbing and creepy but it comes way too late to save this sloppy, no budget mess. Madonna's performance is stilted and stiff, worse than even Shanghai Surprise. Madonna's last name is even spelled wrong in the end credits! Filmed in 1979, director Stephen John Lewicki made a fortune selling copies of this dreck in 1985, after Madonna made it big, but it didn't exactly set his directorial career on fire.
Vision Quest - Madonna's first role in a studio film is this sappy but entertaining love story about a young wrestler (Matthew Modine) and an older woman (Linda Fiorentino). Madonna appears briefly as a club singer, performing Crazy For You and Gambler. It's a tiny role but Madonna's stage presence is apparent, even back in 1984.
Desperately Seeking Susan - Madonna's first real movie role was in this missing identity comedy where she played the eponymous Susan, a drifting free spirit who communicates with her boyfriend through a series of personal ads in the newspaper, which are followed by bored housewife Roberta (Roseanna Arquette). So fascinated by these ads that she goes to the place where Susan and her boyfriend are to meet, only to be thwacked on the head. Forgetting Roberta, she believes that she is Susan, which leads to all sorts of misadventures involving magic tricks, confused boyfriends, but best of all, Madonna decked out in her downtown styles of the early 1980s. Her floating, ambiguous drifter was similar to Madonna's own appeal and her sense of comic timing is impeccable. Roseanna Arquette may have won a British Academy Award for her performance, but Desperately Seeking Susan belongs to Madonna. A great major debut, it was almost ten years before she did a movie as good as this one.
Shanghai Surprise - Jim Goddard directed this wretched mess starring Mr. and Mrs. Sean Penn. Madonna plays a missonary is China searching for opium to use as a painkiller (one hopes she plans to distribute it to the audience). Sean Penn joins her search as a fortune seaker who at first doesn't get along with Madonna. A confused, misguided horror, Shanghai Surprise is the worst movie Madonna has ever made (and she's made some howlers). Her performance is so screamingly awful it can't even be appreciated for its awfulness, although her ridiculous attempt at crying is a laugh out loud lowlight. For masochists only, this one is downright painful to watch. Madonna won her first Razzie award for Worst Actress for this film and the film was nominated for five others including Worst Actor (Sean Penn) and Worst Picture, losing that category to Howard the Duck and Under the Cherry Moon.
Who's That Girl - Madonna's second straight disaster and her second straight Worst Actress Razzie award, Who's That Girl features Madonna as Nicki Finn, a woman accused of a crime she didn't commit and carted off to jail. The man resposible for the crime sends Griffin Dunne off to escort Nikki to the bus station so she can't blow the whistle on him. Directed by James Foley (Papa Don't Preach video), Who's That Girl is a likeable romantic screwball comedy that loses its way about a third of the way through. It starts off energetically and offbeat, but becomes far too broad and someone really should have said no to Madonna's accent. It's painful to listen to an it ruins an otherwise fine perfomance (Razzie or no) with good comic timing. A disaster at the box office grossing only $7 million on a $17 million budget, Who's That Girl was nominated for an additional four Razzies including Worst Picture, losing to Leonard Part 6. The rare instance of a smash hit soundtrack including the Golden Globe nominated title track (losing to Dirty Dancing's I've Had the Time of My Life) being paired with a dud of a movie.
Bloodhounds Of Broadway - The late Harold Brookner's gangster comedy features Madonna in the small supporting role of the unfortunately named Hortense Hathaway, a chorus girl in a witty but brief performance. The budget on this film was so tiny that Rolling Stone reported that the dressing rooms were separated by shower curtains. Brookner's death of AIDS after the film's production forced the film to be edited without his imput which probably would have helped the film's episodic feel. Despite Madonna's charming performance she was once again honoured with a Razzie Award nomination for Worst Supporting Actress.
Dick Tracy - Madonna took a massive pay cut to play Breathless Mahoney, a sultry gangster moll and singer. Madonna's pure sex appeal helps her steal every scene she's in: an impressive feat in a film starring Warren Beatty, Al Pacino, Dustin Hoffman, James Caan, Glenne Headly, Kathy Bates, Dick Van Dyke and Catherine O'Hara. She's still not quite comfortable on screen, but it helps Breathless appear aloof and mysterious in the important scenes and distant and distracted in the others. Her performance highlights: Sooner Or Later is a stunner and More is energetic and bouncy as Al Pacino as Big Boy Caprice runs a hilariously misguided rehearsal. Not a narrative triumph, Dick Tracy was still a visual marvel, Beatty's direction is even handed and his choice to shoot the film in only primary comic book colors was the right one; the film looks like no other released before or since.
Truth Or Dare - ajkdfls;jfasdkljfasdklfjklsdjfklajcijceiojf jalk dfjkalsf jekl arioe; fjeil ;afife ahflk; afhkl;af jklasd;fo
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Body Of Evidence - djfkasl;jkldfas; jfdskal ;fjslakf jskldfjlksdjf sdhflhfrlk fjdka fjklsda fjasdkl fjdslkaf jkfajioe fjeakf jef jioa; fjeaio;f jeiao; fjioeas;fj iafje ia;l jklasd ;jfdaskl; jfdsak j;iose j;as j
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Four Rooms - jasdfkl afjsdkl jdfk afjkldfj asjflkadjfi ejf afjlkaejfiejfkljf aj
Girl 6 - jasdfkljfdas jdfksla jfdkl fjaf ;jei ;ajfj eajkfla; ji;o jia; fjieoa; jfeio;a fjeiao;f jio;jf aio; jefiao; jefio;a ejafio; efja;o jfeio; a ifea;o f ieao; jefio;e ajio;aef
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Chicago - jdafkslj ajfdsk jfdakl jf dja fjie ja;i jfal;j ila;j feil; fjal; jfal;j fkl
The Next Best Thing - jdfskalj;fadskflasd;jdfsakl;jdfskjflk jaklf jsdakfsdkla;jflksad fjklasd fjklsdjfsdklfjoeijfo jfklaj
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