His Purpleness was never sultrier or sexier than the 1980s, when the artist formerly and latterly known as Prince churned out pop classics with embarrassing ease. But despite a string of hits like “1999″ and “Purple Rain,” mainstream America remained resistant to his charms. Sign o’ the Times, then, can be seen as Prince’s attempt to show his countrymen just what they were missing. The film was intended to be a concert documentary of Prince’s 1987 performances in Rotterdam, Holland and Antwerp, Belgium, but had to be almost completely reshot due to technical problems. According to saxophonist Eric Leeds, as much as 80% of the final cut came from footage produced on a soundstage at Prince’s Paisley Park Studios in Minneapolis. The box-office take wasn’t exactly boffo (a lifetime gross of $3 million), but a subsequent release on VHS catapulted Prince into the living rooms (and hearts) of many.
Jonathan Demme, who helmed Talking Heads’ seminal Stop Making Sense, also directed legendary alt-rocker Neil Young in this surprisingly affecting feature. The duo had previously paired up on music videos and for the Oscar-nominated track that Young wrote for Demme’s Philadelphia (which was used at the end of the movie). Filmed over two nights at Nashville’s historic Ryman Auditorium, many of the songs came from Young’s Prairie Wind album, which was written following Young’s brush with death from a potentially fatal brain aneurysm earlier in the decade. For the most part, these were tracks the audience had never heard before. Demme (who also manned the camera) and cinematographer Ellen Kuras (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, No Direction Home: Bob Dylan) stuck to a resolutely simple setup, leaving the songs — in Young’s plaintive, heartfelt tenor — all the more memorable.
TIME’s take: “The film makes you feel that an artist who always seemed to be standing on the other side of a milewide canyon is suddenly in your living room.”
Richard Dawson, the wisecracking British entertainer who was among the schemers in the 1960s sitcom “Hogan’s Heroes” and a decade later began kissing thousands of female contestants as host of the game show “Family Feud” has died. He was 79.
As we prepare for the Game of Thrones finale, we recognize Joffrey and nine other baddies who showed us that terrible, horrible things can come in small packages
