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<\/a>Cher Films<\/h4>\nFrom \u201cWhy Mask is a Much Better Movie Than You Remember\u201d by Adam Lowes in The HotCorn<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n \u201cThe trend for applauding actors who \u2018go ugly\u2019 for a film is a rather reductive form of praise. It\u2019s the true embodiment and total immersion of a character beyond their physical appearance which deserves the plaudits.\u201d Lowes cites Charlize Theron\u2019s characterization of Aileen Wuornos as an example.<\/p>\n He calls Mask a \u201cpoignant biopic\u2026very low-key and dramatically unfussy\u2026very much mirroring the no-bullshit approach and grounded attitude of Rocky\u2019s protective mother, Rusty (played to utter perfection by Cher).\u201d The article mostly focuses on Eric Stoltz\u2019s performance as Rocky Dennis and \u201cthe character\u2019s day-to-day struggle in being accepted. The masterstroke here, however, is introducing him as a slightly older and confident teenager, at home in his skin and popular at school\u201d yet also a teenager where \u201call-too relatable moments of teen longing and vulnerability occasionally creep in\u2026.Stotlz\u2019s Rocky really is an inspiration.\u201d Lowes talks about the \u201cheart-rending\u201d ending, saying \u201cMask<\/em> remains a superior Hollywood weepie\u2026.a film which refuses to dwell on suffering and sentiment, and instead embraces optimism and hop in the face of pretty insurmountable odds.\u201d<\/p>\n from \u201cAlmost There: Cher in Mask<\/em>\u201d by Claudio Alves in The Film Experience<\/a>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cOver the years, [Cher] has amassed a small but impressive filmography.\u201d Her \u201cbullheaded no-nonsense attitude. \u2026Cher embodies Rusty like a complicated hurricane of abrasive motherhood.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOne of Mask\u2019s greatest assets is its reluctance to paint the main characters with broad strokes\u2026allowing the shadows of their imperfections to enter the picture\u2026.Cher extruding enough radiant movie star charisma to turn the night into day. With a cloud of curly hair that could be alternatively described as a lion\u2019s mane or an oxidized halo, Cher\u2019s Rusty dominates every moment she\u2019s on-screen [that\u2019s Cher pulling focus] while never breaking into the naturalistic spell of the proceedings. Her magnetism feels organic, so tightly woven into the character\u2019s essence, that we can\u2019t discern where movie magic ends and honest humanity begins.\u201d<\/p>\n Alves describes Cher as \u201cbrassy and loud, but never strenuously so\u2026Watching her maneuver through the comedic possibilities of the scenes with earthy dryness reminded me of Julia Roberts in Erin Brockovich<\/em>\u2026.Cher is careful with her maternal affections and affectations\u2026.Mask<\/em> never indulges in simple one-dimensional emotional tones despite the schmaltzy possibilities inherent to this story of disability and young death. In reality, nobody\u2019s entirely a hero or villain, so neither are Rusty or Rocky. She\u2019s cool as hell and tough as nails. She\u2019s also an addict, capable of neglect, cruelty too.\u201d Alves talks about the mother-son relationship as a \u201c\u2026an undercurrent of perpetual irritation to bubble over.\u201d He says Cher\u2019s \u201csculptural features and big eyes make for a gorgeous movie mechanism, equally able to project compassion and steeliness, warmth and glacial coldness,\u201d [occasional descriptions of Cher as well]. \u201cHer fury has interesting dimensions as well.\u201d Alves talks about her facial representations of regret, spite, aching vulnerability and adds that While she\u2019s often thought of as a singer first and foremost, Cher\u2019s astoundingly nimble when it comes to playing silent reaction shots. It\u2019s difficult to forget the bittersweet awe\u201d (of the funhouse scene).<\/p>\n \u201cBecause of Bagdanovich\u2019s downplayed empathy\u2026Mask<\/em> rises above a tricky premise and delivers one hell of an emotional wallop\u2026Cher\u2019s asked to perform an overwhelming cocktail of despair and material perseverance\u2026in one show-stopping sequence, Cher goes through the many stages of grief, allowing us to see how her character survives the loss of her son.\u201d<\/p>\n In the comments below the piece, readers talk about the public feud between Cher and Bogdanovich, the March release date hurting the movie. On comment quotes a long Bagdonovich interview where he says Cher was the most difficult person he ever worked with because, her surmised, she doesn\u2019t like men. He speculates this is why she dropped all her surnames. (Cher has always said this was for her kids). Bogdanovich said Cher couldn\u2019t sustain a scene, (Suspect-<\/em>era criticism as well), but was very good in close-ups. In fact, he shot closeups than in any other picture he made, he says, because \u201cher eyes have the sadness of the world.\u201d Bogdanovich admits he didn\u2019t like her, \u201cShe was always looking like someone was cheating her.\u201d After about seven weeks, he claims, they liked each other better. But then he got mad at her again when she sided with the studio over the scene cuts and the music replacements.<\/p>\n Another commenter then retorts that Bagdanovich\u2019s comments say more about him than Cher. Another commentor says \u201cHmm. Bogdanovich says Cher can\u2019t act? And he cast Cybill Shepherd repeatedly in everything? Methinks he means that Cher is strong minded and has her own opinions\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n Another comments says Bogdanovich \u201cversion of events are always interesting, but his blind spot where women are concerned is well documented.\u201d Another comments say \u201cthat conversation captures the uphill climb for respect that Cher had to climb\u201d and the person reminds us that \u201cRobert Altman, Norman Jewison and Mike Nichols never had a problem with Cher or dissed her acting ability\u201d Another comment astutely comments that Cher would not have won for Moonstruck<\/em> without this Oscar snub for Mask<\/em>. \u201cIt gave her momentum.\u201d Another comment says of Witches of Eastwick<\/em> that \u201cher charisma is amazing—the camera just loves her. I just think actors who have that startling quality always make some people less able to acknowledge their talent.\u201d<\/p>\n Interestingly, Mask <\/em>was the only Cher-look I tried to emulate, down to creating shoelace necklaces.<\/p>\n Sullivan notes the \u201cunsettlingly charismatic Nicolas Cage\u201d and calls the movie a \u201cglorious contribution to the romantic comedy canon.\u201d She mentions a New-York-history podcast called The Bowery Boys who dedicated an episode<\/a> to the movie. I\u2019d love to hear this. Whenever anyone is looking for movies that feel like New York City, I always mention After Hours <\/em>and Moonstruck for me. My neighbors and landlords in Yonkers all had apartments like the Castorninis with the plastic couch covers and the hallway runners. My employers and many of my co-workers at Yonkers Contracting were also all Italian and I used to be able to tell the borough accents apart.<\/p>\n \u201cLike an opera, [the] characters each have specific themes they return to. For Loretta it\u2019s luck\u2014she believes her\u2019s is bad. For Rose Castorini, it\u2019s her believe that men chase women because they fear death.\u201d<\/p>\n Sullivan says the movie contains many tropes of romantic comedies including the makeover scene. She concludes, \u201cwhat makes it a truly wonderful film is that the lines are so incredibly surprising. Bizarre, deranged even, and yet somehow entirely plausible.\u201d She says the movie is \u201chuman, true, funny\u2014and hopelessly, gloriously romantic.\u201d<\/p>\n This is a good reminder that the niche-popular Cher of the early 1980s is not the solid worldwide iconic Cher of today. The article lists Cher\u2019s previous 1970s record labels MCA, Warner Bros and Casablanca and says, \u201call of whom pushed her towards disco material.\u201d This is inaccurate. Only Casablanca did this, as they was primarily a disco label. Interestingly, this article sketches out the pedigree of the musicians and producers: \u00a0Steve Lukather (Toto), Howie Epstein (Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers), Desmond Child penning a song, producers David Wolfert and John Farrarr of Olivia Newton John\u2019s then-massive(ly annoying) hit \u201cPhysical.\u201d There\u2019s a story about how much I could not stand that \u201cPhysical\u201d song that runs straight through a series of random events involving my former sister-in-law Maureen to my eventually finding a Babys record in my brother\u2019s stack of records. Which is ironic because there\u2019s no mention of the covers on this album, one of which is a Babys song.<\/p>\n But anyway, the author Courtney E. Smith speculates the album flopped due to lack of support from Columbia Records, her label of one album (never really a good fit). Smith notes that there was no push to radio, no music video produced and because the album was never pressed to CD officially, the album has become a rarity. She mentions Cher\u2019s lip-sync appearances on Solid Gold<\/em> and American Bandstand<\/em>.<\/p>\n She quotes producer Wolfert to say didn\u2019t support \u201cI Paralyze\u201d (US single) or \u201cRudy\u201d (UK single) as the singles and wanted \u201cWalk with Me\u201d instead. None of those three songs really captured the tone of the times, though. \u2018Smith quotes Cher in a 1999 Rolling Stone<\/em> interview saying her favorite singles of all time were \u201cI Paralyze\u201d and \u201cSave Up All Your Tears\u201d but Cher also said she \u201chatred the [I Paralyze<\/em>] album because she \u201cdidn\u2019t have anything to contribute, had no control, and hated the whole experience.\u201d<\/p>\n This may also be the biggest reason why the album failed. Smith notes that as the album was released she was already filming the movie Silkwood<\/em> and wholly focused on her acting projects.<\/p>\n I dug out of a stack of online articles I printed off but never read from about 20 years ago. Some fan compiled the Black Rose reviews (which are no longer online):<\/p>\n from Rock-A-Rama<\/em>: \u201cIf the idea of Cher and Les Dukek making music together has you scratching your head in wonder, then the product of this seemingly unmeldable alliance\u2019ll have you scratching your vinyl to bits as you race to get it off your turntable and out of the house. The first track is the only one that works at all\u2026and Dudek can actually go through an entire song without having the great god of excess willing him into another boring solo.\u201d<\/p>\n Stereo Review<\/em> calls the album \u201cNot Bad\u201d and says \u201cCher is a show biz pro, and to stay in business she must adapt to the times.\u201d Her foray into disco is mentioned. Her one album of New Wave Rock is also mentioned. \u201cBlack Rose is an attempt to emulate Blondie\u201d [it is??]\u00a0 and other outfits with feisty-mama lead singers. [wha??] Many of these groups are produced by Mike Chapman or his associates, and sure enough\u2026\u201d\u00a0 \u201cHow long will the fad for foxy-chick neo-punk commercial groups last? Can Cher\u2014our Lady of the Charts [she is??] find true happiness and an occasional Las Vegas booking on this route? No one can say, but\u2014much to my surprise\u2014I find myself rooting for her. I suffered through Cher\u2019s monotone braying during the sixties, but during the seventies she got a little better and today she is no longer awful but quite capable.\u201d<\/p>\n From Billboard<\/em>: \u201cGuess who\u2019s gotten punked out now?…Cher\u2019s vocals are emotional and full of life on the entire disk. Master guitarist Dudek contributes some sterling guitar playing.\u201d<\/p>\n From People<\/em> Magazine<\/em>: \u201cCher\u2019s quivering, over-mannered vocals\u2026need all the help they can get and she gets more than she deserves. [The players] make this a musically fine album, their finesse however, unwittingly focuses attention on Cher\u2019s shallow talents\u2026Cher sings mostly on pitch and is likably raunchy when she growls. But she indulges\u2014regardless of mood or tempo\u2014the same tendency to pronounce simple words like some Elvis imitator in drag: heavy becomes \u201chay-vee\u201d; parting becomes \u201cpawting\u201d; temperature is mumbled as \u201ctemp\u2019chuhh.\u201d In the word \u201csplit\u201d Cher even discovers several entirely new vowels\u2026.This album could be vastly improved, rerecorded by the \u201cGroup with No Singer.\u201d<\/p>\n (In case anyone has forgotten what mercilessly bad reviews Cher once received on her records.)<\/p>\n \u201cFor most of last year, it looked as though Celine Dion’s track ‘My Heart Will Go On’ was going to be the best-selling single of 1998 \u2014 but this accolade was snatched from the Canadian Queen of AOR at the 11th hour\u2026\u201d The [\u201cBelieve\u201d] single spent \u201cseven weeks at the top of the UK charts and\u2026achieved sales of 1.5 million and rising.<\/p>\n The article marks the collaboration of two producers (from Metro Productions from Kingston, Surrey), six songwriters\u2026and talks extensively through the song\u2019s many rewrites, what the \u201cbrain crunch of a dance record\u201d is, how producer Mark kept starting over. \u201cThis was tricky, because dance music is very specific. To get what I was after I had to think about each sound very carefully\u2026it was really a question of finding, say, a kick drum that didn\u2019t sound like a typical TR909 dance kick drum\u2026.wasn\u2019t so cliched\u2026compressed to give them a weird, pumping, smacking sound.\u201d<\/p>\n The author says, \u201cMark believes one doesn\u2019t need expensive technology in order to make a hit record\u201d but then there\u2019s three long paragraphs explaining in detail all the technology they used.<\/p>\n \u201cBasically it was the destruction of her voice, so I was really nervous about playing it to her.\u201d Although the vocoder effect wat Marks\u2019 idea, the other obvious vocal effect\u2026the \u2018telephoney\u2019 quality of Cher\u2019s vocal\u2026came from the lady herself\u2014she\u2019d identified something similar on a Roachford record and asked Mark if he could reproduce it.\u201d<\/p>\n The whole thing took ten days. \u201cLooking back, Mark says the most satisfying part of the project was getting to know Cher who spent six weeks in the studio working on the album\u2026\u2019I thought she might think our setup was a bit small, and that she would turn out to be a bit Hollywood. But she was really great and easy to get on with.\u201d (but Peter Bogdanovich said\u2026??\u201d)<\/p>\n \u201cCher has always been a polarizing force in terms of musical taste: those who love her often love her unconditionally, and those who hate her, hate her with a passion. She deserves credit for being able to laugh at herself\u2026Not every pop titan who employs this trick has managed to stay savvy using this approach as the years have gone by (see also: Madonna\u2019s trying-too-hard MDNA). And while the stomping, layered \u201cTake It Like a Man\u201d joins a first half of solid made-for-the-club cuts, here she uses, and perhaps abuses, the Antares vocal manipulation\u2026 it just feels over-done and it distracts from what are, at the core, still solid disco-ball-spinners done Cher style.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSome have called her vocal talents limited, this is only half-true. Having the ability to push your voice all over the scale and indulge in excessive flights of variety is not a talent all by itself (the real talent there is taking that range and using it to create a vocal performance that has depth and expression.) What this means for Cher is she knows what she is capable of, and she makes it into something beautiful. It is a little ragged around the edges at times, but this is the sound of careworn experience, not of a performer too long in the tooth who ought to hang up the microphone.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cA cultural and musical shapeshifter\u2026Cher\u2019s vocals which often can sound like Presley (or at least an impression of Presley) [has made]\u2026a collection of covers (originally recorded by male singers) as well as original pop tunes. \u2026For a singer who thrived on camp bombast and kitsch bravado, the arrangements and vocal performances on the album were surprisingly restrained and subtle. Cher\u2019s strange voice\u2014that androgynous instrument with the stuttering vibrato\u2014is often relaxed and sweet on the album\u2019s wistful ballads\u2026The relative neutrality of Cher\u2019s voice, as well as her adaptability as an artist, means that if the material is solid, she\u2019s a sure fit. It\u2019s that adaptability that has lent Cher that legendary longevity (but it\u2019s also kept Cher from establishing a genuine musical sound or persona \u2013 it feels as if Cher \u2018sounds\u2019 like whatever current iteration she\u2019s inhabiting at the moment). That is why It\u2019s a Man\u2019s World<\/em> is such an important entry in her discography because rarely has there been so much attention paid to songcraft on a Cher album.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" One of the crazy things happening in Cher-scholarship right now is that as Cher is producing new material and engaging in new activities (charities, appearances, romances, etc.), previous works are still being experienced and re-evaluated. Cher stuff is rolling up and over itself. Cher Films From \u201cWhy Mask is a Much Better Movie Than You […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[26,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-film","category-music","wp-image-borders","post-preview"],"yoast_head":"\n<\/a>\u201cMoonstruck<\/em>: Cher\u2019s 1987 classic is bizarre, hopelessly romantic and yet somehow entirely plausible\u201d by Helen Sullivan in The Guardian.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\nCher Music<\/h4>\n
<\/a>I came across this I Paralyze<\/em> review in Ultimate Classic Rock<\/em><\/a> which starts out with the theory that “Cher is one celebrity who seems too big to fail. But in the late 70s and early 80s, she faced a string of musical flops.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>“Recording Cher\u2019s \u201cBelieve\u201d (1999) from Sound on Sound<\/em><\/a>:\u00a0This is an early 1999 article on the technical aspects of \u201cBelieve,\u201d remarks on the \u201cbizarre vocal processing.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/a>\u201cCher: Closer to the Truth\u201d review by Kevin Catchpole from\u00a0PopMatters<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n<\/a>\u201cCher Predicted Her Comeback with the Underrated It\u2019s a Man\u2019s World<\/em>\u201d from PopMatters<\/a>:<\/em><\/p>\n