60 Reasons Cinephiles Should Love Madonna
Thursday, August 16, 2018 at 3:29PM
NATHANIEL R in A League of Their Own, Desperately Seeking Susan, Dick Tracy, List-Mania, Madonna, Marilyn Monroe, Marlene Dietrich, Truth or Dare, film festivals, music videos

Happy 60th birthday to the coolest bitch in the world since 1958.

Because we are first and foremost a film site, here are 60 reasons you should love Madonna that are at connected to the cinema.

They're listed in no particular order, numbered only so we can keep count because when the subject is Madonna we tend to go on...

 

  1. She makes a perfect animated character in the credits sequence of Who's That Girl  (1987)
  2. She's been close friends forever with one of film & television's secret actress weapons, Debi Mazar

  3. Dick Tracy (1990) is awesome.
  4. As is Desperately Seeking Susan (1985).
  5. She deserved a Best Original Song nomination for "Into the Groove" from Desperately Seeking Susan
  6. She loves movies
  7. "Greta Garbo, and Monroe..."
  8. Madonna played her own pseudo version of Monroe in the music video to "Material Girl" reinterpreting the classic Gentlemen Prefer Blonde's number "Diamond's are a Girl's Best Friend."
  9. She was into Pedro Almodóvar's filmography before you were.
  10. She's been married twice and both times it was to a guy whose whole career is movies.
  11. "Dietrich and Dimaggio..."
  12. Truth or Dare (1991) is among the greatest self-portraits of all time.

  13. She deserved a best original song nomination for "Live to Tell" from At Close Range (1986)
  14. She won Golden Globe Best Actress for Evita (1996) and even though people made fun because she was up against Frances McDormand in Fargo (1996), she was excellent in that movie.
  15. "Marlon Brando, Jimmy Dean... On the cover of a magazine"
  16. Her song "Like a Virgin" is the subject of the opening scene of one of the great movies of the 1990s, Reservoir Dogs (1992)
  17. She deserved a Best Original Song nomination for "Who's That Girl?" from Who's That Girl (1987)

  18. She's been into female directors since way before it was popular working with Allison Anders (Four Rooms), Susan Siedelman (Desperately Seeking Susan), Mary Harron (music videos), remaking a Lina Wertmuller classic (Swept Away), hiring Sofia Coppola to guest star in her a music video "Deeper and Deeper"), and becoming a director herself (Filth and Wisdom, W.E.)
  19.  She basically made David Fincher famous and look what incredible films he gave us thereafter!
  20. She's actually worked with more auteurs than you think: also Woody Allen, Spike Lee, Guy Ritchie, John Schlesinger, and the other directors we just mentioned in #16 and #17 
  21. She understood Andrea Riseborough's talent before you did.
  22. "Grace Kelly, Harlow, Jean. Picture of a beauty queen..."
  23. She was born on the exact same day as Angela Bassett




  24. "Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, dance on air..."
  25. She's hilarious in Guy Ritchie's short film Star (2001)
  26. "They had style, they had grace, Rita Hayworth gave good face..."

  27. She's been fighting against Hollywood and America's ageism since her early 30s.
  28. Her song "Lucky Star" is referenced in a fun classroom scene in one of the great movies of the 1980s, Running on Empty (1988)
  29. She deserved a Best Original Song nomination for "This Used to be My Playground" from A League of Their Own (1992)
  30. "Lauren, Katharine, Lana too..."
  31. Many of her style icons are golden age actresses: Marlene Dietrich, Mae West, Jean Harlow, Dita Parlo
  32. She deserved a Best Original Song nomination for "I'll Remember" from With Honors (1994)
  33. It's not every day that Meryl Streep has to step aside for another actress but she didn't get Evita when she wanted it. And we believe in spreading the wealth with great roles.
  34. "Bette Davis, we love you."
  35. She's had numerous actress friends over the years including Gwyneth Paltrow, Rosie O'Donnell, Jennifer Grey, and Sandra Bernhard
  36. She loves the awesome Sally Potter movie Orlando (1992) 
  37. She made lots of baby gays curious about Old Hollywood in the 1980s since she was always "borrowing" from old movies in her looks and music videos, even before she started name-checking Old Hollywood in "Vogue"



  38. 'All the Way' Mae is a great character in a film full of great characters, A League of Their Own (1992).
  39. While it's true that she's unintentionally hilarious in Body of Evidence (1993) but she's pretty good in Dangerous Game (1993) that same year proving she just needed stronger directors than she often got.
  40. She takes the cinema's first selfie in 1985. Many follow in her footsteps including Thelma & Louise.
  41. She's been a champion of gay rights forever -- since way before people were comfortable with people who championed gay rights -- and she kept shoving it in people's faces. See Truth or Dare,  the "Sex" book, numerous interviews, AIDS benefits, friendships with gay celebrities (Rupert Everett, Keith Haring, Sandra Bernhard, etcetera), and more...
  42. She's basically the sidebar subject of the entire documentary Strike a Pose which is about the dancers from her Blonde Ambition tour and what happened to them after fame struck.
  43. She deserved a Best Original Song nomination for "Beautiful Stranger from The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999)
  44. Joan Cusack's incredible line delivery in Working Girl (1988) when she talks about dancing around alone in her underwear "don't make me Madonna. Never will" 
  45. She has endured small-minded people saying she was "over" since forever. Even before 1988 in point of fact. She'll never be over since she changed the world.



  46. She doesn't give up. She kept trying to be an actress despite all the pans. And though she's since been panned as a director for W.E. (2011) she's still gonna give it another go.
  47. There's supposedly a Madonna biopic in the works at Universal.
  48. There's a fun Madonna moment in the new hit documentary Three Identical Strangers (2018)
  49. She samples dialogue from The Cement Garden (1993) for her single "What It Feels Like For a Girl" 
  50. She deserved a Best Original Song nomination for "Die Another Day" from Die Another Day (2002)
  51. Despite never receiving an Oscar nomination despite composing so many great movie songs, two songs that Madonna performed in movies WON the Original Song: "You Must Love Me" from Evita (1996) and "Sooner or Later" from Dick Tracy (1990)
  52. There's a great story behind the making of the Desperately Seeking Susan movie poster.
  53. She often works with Oscar nominee Arianne Phillips, one of the best costume designers of the movies.
  54. She's so famous she makes other celebrity's starstruck.

  55. She almost always causes a stir, and memes, and major press cycles when she shows up at film festivals
  56. "Express Yourself"'s music video is a riff on Fritz Lang's immortal Metropolis (1927)
  57. She spoke for all of us in 1991 when she obsessed over Antonio Banderas's beauty in Truth or Dare. 
  58. She's name checked in one of The Birdcage's (1996) funniest jokes "you do an eclectic celebration of the dance!"
  59. She likes to throw cool actors into her music videos like Isabella Rossellini, Debi Mazar, Udo Kier, Danny Aiello, Christopher Walken, Goran Visjnic, Rupert Everett, and Terrence Howard. 
  60. Her best music videos are as classic to their form as Gone With the Wind is to movies

 

Article originally appeared on The Film Experience (http://thefilmexperience.net/).
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