Glitter Movie Recap (2001)
In September 2001, Glitter movie
was released. But so many things were messy before this movie even began. One
big positive, Mariah is finally free from Columbia and the control of Tommy
Mottola. She signed a massive contract with Virgin Records. But then things
went south. For one, there was questions about her mental health after she
showed up to TRL uninvited, giving out ice cream promoting Glitter and
stripping down to a more revealing outfit. Shortly after, Mariah was
hospitalized due to exhaustion and was placed under hospital care for two
weeks. The movie and soundtrack were pushed back as a result. The movie was
released shortly after the 9/11 attack. The movie/soundtrack was a critical and
commercial bomb because no one really wanted to do fun things after that (ask Willa
Ford). Mariah became a Razzie award winning actress shortly after. Years later,
the soundtrack and movie got a second life when the #JusticeforGlitter campaign
was trending as fans realized that that era was misunderstood. Was it
misunderstood or was it justified, stay tuned to find out.
Glitter
Movie Recap
Let me just say this, aint it funny
Columbia Pictures distributed this internationally when Mariah left Columbia
Records. I don’t know if they have any affiliations with each other just
something that I pointed out. On to the film. We are introduced to Lilian
Frank, she is a nightclub singer struggling to hold it down. Bout to lose her
job, she tries to pull into the audience heartstrings by bringing her daughter
onstage Billie Frank. Despite a decent effort, Lily loses her job. After this, the girls try to visit Billie’s
father but he wants nothing to do with either one of them. One night, Lily
falls asleep with cigarette in hand and the house gets caught on fire. Billie
is sent to live in a group home. At the group home she meets two girls Louise
and Roxanne and they quickly befriend Billie.
Fast forward to 1983, Billie is now
in a dancer at a night club and get spotted by Timothy Walker . He is a
producer working with artist Sylk and he’s in search of background singers.
Billie turned it down but after Roxanne & Louise beg her do it in order to
get an easy payday, she agrees. They record for Sylk and Sylk sounds like a
dying animal in the booth. Timothy orders Billie to dub over Sylk’s lines 100%
to the point you can barely hear Sylk if not at all. They perform at a
nightclub and Sylk is basically Milli Vanilli the whole thing more so ghost
singing, Ghost singing, could this be a jab at Jennifer Lopez who signed on to
Columbia to spite the departing Mariah? After the night a DJ named Dice. First,
he ask to for a picture of Sylk and the girls. As Billie leaves, Dice discovers
that she’s the one that was singing Sylk’s song. Later that night, he does this
pass the mic session all this to get Billie to sing and she takes off.
After the night ends, Dice wants to
work with Billie outside of her group. But she under control of Timmy and its
going to take a lot for Dice to gain control of Billie. Timmy tries to play
hard to get but Dice is serious about this and offers him $100,000 for Billie’s
services, isn’t this slavery? Dice establishes Billie as a local solo act. She
gets a contract offer but Dice turns it down as he wants bigger (again remember
the debt he owes Timmy). Then another label CMZ is in the club and Dice orders
the house DJ to play Billie’s song. The A&R likes what he hears and set up
a meeting the next day to sign Billie Frank.
Dice pulls up in a limo and take
Billie out on a lavish dinner. What was suppose to be a victorious dinner turns
into a date. After the date, he takes Billie to his apartment and that’s where
she starts to fall in love with Dice and they do the thing that Louise told
them not to do. They end up doing a song that would wind up being Billie’s
biggest hit and my biggest headache “Loverboy”. Loverboy is on the radio but
during the video shoot we get a taste of the harsh music industry. They want to
sexualize Billie by having her scantly clad, then they send Louise
friends/dancers off the set. We also get a learn the hectic scheduling of
Billie Frank. And during the video shoot, Billie get uncomfortable with the
changes and Dice storms out with Billie.
Dice runs into Timmy and reminds
him about the debt. Dice calls him out about the bad deal but Dice is at fault
in agreeing to those harsh terms. Billie gifts Dice a Yamaha keyboard and after
this Billie go through her mom’s personal belongings and she shares a personal
dream that she often has about her mom. After this, she writes a song about her
mother and it turns out to be “Reflections (Care Enough)”. This gives her
motivation to go and find her mother but it’s easier said than done.
Dice in the meantime struggling
with the label. They aren’t feeling any of his material as he’s being labeled
as stock standard. The label wants dance tunes and could care less about the
personal stuff. He tells her not to worry as he’s confident that her album
would go platinum and the next album, he would guarantee total creative
control. She attends the USA Awards where she performs and afterwards attend an
afterparty, she runs into a movie producer who wants to put her in movies
(after seeing this one he’ll have second thoughts). Billie meets Rafael played
by Halle Berry’s ex-husband and he offers him to record duets together. Dice
wants to run out and starts to display Tommy Mottola-like behavior as the night
end in a disaster. After the argument, her friends make Billie choose and she
chooses Dice.
Outside Billie runs into someone
believing that its her mother but it’s just a random hobo. She goes back to
Dice’s apartment and Dice isn’t home but Timmy is. This is where Billie finds
out about the debt Dice owes. Dice finds out about Timmy and he storms out to
beat him up. He gets arrested and Billie bails him out. They have a discussion
and Billie ends the relationship as his bad press is detrimental to her career.
He makes a remark about her mother and she gives him the Will Smith treatment. Billie
goes to her friend’s place and reconcile.
Billie is ready to work with new
songwriters and artists and that includes Eric Benet. Dice starts to work on a
song outside without Billie and unknowingly she still have feelings for him.
After she storms out of rehearsals for a big show at MSG, she tries to find him
but is unsuccessful. She leaves a mark to let him know that she was here. He
finds out about this and wants to find her, but instead Dice finds Timmy and he
shots him. Just before Billie’s big show in MSG, she and her crew found out
about the homicide and Billie is unsurprisingly devastated, but the show must
go on. Billie tries to perform Loverboy but is overtaken by grief. The grief
sends her to a different direction as she performs the song the both worked on
separately in “Never Too Far”. After the show Dice left one final note for
Billie that he found her long lost mother in Maryland. Billie rides to the
rural area in Maryland and reunites with her mother and they live happily ever
after.
This was a movie. I got to see how
the music industry will try to break you and I feel like there were some
similarities on what Mariah had to go through. Now there are some parts of this
movie that is cliché with the love story with Dice that appears out of random.
Stereotypical villain with Terrance Howard and there are other scenes
that feel like that. I would have thoughts but I want to talk about why this
film failed. One the release date, it came out the week after 9/11 and who
wanted to do fun things after that attack. Movies, entertainment were on the
back of people’s mind. Two Mariah’s acting, this was one of the stiffest acting
jobs I’ve ever seen. Three, I didn’t get any joy with this movie especially for
a film named Glitter, I might’ve gotten a chuckle with Sylk singing. This movie
make you want to feel down and bad for Billie. In all should I recommend, well
it depends on what you are looking for in a film. If you like the downer, sad
whoaisme or Lambiguity of it all its fine. But for someone who isn’t familiar
with Mariah’s arc, I’ll say leave well enough alone.
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