"Katy Perry: Part of Me" Actually Really Liked This Movie

Salut,

I'm happy to report that, as promised, I've managed to make pretty awesome progress in regaining my movie-watching stride in the past month.  It is my pleasure to report to you that I have watched TEN WHOLE MOVIES during the month of July.

I would like to thank several things for facilitating this accomplishment:

1. Netflix View Instantly
2. Boyfriend being willing to watch stuff with me (since a willing movie-watching partner is NOT something to be taken for granted)
3. The digusting, humid, oppressive heat visited upon my fair city for the better part of the last four weeks, which discouraged all but the most necessary departures from very near proximity to the window A/C units in my apartment

I am truly pleased with this reversal, and hope to utilize my remaining break time to write about my cinematic exploits at great length.

To kick that off, I want to start by talking about this movie, which as the title of this post reveals I actually really liked:

Yep.  This one.

I know.

Wtf.

Boyfriend and I decided to watch this movie essentially as a joke.  We wanted some light fare that we wouldn't be very invested in.  We basically signed up for an evening of laughing at some dumb pop star's self-indulgent exhibitionism spree.  Then we turned to each other 75% through the movie and, kind of horrified and kind of embarrassed, admitted to each other that we were really enjoying it.

As discussed previously, there's this unexpected and honestly wonderful thing that can happen when you go into a movie-watching experience expecting little or nothing.  As long as you leave your heart a little bit open for it to surprise you, in that frame of mind you can really be swept away by a film.

That is certainly part of what was at work in my enjoyment of "Katy Perry: Part of Me" (2012).  I gave this movie almost no chance of being actually good, and so anything better than not-at-all-good was going to be a welcome turning-of-tables.  The bar was set quite low for this one.

But that's not by any means all there is to it.  "Part of Me" may have benefitted to some extent from that low bar, but honestly, it cleared the bar with a pretty soaring leap.

"How, how???" you might ask.

Well let me tell you, with an orderly list.

1. The concert footage is gorgeous.

The movie covers Perry's world-wide concert tour, and the performances are shot beautifully.  As you might expect for any top-selling pop star, the production values for her concerts look very no-expense-spared, and the result is pretty spectacular.

2. The concerts look super fun.

Okay yes, they also look really silly, but silly can totally = fun!  I hadn't totally appreciated this before seeing the movie, but bringing to life the wacky neon-colored confectionary world from Perry's music videos seems like another, perhaps less appropriate (or maybe more like inappropriate in a different way), Disneyland.  And Disneyland is awesome.

You can tell that I'm seriously a convert because I really am saying something this cliché:
3. Perry really seems to care about her fans.

We see Perry making time to greet a selection of her fans at each concert stop.  I'm not sure how typical this is, but it's still really sweet.

What's truly special, though, is that at each concert, fans who come dressed up are invited to join her in the performance of one of her songs.  The people onstage with her look so overjoyed it's hard not to be touched.

This is one of a few parts of the movie that really sold it for me.  Full disclosure, though: this is in part because one of the best things that ever EVER happened to me was being asked to dance onstage with one of my favorite bands.  Dressed as Santa Claus.  In Paris.

You can totally see me if you look for a ponytail and an industrial-sized flashlight.

It was an experience that still fills me with gratitude for the random generosity of the Universe and for humans who don't have to be extra wonderful, but are.  Also Wayne Coyne hugged me, and it was like best thing ever to the millionth power.  So if Katy Perry is doing stuff like that for her fans, seriously, she's pretty great.

4. You get to see Katy Perry as a semi-normal person.

Perry looks like a surprisingly average person when she isn't swimming in makeup, hyper-pigmented hair, and dresses with spinning peppermints on her boobs.  She is obviously anything but average given that she is a megastar, and how she looks when she isn't prepped for a performance perhaps shouldn't make so much of a difference in how I think or feel about her.  But if I'm honest, seeing her in civilian mode made her seem so much more accessible and endearing than her caked-on glitter and eye shadow alter ego, and it made me like her more.

I suppose in part, because there is such a difference between how she looks when she's "in character" and when she isn't, I respected her for showing herself how she actually is.  There are certainly some performers who seem to prefer to stay hidden behind their own artifice.  She didn't have to show us anything other than her performing persona, but she did.

Spoiler alert:
5. And then she cries.

So here's what really did it for me: the filming of the movie coincided with the dissolution of Perry's marriage to Russell Brand.  This personal crisis reaches a climax as Perry is about to perform in Brazil for the largest audience of her tour.

We see her curled in a ball sobbing backstage.  We see her assistants try as gently as possible to get her into makeup and costume without breaking her into ever smaller pieces.  Then we see her virtually carried to the little platform on which she will rise up through the stage to make her entrance, hear the roaring crowd eagerly awaiting her, and watch her struggle to pull herself together.  Then, she finally manages to freeze a blinding smile on her face, lock into a mannequin-like pose with her microphone poised, and she is lifted into the light.  And it breaks my fucking heart.

I'm sure a chorus of the world's tiniest violins plays for fantastically wealthy and famous people like Katy Perry, but screw that.  In spite of the bizarre context of this particular person's painful moment, it is nevertheless profoundly and universally human.  Everyone has had moments in which devastation and heartache had to be squished down beneath a veneer of "Everything's fine!!!!"  It's a terrible kind of pain, and it's sad to see anyone going through it.  So what if they're a silly pop star.

Then there's a pretty obvious caveat, of which Boyfriend and I were keenly aware even as it happened: we were being royally manipulated.  The movie opens and closes with video confessionals by Katy Perry fans who gush about how the artist changed their lives and gave them the courage to be who they really are.  Several of her assistants also claim to be her close friends and confidants, and carry on about how wonderful and fun she is.  This movie is pretty freaking excited about itself and definitely exaggerates the importance of its subject.  Of course it's going to be strongly pro-Perry, but it's hard not to gag on that a bit.

So I gave the movie a 4, and I stand by it.  It still feels weird admitting it, but part of me totally loves Katy Perry now.

More movies forthcoming!

{Heart}







Ps: Btw, this happened:

So I guess instead of "Boyfriend," I should start referring to him as "Fiancé."

:D