The Apple (1980)

Hey, hey, hey BIM’s on the way! HOLY SHIT! All three of us watched The Apple for the very first time, and hot damn was it a movie!

This movie takes place in the future - of 1994, which they remind you every chance they get. It starts right in with a big huge rock n roll musical number where they sing about how nothing matters. We see an auditorium where they are filming the Worldvision Song Festival, which is basically a singing competition. A very glittery crazy futuristic looking band called BIM is performing the fuck out of their song. It looks like the end of Xanadu when the club Xanadu opens and the 40s and 70s merge - but it’s on acid and screaming in your face! It’s amazingly cheesy, and so far, it’s 100% living up to it’s whacky reputation. Talk about over the top! But in the very best possible way.

The next set of contestants is an innocent looking folk music duo from Canada, who sing a love song duet that wins half of the audience over, while the rest start rioting over BIM. Mr. Bugalow and company are able to measure how excited people are and then use some sort of red tape to alter their emotions. If it doesn’t make sense, don’t worry, most of it won’t! But trust me, you want to stay along for the ride. Mr. Bugalow, who runs BIM the group as well as BIM the music company, rigs the competition so his group wins. But he also sees the potential in the Canadian duo, Alphie and Bibi. He brings them to his office to sign an exclusive record contract. Bibi signs her contract right away, barely reading it, and ready for fame. She has zero probs leaving Alphie in the dust. Alphie starts to look the contract over and begins to feel an earthquake and apocalyptic visions of the future that involve another dance number showing BIM’s true nature - they’re evil as Helllll.  He does not sign on the dotted line and all the visions go away.

Bibi is whisked off and made over into a BIM star and comes out all glittery with crimped hair and strutting her stuff to a song called Speeeeeeeeed!!!!!! There is a lot of high heeled grinding and silver aluminum foil looking costumes and, well, speed. Bibi has gone full blown rock star. Also look closely, because in this number on one of the motorcycles you can catch a close up of Finola Hughes! That’s right, that diva bitch from Staying Alive made her film debut in The Apple! TWO back to back flicks in which she destroyed it with dance. You’ve gotta love it.

Bibi is seduced by fame and a dude named Pandi, who is also a part of BIM, along with his twin sister Mandi. He looks like a low budget Roger Daltry, and weirdly kind of similar to Alphie. In his first attempt to rescue Bibi, Alphie finds her in bed with Pandi to which she tells him to get lost with zero remorse or acknowledgement they were ever even a thing. Alphie, heartbroken by the loss of Bibi, goes to his sad apartment he shares with a rando old lady character then for some fucking reason he grabs her and feels her up. Hopefully that’s not his Mom! Although, equally weird if it’s his landlady. Is he paying his rent with nature’s credit card - his weiner?

Annnddddd moving on.

Meanwhile everyone is given these little shiny, glittery triangle stickers to wear called BIM marks. At first it seems like a fashion statement, but turns out it is like a shiny delicious tracking device and it’s now illegal NOT to be wearing it. BIM starts to seem more like a Big Brother apparition than a music company and things just keep getting weirder. Citizens are forced to live under the regime of BIM, which is starting to feel a little bit like the old 60s show, The Prisoner, but more depressing and hiding underneath eight layers of caked on glitter. Citizens are stopped when not wearing their BIM marks by the police, and even get arrested. Everyone must stop what they’re doing and  take part in the official BIM exercise time of day. We even see fire fighters stop putting out a fire to do their BIM workout as a building and people go down in flames. WHAT?!? Everything becomes about serving BIM.

As Alphie grows stronger he goes off to live with a hippie homeless group in the park. He decides it’s time to rescue Bibi from her rock stardom and bring her to his weird commune. Rescuing Bibi seems to involve having an affair with BIM’s Mandi, who sings a song about coming to get him, which is actually about cumming to get him, and basically rapes him. But instead he bones the evil straight out of her, which begs the question, is his weiner magic? ...

Her glitter disappears and she becomes all about Alphie and Bibi being together, because she feels his love for her while she’s having sex with him and his magical penis. She completely changes post coitus while he lays there whining for Bibi. What?!? I don’t care.

So Bibi decides she hates fame, she hates BIM, that she had a good thing going and needs to be with Alphie too. She leaves with the help of Mandi, who because she got dickmitized into believing in real love and wants them to be together again. Mandi helps Bibi escape and takes the punishment for it, believing she did the right thing and sings a weak ass song about it.

Bibi and Alphie go to live in the park with the hippies. You don’t realize like two or three years has passed until Bibi comes walking out looking totally hippie and carrying two small children. They live in a commune situation and consider themselves married. Mr. Bugalow locates them (years later??? Like give it up Bro.) and is ready to arrest them, and all the other hippies, cause hippies are not down with the BIM. Suddenly, a dope white car flies out of the sky carrying a man looking kind of like the Colonel that they call Mr. Topps. There is no reference to Mr. Topps at any other point in the movie, but somehow Alphie knows he’s coming to save them. He gets all spirit in the sky and takes everyone's souls to a new safe planet where Mr. Bugalow isn’t allowed. Cue the Jesus music, you just got allegoried bitch! This was one big Old Testament rock musical and you just got tricked into watching it. Mic drop. Testify!

I admit, when this movie ended I was so mad. I felt like I got tricked into church. I don’t want to be tricked into church. But the fact is I could not stop obsessing over this dumb movie. The next day I watched features and commentary. The day after that I was miming the dance moves around the house. Ty and I texted about this movie endlessly. Matt and I hummed the songs for a day or two. So you have to think, if a movie is judged by it’s entertainment value alone, dumb or not, this was very entertaining and thus, a successful movie! I actually went and changed my original rating for it after writing this. Turns out, I loved this shit!

We were lucky enough to be able to watch this on blu-ray. It had a gorgeous transfer that was remastered in 2016. It looked so fresh, vivid and modern that I had to keep reminding myself that this movie was made in 1980, even though it takes place in 1994, and looks like it was made in the 2000s. The blu-ray also includes an incredibly informative commentary track with actress Catherine Mary Stewart, who played Bibi. For example, while watching the film I developed a theory that the more glittery you are, the more you’ve been consumed by the evil of BIM. In the beginning everyone is covered in glitter except for Alphie and Bibi. When Mandi begins to have feelings and helps Bibi escape, she hardly has any glitter on. The more evil Mr. Bugalow gets, the more glittery he gets to the point of a devil horn coming out of his head. (It’s literally just one horn.) A lot of this supported my theory. However, after listening to the commentary, turns out the lack of glitter is actually from running out of money, and everyone was too tired to finish applying all that make up everytime they filmed. The further into production they were, the less everyone cared. So you start to see more lackluster futuristic looks. The timing just happens to coincide with the linear filmmaking, supporting my theory by accident.

Honestly, our ratings don’t matter so much on this one. This is a movie that must be seen to be believed. If you can get your hands on it, watch it at least once. It really is a crazy movie experience you won’t soon forget. I thought I hated this movie, but as the case may be, I think I’m obsessed with it now. I think all three of us are.

The Best Parts

-Mr. Bugalow

-Over the top songs, dancing, musical numbers and crazy sassy extras.

-Glitter and BIM marks.

The Worst Parts

-The slow decline of enthusiasm by everyone in the movie

-You’re tricked into religion.

TY - 2 Plisskens

MATT - 3 Plisskens   

JILL - originally 2 Plisskens, changed to 4 Plisskens