Word: midlerisms
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...Bette Midler is not a great singer or a subtle actress or an exquisite beauty; yet she just may be a movie star. In The Rose, a highly fictionalized biography of a Janis Joplin-like rock icon, Midler can hardly be contained by a wide screen and six-track Dolby Stereo. She not only blasts out her many numbers with blistering fury, but she also attempts to strike every emotional chord known to junky movie melodrama. Even when she comes up flat, it is hard to look away. Midler does not make the mistake of begging for attention, like...
...Rose is exactly the kind of vehicle one would expect for Midler's screen debut: it aspires to the tradition of Funny Girl and Lady Sings the Blues, musicals that boosted Barbra Streisand and Diana Ross to fast movie stardom by casting them as legendary singers of the past. Still, there is a basic flaw in The Rose's design that makes the film hard to take seriously. While Streisand and Ross were reasonably plausible stand-ins for Fanny Brice and Billie Holiday, Midler is not credible as a bluesy rock belter. Her strident Broadway voice and campy...
...Bette Midler, self-styled queen of "trash with flash," The Rose is an ideal throne. -Frank Rich
...have never met a dumber broad," complains Bette Midler. Who could it be? Why, the Divine Miss M happens to be describing the Divine Miss M. The occasion: an interview with herself for the tenth-anniversary issue of After Dark magazine. She also appears on the cover, kicking up her heels above a sea of balloons. Soon she will be kicking off her first movie, which, she promises, is "nothing with flying saucers. Nothing with sharks." The Rose is the story of a flamboyant, 1960s blues singer. "It's not about Janis Joplin. It's about a blues...
...bother to read Rich's column, gang, cause the best rock sound available this week (with the possible exception of Jethro Tull at the Garden on December 6) is on the tube. On Wednesday night, all you "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boys" can get "In the Mood" with Bette Midler and her friends. Instead of shelling out 100 bucks for front row seats (that's what they charged when she opened in Chicago a couple of years ago), watch her for free at 10 p.m. on channel...