Purple Rain

Episode 193: Purple Rain (1984)

Theme: Musicians in Movies Month
Hosts: Oz & Curtis

This week, Oz and Curtis slide into the sequined, motorcycle-revving, velvet-drenched world of Purple Rain — a movie marriage of 8 Mile + The Last Dragon + Wild Hogs + The Color Purple (literally and figuratively). It’s Prince at peak mystique: tiny, seductive, emotionally tormented, and somehow both the most socially awkward man alive and the coolest person to ever exist. Between First Avenue melodrama, lake misdirection, band mutiny, Morris Day clownery, and enough candles to violate every fire code in Minneapolis, this genre-bending rock opera actually delivers a raw story about trauma, ego, music, and breaking generational cycles (with guitar solos).

Join your two favorite “purify yourself in the waters of NOT Lake Minnetonka” podcasters as they riff on:

• Prince’s love language: gaslighting, disappearing behind pillars, and gifting a hoop earring the size of the Hubble.

• Morris Day’s rise from fun antagonist to “please stop laughing like that” levels of annoying.

• Wendy & Lisa — the film’s true heroes — watching their boss torpedo his life until Purple Rain gives everyone therapy.

• The dad subplot: pianos, pain, and one of the darkest basement scenes ever placed between hit singles.

• The triumphant finale: a crushing performance of Purple Rain so good the audience forgets the entire movie was trauma set to music.

From motorcycle fog-entrances to backstage meltdowns to a freeze-frame ending so 1984 it should come with shoulder pads, Oz and Curtis dive into a flawed film elevated to greatness by an untouchable soundtrack and a singular icon.

Final Verdict

Oz — 7 Purple Motorcycles
Curtis — 71 Pancakes
Both — Still not buying Appolonia as a “19-year-old.”