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Madonna
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Born: Aug 16, 1958
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It's little wonder that the best-reviewed film starring this mega-successful pop diva is the candid musical documentary Truth or Dare (1991). Recording artists often have a difficult time translating their appeal to the big screen, and only occasionally demonstrate the ability to command an entire motion picture. Madonna commands the screen in Truth or Dare but can't seem to deliver a competent performance elsewhere. Early in her career, in Desperately Seeking Susan (1985), this platinum-blond siren found a hip romantic comedy tailormade for her tough and sexy "downtown" persona. But despite her attempts to reincarnate the image of Marilyn Monroe (which she has frequently played up in her music videos), she has not yet mastered the art of screwball comedy, as evidenced by her work in the execrable Shanghai Surprise (1986), which costarred thenhusband Sean Penn, and Who's That Girl? (1987).
Madonna seems to fare best when she's not required to carry a movie, as was the case when she played femme fatale Breathless Mahoney in Dick Tracy (1990); she also had a highly publicized fling with director and star, Warren Beatty. Her work in A League of Their Own (1992), which starred Tom Hanks and Geena Davis, was also relaxed and amusing. But Body of Evidence (1993), which cast her as a sexaddicted femme fatale, put the burden of its patently ridiculous (and undernourished) script on her slender shoulders, which weren't quite up to the challenge; it was a classically bad movie that enjoyed little box-office success despite all the attendent publicity. Later that same year she costarred with Harvey Keitel in Abel Ferrara's Dangerous Game (1993).
In 1985 she unsuccessfully tried to block the video release of A Certain Sacrifice a tawdry, ultra-low-budget film (and her debut), which she made as a desperate newcomer to New York. She occasionally contributes songs to her and others' movies (including Sean Penn's 1986 vehicle At Close Range
OTHER FILMS INCLUDE: 1985: Vision Ques...[MORE]
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