1980’s The Apple takes place in the future!

Well, actually, it takes place in 1994.  The film imagines that, by the year 1994, the world would be a decadent, cynical, and soulless place where everyone listened to the mindless corporate music of Mr. Boogalow (Vladek Sheybal).  Really, the film’s version of the future wasn’t that far off.  It was more 2014 than 1994 but still….

Anyway, at the 1994 Worldvision Music Contest, Boogalow cheats to make sure that the latest shallow offering from BIM defeats a painfully earnest love song that is performed by Alphie (George Gilmour) and his girlfriend, Bibi (Catherine Mary Stewart).  Boogalow decides to sign Alphie and Bibi to a recording contract.  Alphie has visions of earthquakes and imagines being taken to Hell by Boogalow.  Alphie refuses to sign the contract.  Bibi, having had no such visions, signs the contract and soon, she is a part of the decadent Boogalow world.  Alphie, meanwhile, ends up living in a park with Mr. Topps (Joss Ackland) and a bunch of overage hippies.  Eventually, the Rapture occurs, largely because something had to happen to finally end this stupid movie.

The Apple was a film that I had heard a lot about before I actually sat down and watched it.  Just from what I had heard, I expected it to be bad-but-enjoyable, a disco campfest in the style of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.  In fact, I would have been happy if it had just been as silly as Skatetown USA.  Unfortunately, The Apple can’t compare to either of those two films.  The Apple may be campy but it’s also mind-numbingly dull.  It’s only has an 87 minute running time but it feels considerably longer.  With one big exception, the music is forgettable.  Catherine Mary Stewart probably gives as good a performance as could be expected under the circumstances but George Gilmour is a bland hero.  Even Vladek Sheyball, who was so memorable as the villainous chess master in From Russia With Love, makes for a forgettable bad guy.

Now, I did mention that there is one big exception when it comes to the forgettable music and that’s a song that Bibi sings after she’s signed with Boogalow and given up her soul to be a star.  The song is called Speed.  “America, the land of the free/Is shooting up with her energy/and everyday she has to take more/…. SPEEEEEED!”  Bibi performs the song on a stage while a bunch of backup dancers writhe on motorcycles and, for about three minutes, The Apple actually becomes the spectacle that it so obviously wants to be.  The song may be about drugs but it’s also about American culture.  America is a country that is on the mood.  We don’t need any of that fashionable European ennui.  We’re all about speed, which is one reason why I love this country.  At our most mellow, we still get more done in a day than the average European.  No trains for us!  We’re a motorcycle nation!

Other than that one scene, though, The Apple feels like a middle school production.  We’re told that Boogalow International Music is a decadent company but, in this film, that just means that people speak in an arch tone.  It’s a teenager’s impression of what it means to be decadent.  We’re meant to turn against BIM when its employees laugh at Alphie for being a boring straight guy.  But the fact of the matter is that Alphie is a boring straight guy and his music sucks.  The film takes a stand about corporate music but the 0nly alternative that it come up with is boring folk music.

Don’t listen to those who tell you that The Apple is so bad that it’s good.  It’s just bad.