Vision Quest | |
---|---|
Directed by | Harold Becker |
Screenplay by | Darryl Ponicsan |
Based on | Vision Quest by Terry Davis |
Produced by | Jon Peters Peter Guber |
Starring | |
Cinematography | Owen Roizman |
Edited by | Maury Winetrobe |
Music by | Tangerine Dream |
Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
Release date |
|
Running time | 107 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Box office | $13 million (US) |
Vision Quest (released in the United Kingdom and Australia as Crazy for You) is a 1985 American coming-of-age romantic drama film starring Matthew Modine, Linda Fiorentino, Michael Schoeffling, and Ronny Cox. It is based on Terry Davis's 1979 novel of the same name. [1]
Modine plays a Spokane high school wrestler who falls in love with an older woman, an aspiring artist from Trenton, New Jersey on her way to San Francisco.
The film includes the first major motion picture appearance by Madonna, who plays a singer at a local bar, where she performs the songs "Crazy for You" and "Gambler". In some countries, the title of the film was changed to capitalize on Madonna's emerging fame and the popularity of the song "Crazy for You". [2] The film has become a cult classic. [3] [4]
Louden Swain is a wrestler at Thompson High School who has just turned 18 years old. He has decided that he needs to do something truly meaningful in his life. He embarks on a mission or, in a Native American term, a vision quest . His goal is to drop two weight classes to challenge the area's toughest opponent, Brian Shute, a menacing three-time state champion from nearby rival Hoover High School, who has never been defeated in his high school career. In his zeal to drop from 190 pounds (86 kilograms) to 168 pounds (76 kg), against the wishes of his coach and teammates, he disrupts the team around him and creates health problems of his own.
Meanwhile, his father has taken on a boarder named Carla from Trenton, New Jersey, who is passing through on her way to San Francisco. Louden falls in love with her and begins to lose sight of his goals as a wrestler. Worse, his drastic weight loss culminates in an unhealthy situation, where he gets frequent nosebleeds which, Louden assumes, is due to a lack of iron in his diet (and results in him having to forfeit a match he was winning). The two finally admit their love for each other, but Carla realizes she is distracting him from his goals.
Carla decides to move out and continue on to San Francisco, but not before seeing Louden's big match, in which he makes a comeback from losing and pins Shute in the final seconds with an O-Goshi (over-under hip toss).
As Louden celebrates his victory, he monologues to the audience, "...I guess that's why we got to love those people who deserve it like there's no tomorrow. 'Cause when you get right down to it—there isn't."
Production took place in Spokane, Washington, in the fall of 1983. [5] [6] The film was shot at Rogers High School in northeast Spokane, referred to as "Thompson High School" in the film. [5] Interior cafeteria scenes were filmed at Ferris High School on Spokane's South Hill. Some of the locker room scenes were filmed in the boys' locker room of Shadle Park High School in northwest Spokane. Madonna's scene was filmed at the Big Foot Tavern on North Division Street in Spokane. [6] Other scenes were shot at The Onion Restaurant downtown and the North Central High School gym. The scene where Louden's big match happens was shot in the gym at Spokane Falls Community College. [7] Erik Abbey consulted on the wrestling scenes to verify their authenticity.
The film had moderate success in theaters in the U.S. in 1985, earning a gross of $13 million. It has received a rating of 60% at Rotten Tomatoes from 15 reviews, [8] and has gone on to become a cult classic. [3] [4]
Roger Ebert of Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 3.5 stars out of a possible 4, saying while the core storyline was a formulaic sports drama "it is nevertheless a movie with some nice surprises, mostly because it takes the time to create some interesting characters", with standout performances from Modine, Cox, and Fiorentino. [9]
The soundtrack to the motion picture was released by Geffen Records on February 12, 1985. The soundtrack does not include "No More Words" by Berlin or tracks from REO Speedwagon and Quarterflash, which appear in the film. The background instrumental music by Tangerine Dream is not included, but was later released on the fan project Tangerine Tree 73: Soundtrax.
Review scores | |
---|---|
Source | Rating |
AllMusic | [10] |
Singapore Monitor | [11] |
The soundtrack received generally positive feedback from music journalists. Singapore Monitor called the album a "very timely collection by some of the bigger up-and-coming names in today's pop and rock scene". [11] Similarly, Rick Shefchik, in his review for Knight Ridder, named the release as "the best soundtrack album in the racks these days". [12] Brian Chin from Billboard complimented Madonna's songs on the soundtrack. [13] The album charted in Australia, Canada, and the United States. Upon release, Jeff Bunch from The Spokesman-Review named it one of the "best examples of profitable soundtracks" of unsuccessful movies. [14] The home video release also peaked at number five on Cash Box 's Top 40 Videocassettes. [15] Vision Quest ended as one of the Top 50 Albums and Top Soundtracks on Cash Box's Pop Album Awards. [15] The album was included among Yardbarker's list of the 25 Best Soundtracks From the 1980s. [16]
The movie was renamed Crazy for You in Australia and the UK, due to the new popularity of pop singer Madonna and her song "Crazy for You". [2] Cashbox 's Julius Robinson retrospectively commented in 1988, that the song "really put [her] on the map". [17]
Writing for Cashbox in 1985, Peter Berk explained the film "offered a valuable lesson to the industry", showing "how much a hit song can do to promote an otherwise soon-to-be forgotten movie". He continued, writing that, although Journey's "Only The Young" drew attention to the album, Madonna's "Crazy for You" made the soundtrack "so magnetic to record buyers". He complimented that films like Vision Quest have "made many people aware of just how invaluable the film-music connection is today". [15] In December 1987, Billboard magazine dedicated an article to the links between a movie and a hit single and music videos. [18] In July 1985, Jan DeKnock from Chicago Tribune noted what he called a "movie mania", when various singles from motion pictures reached the first spot in the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 that year, beginning with "Crazy for You". [19] It was the first song produced by John Benitez to climb to the U.S. charts, breaking the nine-week steak of "We Are the World". [20] Australian music editor Marc Andrews, in Madonna Song by Song (2022), wrote that "Crazy for You" is now "considered one of the greatest, if not sexiest, love songs of all time". [21] Len Comaratta, from Consequence , called it "a classic in the rock ballad canon". [22] According to Billboard, "Crazy for You" is one of all-time biggest movie songs on the Billboard Hot 100. [23] The Arizona Republic picked it as one of the Best 10 Madonna songs From movie soundtracks. [24]
No. | Title | Writer(s) | Performer | Length |
---|---|---|---|---|
1. | "Only the Young" | Journey | 4:01 | |
2. | "Change" | Holly Knight | John Waite | 3:14 |
3. | "Shout to the Top!" | Paul Weller | The Style Council | 4:18 |
4. | "Gambler" | Madonna | Madonna | 3:54 |
5. | "She's On the Zoom" | Don Henley | 3:18 | |
6. | "Hungry for Heaven" | Dio | 4:12 | |
7. | "Lunatic Fringe" | Tom Cochrane | Red Rider | 4:20 |
8. | "I'll Fall in Love Again" | Sammy Hagar | Sammy Hagar | 4:11 |
9. | "Hot Blooded" | Foreigner | 4:24 | |
10. | "Crazy for You" | Madonna | 4:08 | |
Total length: | 40:24 |
Chart (1985) | Peak position |
---|---|
Australian Albums (ARIA) [25] | 46 |
Canada Top Albums/CDs ( RPM ) [26] | 42 |
US Billboard 200 [27] | 11 |
US Top 100 Albums (Cash Box) [28] | 30 |
Region | Certification | Certified units/sales |
---|---|---|
United States (RIAA) [29] | Platinum | 1,000,000^ |
^ Shipments figures based on certification alone. |
In 2009, interest in a sequel was generated after Taylor Lautner of Twilight expressed interest. E! News claimed a script existed, which Lautner reportedly approved. [30]
Who's That Girl is the first soundtrack album by American singer and songwriter Madonna. It was released on July 21, 1987, by Sire Records to promote the film of the same name. It also contains songs by her label mates Scritti Politti, Duncan Faure, Club Nouveau, Coati Mundi and Michael Davidson. The soundtrack is credited as a Madonna album, despite her only performing four of the nine tracks on the album. After the commercial success of the film Desperately Seeking Susan (1985), in which she co-starred, Madonna wanted to act in another comedy film titled Slammer, about a woman named Nikki Finn who was falsely accused of homicide. However, due to the critical and commercial failure of her adventure film Shanghai Surprise (1986), Warner Bros. was initially reluctant to greenlight the project but later agreed.
"Who's That Girl" is a song by American singer Madonna from the soundtrack of the 1987 film of the same name. Written and produced by Madonna and Patrick Leonard, it was released in Europe as the soundtrack's lead single on June 29, 1987 and in the United States on 30 June 1987. An uptempo pop song, "Who's That Girl" continued the singer's fascination with Latin pop, a genre she had previously explored on her single "La Isla Bonita". It features instrumentation from drums, bass, and trumpets, and has lyrics sung both in English and Spanish. While shooting for the film, then called Slammer, Madonna had requested Leonard to develop a song that captured the nature of her character; the producer worked on a demo and, afterwards, Madonna added the lyrics and decided to rename the song, as well as the film, to "Who's That Girl".
Shanghai Surprise is a 1986 adventure comedy film directed by Jim Goddard and starring then-newlyweds Sean Penn and Madonna. The screenplay was adapted by John Kohn and Robert Bentley from Tony Kenrick's 1978 novel Faraday's Flowers. Produced by George Harrison's HandMade Films and distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Harrison himself appears in the film as a night club singer, and he wrote and recorded five original songs for the soundtrack: "Shanghai Surprise", "Someplace Else", "Breath Away from Heaven", "Zig Zag", and "Hottest Gong in Town". The film was a critical and commercial failure, and an official soundtrack album was never released.
"Dress You Up" is a song by American singer Madonna from her second studio album, Like a Virgin (1984). It was released as the album's final single on July 24, 1985, by Sire Records. Composed by Andrea LaRusso with lyrics by Peggy Stanziale, and produced by Nile Rodgers, who also played guitar on the track, it was the final song to be added to the album. Rodgers had asked the writers to compose something similar to the work of his band Chic but, due to LaRusso and Stanziale being busy with other projects, the composition took time. When the lyrics were submitted, the producer initially rejected them, as he felt there was no time to compose a melody; Madonna, however, liked the lyrics and convinced him to include the song on Like a Virgin. Musically, "Dress You Up" is a dance-pop song whose lyrics are an extended metaphor for fashion and lust, comparing dressing up with passion.
Desperately Seeking Susan is a 1985 American comedy-drama film directed by Susan Seidelman and starring Rosanna Arquette, Aidan Quinn and Madonna. Set in New York City, the plot involves the interaction between two women – a bored housewife and a bohemian drifter – linked by various messages in the personals section of a newspaper. The film was Madonna's first major screen role and also provided early roles for a number of other well-known performers, such as John Turturro, Giancarlo Esposito, Laurie Metcalf and Steven Wright.
"Lucky Star" is a song by American singer Madonna from her self-titled debut studio album (1983). Produced by Reggie Lucas, it was written by Madonna with the intention that her friend Mark Kamins would play it in his sets at Danceteria, where he was the resident DJ. In 1982, Madonna was signed on by Sire Records for the release of two 12" singles; after the success of first single "Everybody", the label approved the recording of an album, and the singer decided to work with Lucas. However, problems between Madonna and the producer arose and he ended up leaving the project; she then called John "Jellybean" Benitez, her boyfriend at the time, to work on the remaining songs.
"Crazy for You" is a song recorded by American singer Madonna for the film Vision Quest (1985), written by John Bettis and Jon Lind, and produced by John "Jellybean" Benitez. Released on March 2, 1985 through Geffen Records, it is a pop ballad with torch influences, and lyrics that talk about sexual attraction and desire. Jon Peters and Peter Guber produced Vision Quest, while Joel Sill, Warner Bros. Pictures music vice president, and music director Phil Ramone were in charge of putting together its soundtrack. Sill got in touch with Bettis and Lind, and asked them to write a new song for the film. The duo came up with "Crazy for You" after reading the script, and decided to use it in a scene in which the main characters – Matthew Modine and Linda Fiorentino – dance together for the first time.
"Angel" is a song by American singer Madonna from her second studio album Like a Virgin (1984). It was released on April 10, 1985, by Sire Records as the album's third single. Written by Madonna and Steve Bray, it was one of the first songs developed for the project and, according to Madonna, was inspired by a girl who is saved by an angel, and she falls in love with him. "Angel" was released as a 12-inch single with "Into the Groove" in some countries and charted likewise. A music video was not filmed for "Angel", and instead, a promotional clip comprising segments of her previous videos was released in the United Kingdom.
"Take Me with U" is a song by Prince and the Revolution, and the final US single released from their album, Purple Rain (1984).
"Gambler" is a song by American singer Madonna from the soundtrack album to the 1985 film Vision Quest. The song was written solely by Madonna, while the production was handled by John "Jellybean" Benitez at her request. It was released as the second single from the film's soundtrack album on October 3, 1985, by Geffen Records. "Gambler" was never released as a single in the United States, at the request of Madonna's own Sire Records. The music video of the song is an excerpt from the film.
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Vision Quest is a young adult novel by Terry Davis, published in 1979. In first-person, present-tense narrative, it tells the story of a few months in the life of Louden Swain, a high school wrestler in Spokane, Washington who is cutting weight and working toward the state championships. The book takes its title from the vision quest ritual of some Native American tribes, of going into the wilderness alone to 'discover who you are and who your people are and how you fit into the circle of birth and growth and death and rebirth.' John Irving called it "the truest novel about growing up since The Catcher in the Rye."
John Gregory Bettis is an American lyricist, best known for his long-term songwriting partnership with Richard Carpenter of the Carpenters. He wrote the lyrics for "Top of the World", a hit for both Lynn Anderson and the Carpenters. He wrote several more hits for the Carpenters, including "Only Yesterday", "Goodbye to Love","Yesterday Once More" and "I Need to Be in Love". He later wrote hits for other artists including: Madonna, Michael Jackson, the Pointer Sisters, Conway Twitty, Diana Ross, Westlife, Jennifer Warnes, Peabo Bryson, Maria Vidal, George Strait ("Heartland"), Juice Newton, Ronnie Milsap, Barbara Mandrell, Louise Mandrell, 38 Special, New Kids on the Block, Donna Summer, Barbra Streisand, Eric Clapton and Whitney Houston.
"Only the Young" is a song written by Jonathan Cain, Steve Perry and Neal Schon of the band Journey. Previously intended for Journey's 1983 album Frontiers, it was pulled from the album within days of recording in favor of songs "Back Talk" and "Troubled Child". It was then sold to the band Scandal, who released it in 1984 on their album Warrior, as the first commercially released version of the song. Journey's version was included on the soundtrack to the 1985 film Vision Quest, and was also released as a single which reached the top 10 of the U.S. Billboard Hot 100.
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Crazy for You may refer to:
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