Movies
Numerous singers, like Elvis Presley, The Beatles, and Cher, tried their hand at a film career. Madonna did as well, and she made many notoriously bad movies.
Numerous singers, like Elvis Presley, The Beatles, and Cher, tried their hand at a film career. Madonna did as well, and she made many notoriously bad movies. The singer’s brother admitted he told her one of her movies was awful and he couldn’t finish it. Meanwhile, he told his sister a different story.
1 Madonna movie was so bad her brother couldn’t look at the screen
Madonna’s brother, Christopher Ciccone, is a dancer who has worked with his sister on multiple occasions. In his 2008 book Life With My Sister Madonna, Ciccone recalled attending the premiere of Madonna’s movie The Next Best Thing. He went with Billie Myers, a personal friend and singer known for her hit “Kiss the Rain.” The Next Best Thing stars the “Like a Virgin” singer as a woman who has a child with her gay best friend, played by Rupert Everett.
“The movie is awful,” he said. “I pretend that I have to go to the bathroom and hope no one notices that I don’t come back. Instead, I stand in the hallway and listen, but at least don’t have to watch.”
Why Madonna’s brother refused to criticize ‘The Next Best Thing’
Ciccone was not honest about his feelings. “Afterward, I tell Madonna that she was great and the movie is funny, but this isn’t true,” he wrote. “I am glad that I am not alone with her because if we had a proper conversation about the movie, I know she would realize that I am lying.”
Ciccone explained why he felt criticizing The Next Best Thing was useless. “She has no idea whatsoever how bad she is in the movie but I realize that nothing good would come of speaking my mind so I decide not to,” Ciccone wrote. “The movie has already premiered, and there is nothing that can be done anymore to improve it or my sister’s performance in it. Commenting on it negatively to her would be both pointless and destructive and I refuse to go there.” Sadly, while Madonna is one of the most popular and important pop stars ever, she’s rarely garnered acclaim for her acting.
A famous critic lambasted the movie
When The Next Best Thing came out in 2000, Roger Ebert was the most famous film critic in the United States. His website reports that he was not a fan of the film, giving it one star out of four. He felt the movie dealt with gay issues clumsily and lacked likable characters. In Ebert’s opinion, too many movies about gay characters faltered by making sexuality their entire theme, and The Next Best Thing was no exception.
The movie is a notorious bomb, but Madonna got the next best thing out of it: a hit song. The film’s soundtrack includes her cover of Don McLean’s “American Pie.” With that in mind, it might be easy to call The Next Best Thing a modest victory for the Material Girl, except that her “American Pie” is rotten and expired. Turning a classic rock song into an overproduced electropop tune was a terrible idea. It’s for the best that she doesn’t release many covers.
Ciccone bit his tongue and praised The Next Best Thing but the rest of the world didn’t.
