Now that I've seen Madonna, most of the cast of Desperately Seeking Susan and Julianne Moore not once but twice (Body of Evidence) in recent times, seeing Matthew Modine (VisionQuest) shouldn't shock me. Who's next...Lori Petty???

  The spell-binding Magic Club was the result of a late-breaking script change

TONS OF VIDEOS RIGHT HERE.

It was 24 hours of Desperately Seeking Susan for me this week, meeting Madonna on Wednesday for the celebration of her and Lola's Material Girl line and then meeting a surprisingly large contingent of the cast and crew of that '80s classic the following night when the Film Society of Lincoln Center hosted a 25th-anniversary screening.

Me with Seidelman, Blum, Arquette & Quinn

Tickets to the event and after-party had been hard to come by, and it's no wonder—on top of some members of the press, the 268-seat theater must have had at least 25 people who'd worked on the movie, plus all their guests.

Left to right, top to bottom: Susan Seidelman's intro; Rosanna Arquette's bond with—and Mark Blum's raunchy screen-test with—Madonna; rushing the film out in case Madonna was a "flash-in-the-pan"; and funny casting stories...

More leaks. Above, the pretty if simplistic "Little Girl" from the Music era (appropriately, since that album is 10 years old this week!). After the jump, the spirited "I'm in Love with Love" demo and "Set the Right" (not) from American Life.

 

You may recall I attended a screening of Desperately Seeking Susan in NYC at which director Susan Seidelman spoke. No fair—the L.A. version featured a very interesting old bag (not Rosanna Arquette, though she was there, too, looking like anything but)...the original case from the movie, owned by Seidelman.

Robert Joy with shirtless Aidan Quinn from DSS 

Bringing Joy to the DSS screening

UPDATE: Thomas Mora, a lucky bitch who attended, reports:

"There was no Q&A. The director Susan Seidelman, The producers, the writers, and actor Robert Joy (Jimmy), & Rosanna Arquette spoke a few words before the screening about the casting for Susan's (Madonna's) boyfriend, the budget for Orion pictures, Madonna promoting her song 'Into the Groove' by having it included in the film. At the end of the screening I just snapped a few pix of the handbag/suitcase which was used in the film & then I asked the director what happened to the wardrobe from the film, to which she [one of the producers] replied, 'Rosanna has her jacket, and someone else has the other.'"

Thanks, Thomas!

FURTHER UPDATE: Boy Culture reader Bob Henson also attended, but points out it wasn't Seidelman but producers Sarah Pillsbury and Midge Sanford who were in attendance:

Producers Sarah Pillsbury & Midge Sanford with stars Joy & Arquette

Bob with one of the best pic-withs ever—love Arquette's sidelong glance!

Best tidbit of all, Bob says fans asked Stephen Bray—who was there—if there really is a song called "Desperately Seeking Susan" and he said yes...and he hopes it's released to the world someday!

Stephen Bray was in attendance as well  

As reported by MadonnaTribe, along with the badly kept secret that Madonna is working on an official book of all her greatest seen and unseen photos, September or October will see the release of a massive new Rizzoli book devoted to Herb Ritts entitled The Golden Hour. (The title refers to the first and the last hour of sunlight during a day, the best time for photography in natural light.)

I've learned exclusively that one never-before-seen image of Madonna that will be included is of Madonna with...men's underwear on her head.

It sounds like—if you listen here to Madonna's eulogy for Ritts—this image might be from their very first encounter, on the set of Desperately Seeking Susan.

Forget about Mickey Mouse ears, this I gotta see!

If anyone's in L.A. and makes it to the back-to-back screenings of After Hours and Desperately Seeking Susan featuring a Q&A with Rosanna Arquette in-between, by all means video it and send to me! I would love to see and hear her commentary about "the Madonna movie." 

I've never seen this—posted to YouTube yesterday, this is Madonna's full, "Herbified" eulogy for Herb Ritts. It's very sweet and provides several noteworthy details. She met him on the set  of Desperately Seeking Susan, she reminisces about that amazing shoot they did on the beach and she refers to him as "like a big brother to me, a very loveable one."

She also dons glasses to read that the day of his memorial was associated with the concept that there is "no such thing as death, no such thing as an ending, no such thing as time, space or emotion, no such thing as limitations of any kind" to point out that "just because we can't see Herb, doesn't mean he's not here." Very "Nothing Fails," very American Life.

Madonna gets Ritts-y.

Touchingly, she ends by pointing out that photography is about taking a negative and turning it into a positive.

Perhaps Madonna's finest screen performance...Snake Eyes aka Dangerous Game.

Come join the party for a belated 51st-birthday tribute to Madonna and the movies at Film Experience Blog.

"The selfless Madonna is less inspiring than the selfish one in so many ways."

Emily Nussbaum turns in an interesting and mostly selfish (appropriate, considering the above thesis of the piece) article for New York on the Madonna of now vs. the Madonna of then that's worth a read. I was at the Desperately Seeking Susan screening she attended (it was at the 92nd Street Y in TriBeCa, not IFC) and thought she was up to no good with her questions to the gay guys behind me sounding like invitations to voice concerns about Madonna 2009. Turns out she was up to mostly yes good, even if as a Madonna fan she fails by writing that the lyrics to "Human Nature" are "I ain't sorry/Don't hang your shit on me."

She correctly notes how many of Madonna's recent songs turn on "ticktick sounds and countdowns" and comes back around to loving Madonna thusly:

"Now she’s catalyzing a new set of insults, that cougar-MILF catcall, with its attendant put-downs—she’s 'desperate,' 'pathetic,' 'trying too hard.' And maybe she is. Sometimes I think she is. But while other female icons fade, fold, or fossilize into camp, for better or worse, Madonna seems determined to do something unsettling and new: spin to the center of the dance floor, till the end."

Susan Berman in Smithereens: "What am I s'posed to do? Sleep on the subway?"

I'm grateful to my pal Kenneth of KennethInThe212 for inviting me to the 92nd Street Y in TriBeCa to  see a double feature of Susan Seidelman's first two movies, Smithereens (1982) and Desperately Seeking Susan (1985)—otherwise, I'd have never known about it and would not have had the chance to meet Seidelman and hear her speak about both of these uniquely Downtown films. Seidelman appeared after the first film to take part in a Q&A and before Susan to introduce what would go on to become known as "the Madonna movie."