It's not clocking to you
That Glitter is a perfect movie.
Glitter is a perfect movie, and this is a hill I will die on!
The wild part? I wrote an entire Substack post about my top five favorite movies and somehow failed to mention one that means so very much to me. One that is criminally underrated, unjustly dragged, and never got the glittering spotlight it deserved.
You guessed it: Glitter.
(And for the record, I’m a die-hard, lifelong Mariah Carey superfan—and I firmly believe ‘Always Be My Baby’ is the defining song of my generation.)
When I think about Glitter, I feel nothing but joy. One of my oldest friends, Seymore, shares my undying love for Mariah, and we could talk about this film for hours. And we have. A couple summers ago, after years of not watching it, we decided to revisit. It felt like seeing it for the first time: stunned, silent, barely speaking… and then crying. Absolutely flawless cinema.
Today, I did a tiny bit of research (emphasis on tiny) and learned that upon release, both the album and the film were panned by critics. In fact, it was widely called one of the worst films ever made. But….plot twist….retrospective reviews have been largely positive, with many saying it was ‘unfairly maligned’.
Now, if you’ve been following me for any length of time, you know the quickest way to make me obsessed with something is for the general public to think it’s garbage. That’s it. That’s the formula.
And I’m not entirely sure what “maligned” even means, but if I’m reading between the lines, people are finally realizing the brilliance of Glitter. Which makes me, obviously, an early adopter. A patron of the arts.
For the uninitiated: Mariah plays Billie Frank, a perfect angel with a perfect voice. She falls for a bad boy DJ/producer named Dice, becomes a star, and sells out Madison Square Garden (her life’s dream) the very night said boyfriend is killed. There’s more plot, sure, but those are the key facts you need.
And honestly, the movie is only half the story—the soundtrack deserves its own Substack post. I was 13 when Glitter came out, bought the CD, and fixated on it for months. Correction: I’m still fixated on it.
So, do yourself a favor and watch Glitter. And if you can’t commit to that, at least listen to my favorite songs from the soundtrack: