Madonna Movie:

		List Price: $9.99		Label: STANDING ROOM ONLY Salesrank: 79809 Released: September 25, 2007
		Our Price: $4.47
		Used Price: $10.99
		MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated) Media: DVD

Editorial Review:
Certain songs have come to define the times in which they appeared as they proved to be the catalyst for the transformation of the cultural and political landscape. Most set trends in music, fashion and dance while flouting convention and testing the boundaries of society's accepted moral values.

Each program in the Impact! series puts the spotlight on the songs that have left an indelible mark on the world. Besides setting the scene for the release of the song, the programs feature the song's creator(s) and explore its cultural impact and the ways that it changed the course of history. Guests include recording artists, music industry executives, cultural and political pundits and the music fans themselves for whom these songs became their life's soundtrack.

It's ironic that "Girl Power," a term that became a media catch phrase in the late '90s with the emergence of the Spice Girls from England, had its beginnings in a song that even remotely suggests that abstinence makes the heart grow fonder. But there you have it. Given the titillation of the word "virgin" in the song title and the obvious contradiction of her sexy image on video, this was the song that thrust Madonna into the media spotlight. Throughout the 80s and 90s Madonna continued to court controversy and to reinvent herself and her music from project to project. She remains the most successful woman in the history of pop music, who can take the credit for knocking down the barriers that had once stood in the way of women in the music business. Over the years, she has also set the fashion world on its ear and given rise to legions of "wannabes."

With song clips, Billy Steinberg, Nile Rodgers , Betsey Johnson , Maripol, Jeanne Beker, Weird Al Yankovic .

Impact! Songs that Changed the World - Like a Virgin / Madonna, Nile Rodgers, Betsey Johnson, Mark Bego, Billy Steinberg Reviews:
Huge waste of money!
2008-06-11 - If you're a completist collector of Madonna memorabilia, or if you're someone that knows absolutely nothing about Madonna and would like some of the basics I suppose this might be an okay purchase. For everyone else, avoid this like the plague!

For starters, they lied about the running time. It is NOT 36 minutes. It is 23 minutes long! That's it. And about two minutes of that cover the opening and ending credits.

The "documentary" is redundant and rehashes common sense and everything we've heard about Madonna over a million times. No interesting footage, unless you consider a small clip of Madonna from American Bandstand saying she wants to "rule the world", which I've personally seen many times elsewhere.

The most annoying thing of all are the three young people that are referred to as "Madonna fans" that give their dopey (and often inaccurate) views of Madonna. It's amusing to hear the male Madonna "fan" talking about his reaction to Madonna's appearance in the 1984 MTV Awards show when he had to have been in diapers at the time, or one of the two female fans mentioning how Madonna has been married 3 times (wouldn't even a casual fan know she was married twice?) and that has given her hope for the future (what? LOL). I at least got a laugh from those idiots despite how embarrassing it was to hear them talk out of their behinds.

Buyer beware. I am hit big time with remorse for this purchase.

Bottom line: Ten dollars for a crappy twenty-minute documentary.

Not to Long, not too short. and priced right!
2007-09-12 - This is one of a series of 12 reasonably priced ($9.99 list) DVDs released in the US by SRO (Part of Kultur International) under the umbrella "Impact: Songs That Changed The World". Each runs about 24 minutes as it was co-produced by Canadain TV and broadcast on the cable CMT network in the US in 2002 and 2003.

I could cell from the quality of the editing - even before I saw the end credits - that this was produced by Gregory Hall. Hall - who also makes music documentaries under his own Hallmark Productions banner - has been cranking these out for about 20 years years now. I first saw his Country Music bios. They've always been well edited and usually contain great interview "sound bites". The four volumes in this series that I;ve watched so far are no exception. Some of the interviews were recent at the time of the show's production while some go back to the 80s and 90s and have appeared in other Hall productions. (You can tell by the locations where they were taped.)

Most of the Impact series DVDs cover more than the single records that are the topics. They also cover the impact that artist - at that point in time - had on our culture from style of dress to style of music.

In the case of the "Like A Virgin" volume, the focus is limited to just that one recording by Madonna and how it "shocked" a nation. In addition to the song's co-writer (Billy Steinberg), the producer (Nile Rodgers -of Chic) and the Director of the now-famous video we hear from a few of her biographers, some Madonna "wannabees" and clothing designer Betsey Johnson. Jeanne Baker of the Fashion Channel shows up here too (as well as on the Elvis Presley ("Heartbreak Hotel") volume, talking about Madonna's impact on style. And "Weird Al" Yankovic - who parodied the single as "Like A Surgeon" explains why the song was so important to parody.

Like the others in this series the DVD does a really nice job of presenting a sociological study of how one single pop record can affect a whole culture, without belaboring the point. These DVDS will leave a legacy to the next generation and can be very useful in, not only music history classes but in the study of late 20th century "pop culture"


Steve Ramm
"Anything Phonographic"