Ever seen the Rotten Tomatoes "Five Fave Films" series? They ask an actor or director what their five favorite movies are and get them to talk about them. Craig Brewer, who directed Hustle and Flow and the new Footloose remake said this about Purple Rain:

I would say my number one movie: Purple Rain. I could probably teach a semester of film studies on the first eight minutes of Purple Rain. And if you watch that first eight minutes, you're going to see why, because the way the music -- it's like the extended version of "Let's Go Crazy" -- the way it's cut, continuity completely goes out the window. You'll be on stage with Prince, but then you'll cut and you'll see him getting ready to go on stage, then you'll see him at his house, blowing out candles. Then you see him on his motorcycle coming to the club, cuts to him on stage in the club, cuts to Apollonia coming into town... By the end of that eight minutes, you know everybody's character, you know their relationship to each other, and the music never stopped. It's a dizzying... I think you see three tongues within the first eight minutes. You know, Apollonia's boobs were like an atom bomb going off in my world, because up until that moment, I wanted to marry women, like, "I like that girl. I would want her to be my wife and have kids with her." But then I saw Apollonia, and I was like, "I have thoughts now in my head that I didn't have before, and feelings that I've never had before!" The same poster that I got at a fair in Vallejo, California of Apollonia in a bikini is up on my wall here in my office, and people still come in here and go, "Damn, I had that poster on my wall!"

Full article:

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/footloose-2010/news/1923296/five_favorite_films_with_footloose_director_craig_brewer/

Thought it was kinda cool.

great, so he likes purple rain. you still couldnt pay me to go see the new footloose.

Cool, thanks for posting. I once saw the first number of "Purple Rain" in a first class art museum movie theater with a pristine print. It's incredible, just like he says.

That's actually a pretty good run down of the opening set piece.