Marketic It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

ChicRawIdol A brilliant film that helped define a genre

Kirandeep Yoder The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

Michelle Ridley The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

GD Cugham Madonna, like all good pop culture icons, was all things to all people. By the early nineties she, or her managers, saw that this could be consolidated by her seeming to embrace and become an avant garden patron saint of the LGBTQ+ community of the time. Madonna was seen on TV wheeling out Sandra Bernhardt as her girlfriend - she was in fact seeing Warren Beatty. She made a mainstream hit of 'Vogue', just a dance craze song in the old tradition but culled from underground gay and drag culture. Vogue and the Blonde Ambition tour it was part of, required young male dancers from the dance subculture it exploited. Madonna handpicked dancers and soon became the mother hen of an elite inner circle of the mainly gay men. 'Strike A Pose' catches up with the surviving members of Madonna's male dance troupe and discovers some whose lives were changed by it, some for the better, some now worse off. Archive footage shores up the stridently powerful woman we recall of Vogue era Madonna as a naive and superficial "issues" hound who used - or was advised to - the LGBTQ+ community to expand her market to the "pink dollar". However Madonna actually, personally cared. Through interview, segments of expressive dance and more than honest reminiscences. A startling and heartfelt deconstruction of those on the fringes of fame and a true interrogation of the sincerity of commercial pop art.

mike_NY This doc is a bit lazy (it does not go into much detail on the cultural relevance of Madonna at her peak of 1989 - 1991) but will appeal to those of us who were in our teens to mid-20s at that time. From the BA tour to the release of TOD, Madonna was the center of the universe. Her PR at the time said she was giving the dancers an opportunity and it was up to them to exploit it after the tour. (This was never mentioned in the film but is my recollection.) Sadly, none have achieved what would be considered success in the material sense: most seem to live hand to mouth. If they had more maturity and some good guidance at the time, they may have developed careers of note - perhaps even judging DWTS and choreographing big names but mostly spiraled down and those that sued Madge? Well, let's just say she holds a grudge. This doc is a little sad, yet their impact at the time on some was significant. Ultimately, this will appeal more to those of us born in the 60s - mid-70s and does not have wide appeal. Yes, Madonna exploited them but in her world view she also gave them an opportunity.

Red-125 Strike a Pose (2016) is a Dutch documentary that was directed by Ester Gould and Reijer Zwaan. It tells the story of the six surviving members of the seven-man dance group that accompanied Madonna on her Truth or Dare tour.It's a truly sad film. These young, talented men reached great heights during the tour. They became famous in their own right. They were like a family, and Madonna, who was in her 30's at the time, was like their mother hen.When the tour ended, they learned that they weren't really a family. Some of the dancers complained that Madonna had outed them in the movie Truth or Dare (1991). The conflict ended in a lawsuit.One died of AIDS, and the others have struggled with HIV, alcohol, and drugs. None of them maintained the heights they had achieved during the tour. All of them are struggling. (Some more than others, but still struggling.)In retrospect, these talented men would have probably done better if they hadn't been chosen for the tour. No one would have believed it then, but we can see it now.I didn't enjoy this film. The men may have been great dancers, and they may have felt like a family, but they each went their own way, and that way was down. I had hoped the movie would have had more dancing, but there wasn't very much of that either.Not my kind of movie, but the film carries an high IMDb rating of 7.7, so obviously I'm in the minority. I think dancing works better on the large screen than it does on the small screen. However, this movie will work well on either, because there wasn't much dancing.We saw the film at Rochester's excellent Little Theatre, as part of ImageOut, the wonderful Rochester LGBT Film Festival.l

peter billionaire Lots of crying. Documentary-makers love it. Almost everybody in the movie gets to cry. Coming out of the closet and AIDS, AIDS, AIDS. No, it is not "powerful." It is stagey and manipulative. The individual stories are familiar. The only difference is Madonna. Like the gay Waiting for Godot. Everybody talks about Madonna, but she's not there. "We were like a family" is the motif. I doubt that the dancers were really that naive. They were Madonna's employees. Did they really think that they were going to be pals with her once the tour was over? There is a shot of a mother watching a video of her dead son. There is a discussion of Bell's palsy. There is an awkward reunion dinner apparently staged for this film. It's as if the dancers know what is expected. Lots of hugging and more crying. Declarations of undying love and friendship. A cringe-inducing replay of truth or dare. Everyone aware of the cameras. It seems self- conscious. What do you do with your life if it peaks when you're 22? To be cast out of MDNA paradise. There are vague images of the dancers in what may be their present careers. One of them is a waiter, but it is implied that they are still in dance. No specifics are given. The idea is to leave on an upbeat note.