‘Sign O’ The Times,’ louder: A purple night in IMAX and after dark for Prince

Full disclosure, purists: I have never been a card-carrying Prince disciple. My pop altar has long belonged to Michael Jackson’s immaculate geometry, the moonwalk as a sermon in suede. I appreciate Prince’s cathedral of talent, of course, yet I have historically admired it from the steps.

Last week’s remastered “Sign O’ The Times” in IMAX yanked me by the lapels and marched me straight down the aisle. The screen became a voltage field, the band a choreography of knives, and Prince—magnetic, acrobatic, mischievously omnipotent—proved why the faithful speak of him in weather systems.

Then Sheila E detonated. Her godsmacking precision turned rhythm into architecture and flirtation into physics. By the third number, I wasn’t comparing gods; I was taking communion.

IMAX, Mercury Studios, FilmRise, and Paisley Park Enterprises staged the advance screening at AMC Kips Bay 15, where a purple carpet unfurled against a lush floral wall and the city’s creative class delivered their devotions. The remaster is a crystalline shock: cameras glide like dancers, edits snap with musician’s timing, and the mix swells into cathedral-grade sound.

Tracks like “If I Was Your Girlfriend,” the title anthem “Sign O’ The Times,” and the delirious “U Got The Look” arrive with customized theatre geometry and precision audio that make every synth stab feel monumental. You do not watch this film; you surrender to it. Prince’s star power in prime-time bloom is undeniable—mercurial, athletic, flirty, and tyrannically in command.

Daniel Walters, Jack James Busa and Taye DiggsPhoto Credit: Calvin Stark/Erin Hoagg

John Nubian and Avalon Ashley BellosPhoto Credit: Calvin Stark/Erin Hoagg

Photo Credit: Calvin Stark/Erin Hoagg

Don LemonPhoto Credit: Calvin Stark/Erin Hoagg

If Jackson is pop’s Apollonian mathematician—angles, light, perfection—Prince is its Dionysian polymath, carving desire into sound and velvet. The IMAX restoration doesn’t just refurbish a concert movie; it restores an argument: virtuosity can be feral, discipline can smolder, spectacle can think.

That dialectic set the tone for the second act downtown at Jean’s, remade into a noir-violet shrine: projection displays, signature purple cocktails, and a Prince-branded vintage limousine idling outside for its close-up.

The soundtrack of the room belonged to AKU (of Florence & The Machine lineage), The Muses, Rex DeTiger, and Venus X, who kept the temperature hovering at soft-riot. A live tribute performer slipped on the satin bravado—knowingly kitsch, high-gloss fun with very large shoes to fill.

No one mistook mimicry for myth, yet the gesture read as a valentine to a genius who remains untouchable precisely because he made imitation irresistible.

Attendance told its own story about cultural gravity. Spike Lee, Taye Diggs, Luann de Lesseps, Don Lemon, icon Dianne Brill, Amir Arison, and design maven Genevieve Gorder brushed shoulders with music royalty and downtown stalwarts—members of Interpol, Eugene Hutz of Gogol Bordello, Blu DeTiger, and Emmett Skye.

Fashion and nightlife supplied the glitter: Timo Weiland, Victoria Brito, Mariah Strongin, stylists and scene-makers Phillip Bloch, Legendary Damon, and Omar Hernandez. Music history itself drifted through in the form of Tommy Silverman of Tommy Boy Records, while lenses from Michael Avedon, Bob Gruen, Robert Whittman, Erik Foss, and Ez de la Rosa hunted the night with seasoned appetite.

The evening, hosted by IMAX, Mercury Studios, FilmRise, and Paisley Park Enterprises, played like a civic ceremony for a canonized rebel. Prince’s legacy has always been discipline in service of desire; the IMAX experience amplifies both. It is a reminder that pop, in the right hands, becomes philosophy—seduction with an ethic, joy with a rigorous spine.

Purple isn’t merely a color in this city. It is a verb. This film proves it still conjugates beautifully.

The remastered ‘Sign o’ The Times’ will be released globally on Aug. 29.