Footloose

Ask any female who grew up in the 80s what she watched at slumber parties, around 1986, and they’ll likely say either the 1984 film “Footloose” or “Flashdance.” Betsy Bozdech said in her review, “While the former spawned fashion trends — and undoubtedly gave screenwriter Joe Eszterhas the debatably fortunate idea for Showgirls — the latter holds up a lot better, now that the Smurfs sleeping bags are on eBay instead of the living room floor.” In possibly his famous role, Kevin Bacon (Bozdech described, “sporting a brush cut that looks like it was styled with a weed-whacker”) plays as Ren McCormick, a sophisticated Chicago kid who moves to the inhibited rural town of Beaumont, where dancing is banned and minister Shaw Moore, played by John Lithgow, orders the citizens’ ethics. With his loud rock-and-roll music and cool VW bug, Ren quickly isolates everyone except Reverend Moore’s rebel daughter, Ariel, played by Lori Singer. Things only get worse when Ren decides to fight for the right to have a senior prom. With that kind of story, “Footloose” could easy have changed into a typical “let’s all get together and fight the system!” underdog comedy. You can say it certainly does have its cheesy moments (Ren dancing as a way vent in the empty warehouse). However, thanks to strong lead performances and unexpected dramatic depth, “Footloose” is the rare teen film with staying power. Bozdech said, “Bacon is convincing as fish-out-of-water Ren, who only wants to go about his business and have a good time, and Lithgow is surprisingly affecting as the conflicted Moore, who's scared and confused behind his fire-and-brimstone facade.” In the supporting cast, Dianne Weist is quietly moving as Moore’s wife, Vi, and Chris Penn steals his scenes as Ren’s not able to dance friend Willard (Sarah Jessica Parker plays Willard’s girlfriend Rusty). Then we have the music. From Kenny Loggins’ title track to Deniece Williams’ Let’s Hear It For the Boy, “Footloose” still has one of the best soundtracks of the decade. The movie is looking a bit old in today’s time, but that’s probably mostly due to the clothes and hair styles. “Footloose’s” story may have aged well, but 80s fashions were less fortunate.

Surprisingly, this film had a 2011 remake. The script is rigid, the characters are stereotypic, the acting is often flat (or worse), the plot lacks depth, however “Footloose” is fun and engaging and a roar. A classic example of how much an audience can forgive if there’s a great opening and a terrific ending. Neely Swanson said in his review, “I can still hold my head up and say that I enjoyed the film and so will you if you check your standards at the door.”

When a group of Bomont High School’s best are killed in a car accident after a night of beer drinking and wild dancing, the town fathers decide that their youth need to be protected from themselves. That’s when the city council, led by Bomont High’s Principal Dunbar (Brett Rice) and Reverend Shaw Moore (Dennis Quaid, Swanson described, “so wooden that he’s an inadvertent source of humor”), who lost his son in the accident, force a curfew and ban dancing and unsupervised get-togethers by children under the age of 18.

Now, three years later, Moore’s daughter Ariel, played by Julianne Hough, a senior, whose frustration with rules displays itself in over-the-top promiscuous behavior, chasing the town bad boy and usually lying, cheating, debaucher, and drinking. Her parents seem clueless to the change in her behavior (and apparently her dress as well).

Added in this arrives Ren McCormack (Kenny Wormald), moving from Boston. His mother has just passed and he has come to live with his Uncle Wes (Ray McKinnon). Swanson said, “Ren, your typical fish-out-of-water immediately makes waves and is targeted by the police (I suppose in this case, since it’s Georgia, that would be police) for playing his music too loud.” The principal is suspicious as well and conspires, unsuccessfully, to get him expelled from the school.

Swanson said, “This being a fairy tale, the Yankee is accepted with open arms by the multi-cultural, multi-ethnic student body all of whom inter-date, go out together and never quarrel.” Ren, a serious student, catches the attention of the rebellious Ariel but wants nothing to do with her until she comes to her senses. Swanson said, “Nevertheless, he is drawn into the Bomont equivalent of a duel by Ariel’s jealous redneck boyfriend Chuck. The weapons of choice? School buses, driven stock car fashion until last man (or in this case, bus) standing. Ren wins; Ariel sees the light and becomes a virgin once again.”

However, most importantly, Ren wants to change the dance law and gathers his high school friends (every single student) to help him do that. The teens are all kids of good, led by the adorable Ren and his bestie Willard (Miles Teller) and football captain Woody (Ser’Darius Blain). It is up to them to rescue the town from the adults and town bullies. Swanson said, “And how he goes about doing it is in that old fashioned Mickey Rooney-Judy Garland “let’s put on a show” manner.”

There are many elements here that make this enjoyable. Definitely, the young, relatively unknown actors are a huge help. However, the film takes off whenever the kids get together and perform their energetic dance numbers. The choreography is outstanding and is, for a change, well filmed. Swanson mentioned, “There are several memorable scenes, especially the previously mentioned opening and closing, where the camera is focused entirely on the booted feet performing those intricate dance steps to loud, rhythmic, often familiar music. I defy you not to tap along to those numbers.” It’s fun, it’s musical, and don’t worry about comparing this version to the original. Kevin Bacon can’t dance like Kenny Wormald (and it’s unlikely that Kenny will ever be able to act like Kevin Bacon) and Dennis Quaid is no John Lithgow. Who cares? Just watch the film and have some fun.

I liked the original a lot, that is a classic that will live on forever. However, I preferred the remake. Maybe it’s because I thought that one had more energetic dancing than the original, but their both great films. You should see both of them and see for yourself. You will get into the film and quite possibly, download the soundtrack after watching it. I did that and I love the soundtrack a lot that I listened to it when I have driven to work. One of my former friends told me about the films so I saw both of them. Check these two films out and enjoy.

Next week I will look at two other dancing films that I saw, I believe, either on Netflix or On Demand, but the original is a classic, in “Dance Month.”

Saturday Night Fever/Staying Alive

Seeing how this is a summer month and people are trying to do things outdoors (do try to be careful because of the heat and humidity that we’ve been getting), I thought that maybe I would have the month of July be about movies that have dancing involved. Let’s get this month started with the 1977 classic, “Saturday Night Fever.”

How interesting can it be that a film that is the epitome of the time and place (late 70s Brooklyn, the peak of Disco) has held up perfectly for almost 50 years. Matt Barry admitted in his review, “It's one of those films that, I imagine, must have seemed hopelessly dated in one sense just a few years after its release. But perhaps now, separated by the distance of time, we can better appreciate its strengths and qualities that keep audiences coming back to it.”

The movie is about Tony Manero, a young Italian-American living in Brooklyn, working in a hardware store, living with his parents, played by Val Bisoglio and Julie Bovasso, and is having trouble finding himself through the only thing that he is passionate about…dance. He is a character so many people can relate to. With John Travolta portraying the titular role, John Badham directing this with so much liveliness, and the soundtrack having the hit songs of the Bee Gees really help this film being one that still tops with life. Norman Wexler wrote the script (Barry noted, “based on "Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night", an article by Nik Cohn that appeared in New York Magazine the previous year”) which is so true, and you can relate to the difficulties that Tony is going through so he can make himself famous.

Barry admitted, “After seeing SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER on the big screen, I was struck by just what a nicely-photographed film it is. I think this gets lost when watching the film on TV, or even on DVD, where some of the definition and detail is lost, but there are some moments that are really quite stunning.” Ralf D Bode was the cinematographer and he really knew how to film Travolta and Karen Lynn Gorney together with that delicate look which makes you feel like you’re there with them, which is excellently different with how real the scenes are with Tony and his friends (Barry Miller, Joseph Cali, Paul Pape, and Bruce Ornstein). He brings the same amount of energy when he dances (like with Night Fever), which really stands out with the polychromatic flashing lights and fog on the dance floor. Barry said, “Looking over his filmography, I realize I have only seen a couple other films photographed by Bode, but I do not remember anything particularly unique about their cinematography.” Still, you got to give him credit with how memorable “Saturday Night Fever” was, which might have been a different feeling when seeing this in theaters than on TV.

I was already familiar with the famous shot on the poster and the famous Dancing Again scene, but when I saw the movie, I was thinking this was the epitome of the 70s. If you haven’t seen it, you should see it on Pluto TV, where it is currently streaming. You will love the way they made this film, especially the dancing.

Sadly, this was guilty of a terrible sequel called “Staying Alive,” released in 1983.

This was a big disappointment. Roger Ebert was right when he said in his review, “This sequel to the gutsy, electric “Saturday Night Fever” is a slick, commercial cinematic jukebox, a series of self-contained song-and-dance sequences that could be cut apart and played forever on MTV — which is probably what will happen. Like “Flashdance,” it isn’t really a movie at all, but an endless series of musical interludes between dramatic scenes that aren’t there. It’s not even as good as “Flashdance,” but it may appeal to the same audience; it’s a Walkman for the eyes.”

The movie’s plot is so simple to figure out. Six years have passed since Tony looked so much at the lights of Manhattan at the end of “Saturday Night Fever.” Now he lives in a bad Manhattan hotel, works as a waiter and a dance instructor and dates a young dancer, played by Cynthia Rhodes, with so much patience. He still chases women. However, he meets a British dancer, played by Finola Hughes, who’s his match. She’s the type of girl who takes him to bed and rejects him. Meanwhile, he gets a job as a dancer in her new show and when her lead dancer hesitates, Tony gets the role. Any of this sound familiar?

The movie was co-authored and directed by Sylvester Stallone, and it’s the first bad movie he’s made. He remembers everything from his Rocky stories, but he leaves out the heard. What’s worse, he leaves out the characters. Ebert mentioned, “Everybody in “Staying Alive” is Identikit.” The characters, their lives, and even the dialogue are all cliches. Ebert noted, “The big musical climaxes are interrupted only long enough for people to shout prepackaged emotional countercharges at each other. There is little attempt to approximate human speech.”

Like the Rocky movies, “Staying Alive” ends with a huge, visually impressive climax. It is so unbelievable it has to be seen to know. It’s opening night on Broadway: Tony Manero not only dances like the lead, he survives a production number of fire, ice, smoke, flashing lights and laser beams, throws in an ad-libbed solo – and ends majestically by holding Finola Hughes above his head with one arm, like a game he has hunted and killed. Ebert said, “The musical he is allegedly starring in is something called “Satan’s Alley,” but it’s so laughably gauche it should have been called “Springtime for Tony.”” Stallone does so little to convince us we’re watching a real stage production. There are camera effects the audience could never see, montages that create impossible physical moves and – most mysterious of all – a vocal track, despite nobody on stage is singing. This is a mess. Ebert noted, “Travolta’s big dance number looks like a high-tech TV auto commercial that, got sick to its stomach.”

Ebert admitted, “What I really missed in “Staying Alive” was the sense of reality in “Saturday Night Fever” — the sense that Tony came from someplace and was somebody particular.” There’s no old neighborhood, no verbal arguments with his family (he apologizes to his mother for his behavior), and no Brooklyn strangeness. Tony’s life has been made into a backstage musical, and not a good one.

The movie has one great moment. Near the end, Tony says, “I want to strut!” and struts across Times Square to the Bee Gees song Stayin’ Alive, no doubt a recreation to the beginning of the first movie. That could have been the first shot of a great movie. It’s the last shot of this one.

If you saw the first movie and loved it, avoid the sequel at all cost. There is nothing good in it at all. Travolta said everybody secretly says they love the sequel and remember all of Hughes lines and not his, but I don’t remember any line that was said in here. This was a perfectly good example of a great movie that didn’t need a sequel and was just horribly made, you could call it garbage. Never make the mistake of seeing this, like I did when I saw it on Netflix.

Look out next week when I review another classic film in “Dance Month.”

Jackie

Today is July 4^th and a couple of months back, I was looking at what movies to watch to prepare for today. One of the list suggested “Jackie,” released in 2016, so I saw it was streaming on Max and decided to watch that while exercising.

Sean Mulvihill said in his review, “When the movies cover the topic of the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy it is typically through the lens of the loss of American innocence, the murder that opened the floodgates on the social turmoil that defined the ‘60s.” director Pablo Larraín and screenwriter Noah Oppenheim have teamed up to look at the assassination in a way that it has never been looked at on screen before – how much of an impact the loss was on JFK’s wife Jaqueline Kennedy. “Jackie” looks at the assassination and the results through her view, which is a sad look at the intersection of loss and legacy that is led by a powerful performance by Natalie Portman.

After the assassination and funeral of JFK, Jackie Kennedy (Portman) agrees to tell her side of the incident to a journalist (Billy Crudup). The mourning widow tells some of her happier days in the White House along with the tragic day and the rough days that followed. The nicer moments are of Jackie giving a television news crew a tour of the White House, telling the history around the Kennedys each night. The sadder moments are of the First Lady wearing the famous pink dress with blood stains on it as she witnesses Lyndon B. Johnson (John Carol Lynch) being sworn in as president after her husband’s murder to trying to plan the expansive funeral with the help of Robert Kennedy (Peter Sarsgaard). With all of her grief, Jackie must balance keeping up appearances for her two young children (Sunnie Pelant and Brody and Aiden Weinberg) along with the American people while she plans the funeral that she believes will secure JFK’s legacy.

Mulvihill credited, “Natalie Portman gives one of the finest performances of her illustrious career as the mourning First Lady. She captures the aristocratic Northeastern inflection of the historical figure, and conveys each and every aspect of grief in this powerful performance. The grace and dignity that we’ve come to associate with Jacqueline Kennedy is present Portman’s presence, but the actress also brings a wounded overtone to the role.” At times, Portman’s Jackie is lost like in scenes where she pours her heart out to a priest, played by John Hurt. At other times, she dominates scenes like when she tells her funeral wishes to Bobby Kennedy or LBJ’s assistant Jack Valenti, played by Max Casella.

Mulvihill said, “There’s an intimacy to Pablo Larraín’s direction, with much of Stéphane Fontaine’s cinematography employing tight close ups of its leading lady under duress. Much like Neruda, Pablo Larraín eschews the basic tenets of the biopic in favor of examining moments in the lives of historical figures.” For the most part, Jackie is not concerned with the days that JFK was murdered, despite Larraín does show the time in a shocking detail near the end. Larraín and screenwriter Oppenheim display the seclusion and sadness of Jacqueline Kennedy in those grieving times with emotional clarity, especially how she struggles to understand her husband’s place in history. Mulvihill criticized, “However, sometimes the movie is a bit too on the nose, such as a moment where Jackie is drowning her sorrows with booze while listening to the soundtrack to Camelot.”

“Jackie” is also a success of design, with a completely great look to its costumes, makeup, sets, and production design. Mulvihill said, “The film has a wonderful aesthetic that matches the elegance that Jackie Kennedy embodied with style and vibrant color. But the score by Mica Levi plays counter to that elegance with music that captures the essence of grief and despair, an unsettling score that emphasizes the film’s emotional content.”

There will never be a final word on the assassination of JFK. That’s a time that has captured the attention of the American people for over 50 years and is a moment that is present throughout American history. “Jackie” looks at the events and the aftermath through the mourning of Jackie Kennedy. Natalie Portman’s performance, the certain director of Pablo Larraín, and the chilling music of Mical Levi will live on as a tragic look of that America in transition through the eyes of a grieving First Lady.

I will admit, this is a powerful movie to see on Max. However, there are moments where it felt like Portman was whispering too much. Other than that, this is a good movie to check out and I do recommend it to those who want to see a look at the result of JFK’s murder that has never been seen before. Check it out and experience it for yourself.

Happy Independence Day everyone. Stay tuned later today for what I will review this month.