Last night, I followed some of my peeps and saw Take the Lead, which was a good but not great movie starring Antonio Banderas playing a version of Jaime A. Escalante. (The movie Stand and Deliver was based on the work of Escalante with inner-city kids in LA, which, by the way, includes one of my friends from graduate school.) Similar, the character Banderas played (Pierre Dulaine) was or is apparently a real person. Unlike Stand and Deliver (which I haven't seen but really ought to; I've heard first-hand just how inspirational he apparently was/is), I had not previously heard of the person in question. A movie that I have seen that comes to mind as having a similar theme is Mr. Holland's Opus, and there is a different one that goes along similar lines except with yuppie Ivy League punks (for the purposes of that snide remark, please ignore the fact that one of my degrees is from an Ivy League school).
Anyway, Banderas is charged with bringing confidence and respect through dancing to inner-city kids in New York (damn their Yankees caps!). I don't need any convincing that dancing and other arts can do this (of course, so can many other things). I am not qualified to judge the dancing (I'll let Lemming pipe and others with actual knowledge pipe in here if they want), although the threesome towards the end was quite amusing. There were some other amusing moments as well, but the movie wasn't anything special overall. My general impression is that it is a polished but unspectacular take on things that have been done before. (Presumably, there is an extra bonus involved for people actually into dancing, but none of that was the point for me.)
P.S. I hope somebody gets the reference in the title.
3 days ago
6 comments:
I'll agree that it was a good (but not great) movie, but personally I enjoyed it greatly.
I'm gonna have to find out more about this Dulaine character, but that notwithstanding, Stand and Deliver is the definitive movie in the genre--watch it, Mason.
I liked the dancing quite a bit. I'm not really an expert, but there was nothing I thought was out of place. People who had been dancing for a couple of months looked good, but also looked like they'd been dancing for a couple of months. The "professional" dancers danced like professional dancers (in fact, I'd bet that they are as much IRL first, and actors second, aside from Antonio Sexypants Banderas *swoon*).
And then there was the tango. That's the threesome Mason mentioned, and it was fantastic. I always pop massive wood over a good tango scene, and so this movie joins the esteemed ranks of Scent of a Woman and Moulin Rouge. Fuckin' aye. I won't spoil the details in case you'd like to see the movie, but they pulled some shenanigans with the Tango scene, but in a way that was perfect in context, and did great just to the *ahem* passion of dancing the tango.
"It's like sex on hardwood."
It was a fun movie, and a definite must for anyone who likes dancing as well.
My sister had similar conclusions (albeit more family-friendly): Good dancing, decent movie, ditto on the Sexypants Banderas. Wouldn't be at all surprised if the professional dancers were IRL, as that's pretty common in ballet movies too.
I should also highlight the fact that this movie had the most craptacular selection of trailers I've seen in a long, long time. What the Hell were the theatre people thinking with those upcoming flicks?
Lemming: Stand and Deliver is on my long list of movies I should already have seen. Banderas is a good actor, but why are you obsessed with him? Is there something you want to tell us? I've seen Moulin Rouge and enjoyed it greatly (I think I've made a couple references to it before either on this blog or when commenting on Gazebo's blog, or perhaps both). I never actually saw Scent of a Woman. That's also on the list.
Lanth: This blog isn't meant to be family friendly. (I'm not family friendly, and Lemming sure as Hell isn't!) Rather, I think it should probably be rated QMA-17. (QMA stands for quantum Merlin-Arthur.)
Pardon my choice of phrase here, but Banderas is on the short list of actors. (edited to... well, you know)
Here's the thing--is acting isn't really limited to a particular character archetype. He has genuine talent, not a gimmick or a style that happens to be useful in a lot of movies. Add in the fact that he's also a good singer, dancer, and guitar player. I actually want to watch Spy Kids at some point, largely because I heard somewhere along the line that he really enjoyed working on it.
Another on my "oh-so-dreamy" short list: Ewan McGregor. Singing bohemian, washed-up heroin addict, and fucking jedi master, all without a hitch.
There are plenty of actresses who belong on the short-list, but I think I don't always notice because I spend more time thinking about their other assets. Mmmm, assets.
Oops, the "pardon my choice of phrase" makes absolutely no sense after my little edit. Nevermind. ^^
I'm not sure if I've ever come up with a short list of actors.
I agree Banderas is talented---definitely no argument there---but I'm not one of his groupies. :)
I'm cool with the language. The Revolution doesn't require family friendliness, and neither do I. :)
It would be an interesting post to come up with a short list of actors and actresses and discuss things from there. I'll definitely need to do this at some point, but first I need to think about it some more.
Post a Comment