No Jazz Hands Necessary

I love the movies, most of the time.   They capture the imagination, can make us happy, sad, or  even mad.  Some are just lame and some are awesomely lame.  For instance, Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes.  Horribly bad, but in a way you just can’t turn it off.  There is one movie out of all of them that make you want to be in them. This my friends is, the dance movie.

I have a few in mind I would like to share as they have given me oodles of joy and kick ass dance moves.  Get your whistles ready.

The Forbidden Dance

This was when everyone wanted to Lambada and grind their No-No’s on the dance floor.  After a lawsuit this movie was forced to change it’s title to, The Forbidden Dance.  But, the joke is on the other Lamba movie, as this is the superior Lambada movie.

We have a Brazilian princess who comes to the U S of A to take on big evil business.  They are chopping down all the trees leaving less area to perform their forbidden dances and all.  She’s not going to take this shit and they will pay for their evil do’erness.

She may be a princess back home but here she’s a maid and finds herself wanting to do her forbidden dancing all over her employer’s son.  His friends are not down with her destitution and they break up, but make up in time to win a Lambada-off.  Oh, and there’s a knife fight.  She (lady from Dirty Dancing) will cut you.  Squeeple, I give to you on this day, The Forbidden Dance.  Send the kids out of the room.

Salsa

Once upon a time there was a band named Menudo.  Oh, America loves Menudo which begot Ricky Martin, but there was another son of Menudo and he was named, Robby Rosa.  And he was in a film that was two fistfuls of wonderful.  Salsa it was named and it was good.

We totally loved this movie and watched it for a year.  I even admit to having the soundtrack on cassette.  Rico is a Salsa rebel and refuses to do just the same old dance moves.  He does his street Salsa and beds many ladies as his moves are jalapeno hot.  The ladies just can’t keep their hands off his jalapeno (pronounce that chalapeno please) and his girlfriend dumps him.  His best friend is Ken who’s jalapeno is hot for his sister, Margarita, but Rico does not approve of Ken and Rita rubbing chalupas, so there are fights.  And everyone is maaaaad at Rico.  They just don’t understand him.  He doesn’t want to be a mechanic and his only chance is to win the Salsa Competition.  In the end, he wins and lessons are learned by all.  Rico approves of letting Ken’s jalapeno near his sister.  Now I’m hungry for chicken and rice with jalapenos. Here is my favorite scene from Salsa and the competition finale.

Margarita.  I wanted to change my name to Margarita, but my mother wouldn’t let me.  Check out the fancy bums.

The competition featuring the song of my people.  Not really, but I like it.

You knew it was coming and what would any dance movie list be without it?  What a feeling!

Flashdance

What is there to say about the finest of all movies about welders/exotic dancers?  Alex just wants to dance and she wants to go to dance school.  But she has to get in and they don’t want her type. Those shi shi bourgeois ho’s think they are so better than her.  Thanks to her employer/lover she will get the chance to dance for her life.  To dance like she’s never danced before.  Here’s a super cool montage so everyone give me some air punches.  I am a lover of the montage.  And I can’t hate on Jennifer for still looking this awesome because this movie gave us the ripped off the shoulder sweatshirt.  You know you’re going to rent this after watching.

Ummmm, hellooooo, Kevin Bacon calling and he wants to know if you’ve ever been busted for bopping?

Footloose

Ren and his mother have to move in with family, but all is not well.  He’s brought his dancing ways into the undancingest town.  What’s a boy to do but dance angry in the barn?  He’s going to get his dance on, that’s what he’s going to do and sleep with the town reverend’s daughter.  Of course, they are going to remake this movie of wonderment with Chase Crawford as Ren. Nobody putd Bacon in the corner, nobody.  Fun fact for you all.  This movie was made in Utah.  I remember driving past that area a few times and it doesn’t look all that different.  The remake will be made in Utah as well.  Oh my heck.

It’s montage time!

Speaking of Sarah Jessica Parker;

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

She may be Carrie Bradshaw now, but before that she made me want to be on a dance show.  This movie had a slew of soon-to-be-famous and one person soon-to-be a raging jerk neck.  Janey wants to dance and be on TV, but her dads so mean because he’s in the military so she needs to keep her ass at home.  Luckily her new bff shows her the ways of sneaking out and she gets to audition for Dance TV.

She gets to be partners with super dreamy Drew, but rich girl wants him too.  Janey is not having any of this foolishness and gets her man.  With the help of Shannen Dougherty, Helen Hunt, and Jonathon Silverman. Too bad her dad catches her and shows up to drag her butt back home.  At having seen his little girl dancing he can’t help but let her follow her dance dreams on TV. …Or till the show was canceled.

Stop, trailer time.

Tell me about it, stud!

Grease

Someone get me some hot pants and heels, STAT!  There is nothing to say other than this movie is still the shit.  And at the time John Travolta was too.  If you don’t know the plot then you should be flogged.  I learned all the best cuss words from Greased Lightning and I learned if you want to get the man you better be able to rock some hot pants and take up smoking.

You’re The One That I Want

Watch the hair. I worked on it a long time.

Saturday Night Fever

I have no idea why my parents took me to see this movie, but it is 100% greatness.  Even his name in the movie is bad ass, Tony Monero.  I can’t even write this without mentally using a Brooklyn accent. You just know from the opening scene where he’s walking this guy is sex in platform shoes.  Nobody rocked the polyester like John Travolta.  Let’s just say Tony is cute, but not so bright.  Whenever he’s on the dance floor he makes you scream his name without even touching you.  He’s that good.  He hangs with a bunch of knuckleheads, but he longs for more out of life.

Eventually, he finds a partner worthy of his dance skills and they partner up to win the dance competition.  Initially, she rebuffs his advances because she’s going to move to Manhattan and nobody’s gonna break her stride.  Eventually Tony becomes disillusioned with his life and friends and gets his wish.  I loved this soundtrack then and I love it now.  I don’t care what anybody says about the Bee Gee’s.  That’s some good music right there!  We owned the 8-track. If you don’t know what that is then your lucky because they always ate your frigging tapes.  Talking about the Bee Gee’s makes me want to share this; Justin Timberlake seems sort of toolish, but he does a mean Robin Gibb.

http://www.hulu.com/watch/72438/saturday-night-live-barry-gibb-talk-show?c=Comedy#s-p1-st-i1

Here’s that sweet walking opening scene and some disco dancing courtesy of Tony Monery:

I’m like Oprah bringing you my favorite things. Except my favorite things don’t cost much other than your time and the use of your eyeballs.  Share with me your dance inspirations and I hope you enjoyed mine!

Tags: Footloose, Girls Just Want To Have Fun, Grease, Lambada, Salsa, Saturday Night Fever

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 22nd, 2009 at 2:30 PM and is filed under Culture Critic, Juju Bitches, Movie Marquis, Politiks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.