Something I Like.

There's a very specific type of dancing that always makes me laugh AND always makes me jealous. Sure, I can dance, but I can't dance like this. Well, it's a long break. I'll have some time to practice.

Seriously

I'm really just trying to get that Halloween video off the page. Seriously. It won't stop. I've been listening to this song on repeat for the last couple days, and I found this nice video of Mike Long dancing to it. How nice! If you're not familiar with Mike Long (Dipsetmuthafucka) then check him out, but let's get real. It's 2010. Everyone knows about this.

This MUST be the Place! from Mike Long on Vimeo.

This blog post had to happen.

Netflix's recommendations are a mixed bag. Sometimes they recommend categories that are so right ("Romantic Comedies Starring Goldie Hawn" is specific, but very sculpted to my personal interests!), and sometimes they just do not get me. I mean, no, the fact that I like The Devil and Daniel Johnston does not mean that I will watch a documentary on Anorexia. And I definitely don't want to see Did You Hear About the Morgans. But recently, for the first time, Netflix recommended a movie I'd never even heard of but knew I would love. This trailer pretty much describes the plot, whether or not you should see it, and how necessary the movie is.

After I watched this, I had no choice but to make it number one on my queue. I mean, if Ice-T says I must see it, who am I to disagree? I don't know if this movie had to happen...it certainly wasn't well made, and doesn't seem to be particularly passionate. I'm so glad I saw it, though. For one thing, the rapping was terrible. It's all very "Rippity rap rap rap raptastic!" Also, the lead actor is Mario Van Peebles, who is in charge of having the least raptastic name ever as well as not doing any actual rapping, because he was overdubbed by Ice-T (according to IMDB). Ice-T is uncredited in the film and only shows up for one transplendent scene, wherein he prances about stage like a young Mick Jagger. The song "Snack Attack," which I can't find anywhere, makes the movie worth it. I don't want to ruin anything for you, but I'll just say this: someone stuffs their face with cake while everyone raps in some sort of food distribution warehouse.
This doesn't exactly fall under our Dance Movie project (because, after all, it isn't called Dancin'), but it kind of does because there was a significant amount of dancing in this movie. Worth watching!

Go Kendra, Go Kendra, Go Kendra

By now, everyone knows Kendra Wilkinson has a sex tape. Unless you don't know who Kendra Wilkinson is because you don't have a mother who occasionally fell asleep to episodes of The Girls Next Door. That show was kind of hypnotizing, right? The girls' lives were whitewashed into some semblance of normalcy, making it really easy to forget that they were all living in that mansion in exchange for having sex with the same decrepit old man. Yet they looked like they were having fun! Kendra especially. So, sure, she has a sex tape out now, but you can find some way more interesting videos on Youtube. Like this one, which raises so many questions. Like, what is the intended audience for this video? It's not sexy or naked enough to compete with the wealth of porn on the internet. And it's not really informative enough to qualify as an instructional dance video. And WHY that song??

"Okay, that's it, I'm gonna show you some martial arts next!" -Kendra
Just for good measure:

Dancing!

This was on Julie Klausner's blog and I knew Alex would like it. No explanation would do it justice, so go ahead and watch it.

If you don't want to watch the whole thing, just start at 2:37.

Dance Movies v. Movies With Dancing

A long time ago, during some summer when I was home from college, Alex and I started one of those massive projects we enjoy so much. We planned to watch all the dance movies from the 80s, and we wrote up this all-encompassing rating system to definitively figure out what was the BEST 80s dance movies. We wrote it in this spiral bound notebook that has, I think, been lost to time, but I do remember two categories: Butt Shots and Visible Nipples Through Clothes. After we watched and rated Fame, we kind of lost interest in scoring things, but our project lives on. We still watch dance movies every chance we get. When we watched Road House over his spring break, Alex mentioned that he couldn't believe he'd never watched Dirty Dancing, since it involved Patrick Swayze AND dancing. But is Dirty Dancing really a Dance Movie...or is it just a movie about dancing? And what's the difference? Really, there's no better way for me to explain this than by comparing a classic movie with its "sequel."
Saturday Night Fever seems to be remembered as nothing but dancing and tight pants. It's such a relic of an era that its impossible to separate the movie from disco. But, really, that movie doesn't need dancing, at all. Dancing is Tony Manero's escape from a life that is somehow both mundane and violent. The movie deals with family pressure, class, religion, sexy pizza eating, rape, suicide, and that's just a quick summary. I found the movie to be incredibly dark and depressing. Tony Manero doesn't necessarily find "success" in the end, as it is traditionally defined in a Dance Movie; that is to say, he doesn't find happiness through winning a dance competition or score a Broadway role or showing his parents Who He Is on the Inside. And then there's THIS exchange:
Tony: "Are you a nice girl or are you a cunt?"
Annette: "Can't I be both?"
Tony: "No. It's a decision a girl's gotta make early in life, if she's gonna be a nice girl or a cunt."
Here's the trailer, which reminded me that Fran Drescher is in the movie! Love her. I think this trailer pretty accurately portrays the movie's tone:

In contrast, SNF's "sequel" was Staying Alive, which could only say in the opening credits that it was inspired by characters from the original. That's a pretty good way of putting it. There isn't really a plot to this movie, just scenes and dialogue that enable more dancing. Staying Alive is about how Tony wants to be a successful dancer and then he is. The end. Finola Hughes is this sexy dance star that Tony thinks he wants, but then it turns out she is a huge bitch. Luckily for Tony (and the viewer), he is ultimately the superior dancer, as we see in this final dance scene. This is, honestly, one of my favorite scenes in all of cinema and I can't even count the number of times I've seen it. Sometimes at work this song gets stuck in my head and then I have to do AR with a chorus of "Fire fire fire!" in my head.

So, in summary, Staying Alive is a Dance Movie. Saturday Night Fever is a movie with dancing. The easiest way to tell is that Dance Movies almost always have a choreographed group dance. Also, montages.

Freaks and Geeks!

You may or may not have known this, but I love Freaks and Geeks. I had it on DVD, and then I didn't have it on DVD anymore. Somehow, someway, I'd lost it, a fact that came to light at a remarkably inconvenient time (20 minutes before going to a Freaks and Geeks viewing party). For about two years I drove myself crazy looking for it, but after going through two moves and packing/repacking all of my material possessions, I had to face facts. It wasn't just misplaced, it was gone. Alex swore that his friends didn't have it, and I knew that none of my friends had it. H. and I were convinced that a certain friend of his had stolen it.
And then, this weekend, it came back into my life.
It turns out one of Lexie's friends had it! Unbeknownst to me, Alex spent the past few months trying to get it back. Apparently getting someone to return a DVD is akin to hostage negotiations. You can't just barge in there and make demands, you've got to smooth talk 'em. Or so I assume. Either way! Let's not dwell on the anger or bitterness. Instead, let's celebrate.
Here's a clip of Bill Haverchuck dancing. Incidentally, this is exactly how I dance. Come on, shake it! You won't break it!

Martin Starr is such a good actor, it blows my mind away. He is truly a mindfreak. How can he act like he does in Adventureland and act like this here? So good! Anyway, if you like Freaks and Geeks (you do, right? If not, who are you and why are you reading our blog?), do yourself a favor and read Paul Feig's Superstud. You'll be pleased and horrified to discover that Freaks and Geeks was almost entirely based on his real life.

More 500 Days of Summer

500 Days of Summer has one of those trailers.

By that I mean that it involves some fast-paced dancing, a song that sounds vaguely like "Where the Streets Have No Name," and a lot of running. Running in a trailer will always sell me on a movie, but even without that I would have still wanted to see this. Ever since this teaser trailer came out in January, I've thought about movie nearly every single day. It seemed like July was never going to come.
So I guess it's inevitable that I was going to be a little disappointed. But overall I loved it. 500 Days of Summer reminded me of why movies are sometimes just better than books. On paper, this would have been one boring story. But it worked on film, mostly because of all the things that Lexie already mentioned. He spent very little space talking about the clothing, though! The clothing was marvelous! I am currently on the hunt for a sweater vest for H.
Two things: Roger Ebert's review was right on the mark, as per usual.
He liked it. Also, he was a total sassy bitch about the punctuation in the title. I love it!
Secondly, this person is an asshole. Seriously. I don't want to be one of those people who claims that anybody who doesn't like what they like just doesn't "get it." But this person really obviously didn't "get" the dance sequence, and there isn't even all that much to get. Also, they dared to insult the parade sequence in Ferris Bueller? Barf.

Car Alarm Dance

It's not Chase dancing to Coldplay, but it'll do.