Dirty Dancing
Original post date: 5 June 1987
Rating: ✭✭✰✰
Have you ever wondered how it came to be that people stopped dancing the fox trot and started dancing the way people do now (without touching each other)? Well, it all happened one night in 1963 at a resort in the Catskills (run by Jack Weston, who is really starting to look old). Of course, this was before we lost our innocence, which means before JFK was assassinated and (according to this movie) before the Beatles became popular. As a disclaimer, 1et me say I was not disposed to like this movie because it was a last-minute substitution for a movie I really wanted to see by one of my favorite directors, Ettore Scola. Anyway, Dirty Dancing suffers from Flashdance-itis. The music and dancing are fun, but it’s too bad they tried to weave some kind of story in between. They also have trouble keeping the music and dancing in 1963; the 1980s keep creeping in. The young lady coming of age here (everyone calls her Baby) is played by Jennifer Grey, who looked familiar to me. She can give one of those looks that can pierce several layers of the earth’s crust and kill someone in China. I was trying to remember where I had seen that look before and halfway through the movie it hit me: She was Matthew Broderick’s bitchy sister in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. She may be a pretty good actress if she ever gets a real role in a real movie. Anyway, this movie would have you believe that Baby and her low-life summer vacation boyfriend (whom Daddy doesn’t like), played by Patrick Swayzie of The Outsiders and Red Dawn, not only started modern rock dancing but they also may have inspired the Civil Rights movement. At one point, a disgusting little would-be stud says to Baby, “I’m sorry you had to see that, Baby.” He could have been talking about this flick.
Rating: ✭✭✰✰
Have you ever wondered how it came to be that people stopped dancing the fox trot and started dancing the way people do now (without touching each other)? Well, it all happened one night in 1963 at a resort in the Catskills (run by Jack Weston, who is really starting to look old). Of course, this was before we lost our innocence, which means before JFK was assassinated and (according to this movie) before the Beatles became popular. As a disclaimer, 1et me say I was not disposed to like this movie because it was a last-minute substitution for a movie I really wanted to see by one of my favorite directors, Ettore Scola. Anyway, Dirty Dancing suffers from Flashdance-itis. The music and dancing are fun, but it’s too bad they tried to weave some kind of story in between. They also have trouble keeping the music and dancing in 1963; the 1980s keep creeping in. The young lady coming of age here (everyone calls her Baby) is played by Jennifer Grey, who looked familiar to me. She can give one of those looks that can pierce several layers of the earth’s crust and kill someone in China. I was trying to remember where I had seen that look before and halfway through the movie it hit me: She was Matthew Broderick’s bitchy sister in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. She may be a pretty good actress if she ever gets a real role in a real movie. Anyway, this movie would have you believe that Baby and her low-life summer vacation boyfriend (whom Daddy doesn’t like), played by Patrick Swayzie of The Outsiders and Red Dawn, not only started modern rock dancing but they also may have inspired the Civil Rights movement. At one point, a disgusting little would-be stud says to Baby, “I’m sorry you had to see that, Baby.” He could have been talking about this flick.
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