Monday Morning Movie Review

Saturday I went to see Take the Lead. What I knew about it going in was that it contained ballroom dancing and Antonio Banderas. I figured that was a no-lose situation. Tim was hanging out with the other guys in our Sunday school class at our house, so I thought it might behoove me to absent myself from the general area. Turned out that two other ladies from the class were also interested in the movie (and actually apparently one of the guys was disappointed that we were going cause he was interested too) so we made an evening of it.

Overall, I'd give it a good solid 3 stars out of 4. My only complaint was that there wasn't enough actual dancing. And, well, that's a really small thing, all things considered. That said, this was pretty much a combination of my two favorite kinds of non-SciFi/Action/Adventure/ Literature-based Period Piece movies.

1) Teacher overcomes all odds to win over recalcitrant teens and help them better themselves with heart as his/her only tool (a la Stand and Deliver, etc.) (and based on a true story, which I always think is cool)

and

2) Movies that revolve primarily around dancing (a la Save the Last Dance, etc.)

The focus of the story was much more on the first part, which actually was cool since the majority of the dancing that they decided they did want to show is the kind of "dancing" that kids today do, which to me means it really needs quotation marks around it. Cause it's more just bumping and grinding and shaking your butt as fast as you can as close to someone else as you can. Basically it's about as graceful as an earthquake and about as appealing as stale vomit. I don't really understand how we, as a culture, have come to think that any kind of mystery, romance or seduction is pointless and we should just "put it out there". Bleh. So, mercifully, those dance scenes were kept to a minimum as well. (I will say it was telling and amusing to see the students' reactions to Pierre (played by Antonio) bringing in one of his ballroom students to show them the tango. The air is practically crackling, yet basically there has been no physical contact and certainly no overt sexuality - especially in contrast to the type of "dancing" the kids enjoy - and yet the kids recognize that this is provacative. Though of course, at the end, it degenerates back into a mixture of bump-and-grind with ballroom.

Anyway, I enjoyed it. I probably wouldn't have shelled out $9 for it if I hadn't felt like I should go find something to do so as not to "horn in" on guys night. The company was good, the popcorn was tasty, and well, like I said at the beginning, dancing and Antonio - where's the loss? Definitely worth renting or pay-per-viewing if that kind of movie is your thing.