Dancing those Dirty Moves

Totally frustrated with the number of submissions I had to make in the next eight hours, I decided to go ahead and watch a movie. So I browsed through my sizeable collection of movies, not sure what I wanted to see. I think it had to be light and romantic and preferably not something I had seen before. Hence, came across Dirty Dancing.

When I started to see the movie, two things struck me very strongly. One, of course, was the dance in the movie. It is truly spectacular. I mean the chemistry between the the lead actors as well as the Professional dancers in the movie are scintillating to say the least. And the second thing is how hot is Patrick Swayze! I mean, that guy spends half the movie shirtless and his perfect body drives you to insanity.

So, getting back to the movie, the story could be straight out of a Bollywood masala picture from the 1990s. Rich girl falls in love with poor boy. Father does not approve (though its not about the poverty this time around, thank god, but rather because of a misunderstanding). As a sub-plot, there is of course the handsome cad who gets the girls into trouble with his loose ways. So anyway, after lots of drama, a few fighting scenes and, of course, lots of music and dance; the hero and the heroine get together. The father understands his mistake and apologises and the lead pair dances till the end credit rolls.

So what did I think worked for the movie? For sure the dancing. Not only is there great chemistry but the dancers are good too, specially Cynthia Rhodes and Jennifer Grey. And whatever you say about Patrick Swayze, is going to fall short. Such grace in a man usually comes across as effeminate. But not in this case. He looks good even while dancing immaculately to "Time of my Life"doing the Mambo. The simple storyline is also fun and uncluttered to watch. And finally, Jennifer Grey's innocence is appealing to people of all age groups and her coming of age act is entirely convincing.

What doesn't work? There's nothing new to the storyline. Its illogical at times and the movie gives you a sense of deja vu with the number of movies you may have seen in the same genre.

My verdict is all in all its a completely watchable movie, if nothing else then at least for its dances. At around one and a half hour, the movie also never drags. If you want to sit back and enjoy without thinking much, you could definitely try Dirty Dancing. Whether you like or not, this is one movie nobody can put in the corner.

Being an Armchair Film Lover

It was February 28th, 2005 early morning in India when Clint Eastwood lifted the coveted statuette for his exemplary direction of a great movie, Million Dollar Baby. I was in school of course when it happened in real time. But I did come back and catch the repeats that evening on Star Movies. I remember calling up Purna then to tell her how I will be holding it some day in my hands.

In college I was nominated as Drama Queen. Of course there are multiple reasons for it. I mean I did go down on my knees to say sorry in the middle of CP once to embarrass a friend of mine. And another time... Well never mind. I could go on. But the reason I brought it up now was to prove really how filmy I am. So ever since I knew I wanted to make films I have been writing down screenplay ideas in a notebook of mine. I mean, I also know which movie I want to start with and who will star in it (Keanu Reeves). It'll be a love story in the backdrop of terrorism. I had even imagined the camera placement for each shot. I had also started to write the novel from which I was to adopt the movie.

But like the say, man proposes and God disposes. I went on to graduate in Chemistry and am currently stuck in a business school. I soon realised making movies was not happening anytime soon. So, I decided to do the next best thing: watch movies.

I consider my knowledge of mainstream movies quite extensive. In fact, once my father commented how if I'd spent as much time with my books I'd be the next Einstein. But then, I wasn't interested in Physics. I was only interested in films. So much so, that I want to enroll in FTII in Pune. But then I got stopped at the doorstep when I was wait-listed for this prestigious institute.

Anyway, so finally I decided to be associated with films in the best way I can, be a viewer. So after watching thousands of movies, some of them dozens of times, I am all set to write what I think about some of them. Welcome to my blog: an ode to my biggest passion, FILMS.