At The Movies

I’ve had a little more time for movie viewing this week, so did get to watch both Outfoxed and Rififi from my Blockbuster* queue. I suppose Netflix* is better known, but I got a special introductory offer to Blockbuster Online, and went with them. One thing I like about them is that in addition to the mailed DVDs, I also get two free store rentals a month, which is nice if you suddenly get an impulse to watch something now.

For our local news, we watch the Fox affiliate, mainly out of habit and because it is on at 10 and we are all really tired by 11. It used to be that KPTV 12 was the UPN affiliate and the Fox affiliate was KPDX 13 (49 on UHF), but they switched a few years back. Since that time, the amount of technical difficulties, spelling errors, and other issues has gone up, plus there is just way too much coverage of American Idol. We tended to blame the decline in quality on the departure of John Sears, who is a nice man and a good news director. KPDX denied an increase in errors when asked. The American Idol coverage is, of course, just blatant pimping of their own product, and every channel does that. The Channel 8 (NBC affiliate) has had behind the scenes stories on ER and so on. It just seems to be worse with Fox.

Anyway, Fox news seems to leave you knowing less about world affairs, much less than people who get their news from public broadcasting. I guess I am not really surprised. I mean, it might not even be that viewers get less informed by watching Fox; Fox might attract the less informed to start with.

I doubt it has much of an affect on what we watch, because the local news is more about local shootings and fires and conflicts between the police and City Hall, plus their weekly exposes of restaurants that do poorly with health inspections and investigations of men trolling for slutty teenage girls over the internet. Therefore, the extreme and unrepentant political bias that you get on their nationwide news or “news” shows (Hannity and Colmes, The O’Reilly Factor, etc.,) are probably not an issue for my family, at least not to a large extent. Still, going over the issues that have already been mentioned, it’s hard to feel like they are a good time investment. So, I won’t be watching any TV news for a while. I don’t want to risk any dumbening (that’s a Simpson’s reference, a Fox product of which I approve).

I also saw a theater movie this week, Take the Lead. Last week I gave Mad Hot Ballroom the victory over Spellbound for documentaries. I also give Mad Hot Ballroom the victory over Take the Lead, which is basically its dramatic version.

Naturally, there were plot contrivances and shortcuts, but one expects this in a dance movie. You put up with it to get to the dancing. I don’t think these plot contrivances were so bad that needed to take me out of the film. We had kids in permanent detention who did not have the personality or study habits of kids that you would expect in permanent detention, but I can live with that. You had a ridiculously prejudiced math teacher, protesting the resources wasted on these loser kids. That one doesn’t make sense because he refused to take time to cover detention himself, so when an unpaid volunteer starts covering detention, that should be a relief. However, maybe they knew people were going to think, Oh, it’s a cross between Mad Hot Ballroom and Stand and Deliver, so to differentiate they made the math teacher an uncaring jerk. Finally, they had the climactic dance contest, Caitlin’s cotillion, and Rock’s illegal job all happen on the same night. Well, that’s just a film staple. You’ve got to let those kinds of coincidences happen.

In addition, the movie had some good things going for it. I thought the acting was okay, especially the kids. (Make that the actors portraying kids. The guy who played Ramos is in his thirties.) I liked that they did not show the new kids automatically winning every prize (and that the three-way tango was scored appropriately). In fact, you only see the disposition of one prize, and that is fine because winning is not the point— being able to compete and hold their own is the point.

Nope, the problem is the dancing. It just wasn’t magical enough. In fact, the three-way tango was kind of tacky. Yes, tango is very sexual, but it is also elegant and generally classy. Usually, when I come out of a dance movie there is an extra spring in my step, thinking of the moves, and I have a deep need to buy the soundtrack. I’m not buying the soundtrack.

(Also, the poster totally has the wrong look and feel, including the tagline. Never follow? They have a part where they talk about following. It does not work for this movie.)

I have season tickets to the opera, because I know that even at its worst I will usually get something out of it. I will sometimes get tickets for a particular ballet or other dance season, but generally I just pick and choose performances. The reason for this is that although when dance is good, it moves me more than anything else, when it is bad it is a really big disappointment, and often vulgar.

So Take the Lead was not awful, but it was disappointing. I wasn’t expecting it to be another Strictly Ballroom, or even Dirty Dancing, but I was hoping it could at least be in the realm of Dance with Me (Cheyenne and Vanessa Williams), which would not be considered a great movie, but it was exhilarating to watch the dancing and then I bought the soundtrack. For live dance, Trey McIntyre is a talented choreographer, but he also finds some amazing music that you may never have heard before but you are glad that he found it.

I guess my point is that there is better stuff out there, but you wouldn’t know it from walking around the theater. Movie posters have shown me that upcoming films include a third Fast and the Furious movie, a remake of The Omen, a remake of My Friend Flicka (which might not even suck, but how dry is the idea well now?), and, of utmost concern, Little Man, a Wayans brothers’ flick where “A wannabe dad (Shawn Wayans) mistakes a vertically challenged criminal on the lam (Marlon Wayans) as his newly adopted son.” Okay, White Chicks was better than I expected it to be, and this might end up being better also, but if you saw the poster you would not have high hopes.

Oh well, theaters are really expensive anyway. I’m just hoping that the Grand Lodge will get in King Kong. I have not seen it yet, I think a big screen would be beneficial, but it’s pretty much second-run now, the Valley has already had it, and Grand Lodge is the only McMenamin’s that is really accessible for me. Keep your fingers crossed for me.