Warning: this column contains an unusually high amount of both swearing and thrusting.
Remember that scene in
Dazed and Confused where Adam Goldberg and Marissa Ribisi and some dude who looks kind of like Anthony Michael Hall but isn’t are driving along in a car and listening to
Low Rider and then Adam Goldberg tells the others he no longer wants to be a lawyer and they ask him what he wants to do instead and he says “I WANNA DANCE”?
No? Well, here’s a really poor quality clip of it to jog your memory:
I totally feel Adam Goldberg in this scene. Not only is he a neurotic Jew with questionable hair who can’t handle marijuana, he is a neurotic Jew with questionable hair who just wants to show the world his hips don’t lie - as was I, once upon a time. I’m still a neurotic Jew with questionable hair, but my childhood dreams of dancing back up for Janet Jackson are long since dead. I danced from the age of three, but unfortunately by the tender age of 11 I had D-cup boobs and the hips of a middle-aged Latina woman – and there ain’t no prima ballerina who ever looked like that.
Since then I have lived out my passion for rhythmic movement with the occasional dance class and an obsession with movies from the much-ridiculed “dance” genre. You know the ones, they generally feature plots along the lines of small-town girl/boy with a troubled past/dead mum moves to the big smoke and dances/strips his/her way to the top/into our hearts/into bed with the film’s resident beauhunk/cheerleader. And they always, ALWAYS, have some sort of moralistic message behind them about tolerance or abstinence or hotpants.
I would now like to share with you some of the greatest moments from some of the greatest dance movies of all time. For the purposes of narrowing down what is an extensive range of options I have included movies only from the past half-century, and discounted movies of the “musical” genre. The following are mostly the final scenes of each movie wherein the protagonist/s stick it to their parents/school/company/the man in a thrilling crescendo of dancing gold. Enjoy!
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10. Flashdance
It’s the movie that inspired every young dancer on the planet to wear off the shoulder sweatshirts and dance around construction sites. And it’s one of my all time faves. You should probably know that I once went to a Hollywood-themed work Christmas party as a welder in homage to Alex Owen’s (the unfathomably hot Jennifer Beals) day job in
Flashdance. You should probably also know that during said party I broke my toe because it is really hard to see out of a welder’s mask when drunk.
FUCK YEAH WHAT A FEELING!
9. Dirty Dancing
Do I really have to explain
Dirty Dancing to you? It’s
DIRTY DANCING! It’s Patrick Swayze! It’s Jennifer Grey! It’s Jerry Orbach! It’s Johnny! It’s Baby! It’s THE LIFT! It’s carrying a watermelon! It’s the movie that taught me how to dance on a log and steal wallets from rich old men while their wives are sexing country club waiters and dance instructors (both extremely valuable life lessons). FUCK YEAH NOBODY PUTS BABY IN A CORNER!
Embedding is disabled, watch the clip here.
8. Step Up – 1, 2, 3
The
Step Up trilogy is like a guy you keep sleeping with because even though he’s cheesy and too young for you and terribly written, he has some of the best dance moves you’ve ever seen/is really good in bed. FUCK YEAH METAPHORS!
Also, FUCK YEAH RAIN DANCE!
7. Strictly Ballroom
Strictly Ballroom is pretty much a perfect movie. It’s funny, moving, beautifully shot and contains some of the best performances the Australian film industry has ever produced. It remains my favourite Baz ‘WTF
Australia” Luhrmann film to date and is, let’s be honest, too good for this list. FUCK YEAH FRAN!
6. Centre Stage
There’s really no denying it,
Centre Stage is a terrible film. The script is atrocious, the acting is worse, and it contains two of the douchiest male leads since
Dude, Where’s My Car? And yet I watch it on average at least once a month. In fact I’m going to watch it tonight. FUCK YEAH MAY CONTAIN JAMIROQUAI!
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