Media Dirty Dancing Redux
posted by on May 3 at 11:35 AM
Most ’80s teen film faves don’t hold up upon returning to them as an adult (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, I’m looking at you). So imagine the collective surprise of myself and six friends when we attended the 20th anniversary screening of Dirty Dancing last night at Pacific Place 11 and totally fell for it all over again.
I spent the walk downtown pondering how it came to be that a film about a 1960s Catskills resort and its concurrent libido-enhancing shenanigans should be like an anthem for children of the ’80s. After re-watching the movie I have some ideas, which I’ll get to below.
But it must be said that Jennifer Grey is terrific as the coming-into-high-heeled-womanhood Baby and Patrick Swayze as pompadoured Johnny is, well, Patrick Swayze. Kudos to his abs and his vague Deep-South/New Yawk accent. Their characters are surprisingly three-dimensional, their relationship surprisingly plausable, its development surprsingly natural.
The supporting cast plays their parts with just enough subtle knowingness of the film’s cheeseball quotient that a mellow humor runs throughout. The script is also rather subtle, despite the requisite montage scene, and even lands well-placed jabs at Vietnam-era politicking and Ayn Rand’s bootstrap-pulling theory of objectivism. It harkens back to a simpler time, but it does so with a fair degree of realism and intelligence. It tells a familiar story, but it does so within an original, highly evocative context.
And of course, Dirty Dancing offers a couple classic, unforgettable scenes: Baby first encountering the off-duty resort staff grinding to the Contours’ “Do You Love Me”; Baby and Johnny on crawling on all fours to Micky & Sylvia’s “Love is Strange” (“Sylvia? How do you call your loverboy?”); and of course “the lift” during the grand finale at the end.
I’m not into musicals, but I am into music; Dirty Dancing’s endurance can be boiled down to a couple interesting factors.
First, there's its summer camp appeal. Anybody that spent an adolescent summer falling asleep to the sound of crickets, wondering what the girls were doing in their cabins at that very moment, can relate. There's a small bit of dialog at the end that hints at that wistfulness, where Wassisname the owner of the resort says to Token Black Guy the bandleader: "It feels like it's all about to end. Kids used to want to come on vacation with their parents, learn the foxtrot. European vacations, that's what they want now." Dirty Dancing captures a certain sense of ephemera--the passing of summer, the passing of youth. And since it's captured, we want to hold onto it, knowing it can't be contained. You want to dwell in that moment in your own life, for at least the two hours that the movie lasts.
There's also its soundtrack--the aforementioned songs, plus "Be My Baby" by the Ronettes and perhaps the most romantic song of all time, "In the Still of the Night" by the Five Satins. Even as a 12-year-old-kid I recognized the swoon-inducing power that tune has. Classics will always be classic.
And there's the dancing, which, at its best, is impeccably cool. I suppose hardened man's man types might not get down with it, but hell, they're missing the point. Working a woman's body over like that--nose to chest, leg to shoulder, hip to hip--is the best form of foreplay there is.
I start Lindy Hop lessons at the Century Ballroom on the 16th.
Oh man... I'm pulling out the VHS player when I get home and dusting off the tape. I love movies that stay good.
Jerry Orbach was awesome as the dad prior to his Law & Order notoriety.
And by the way, nobody puts baby in a corner.
also appropriately sleazy was a pre-seinfeld/newman wayne wright as the resorts in-house comedian MC.
Dancing is so damn erotic. I wonder if the reason so many men refuse to do it is because they're afraid to blatantly fail at it?
Here's a hint, guys: even trying is sexy. Like, I want to have sex with you sexy.
@ 4
exelizabeth; I can tell you without a doubt that the reason most men don't dance is for fear of being no good at it. It's generally assumed that if you're not going to look like Swayze, it's not worth it.
Thanks for this perfect review. Hooray!
I think we should once again mention Patrick Swayze's incredible appeal here. I just love that guy. I know TV is trying to shove the notion that a beer gut defines masculinity, but I say it's actually having perfect control over one's one body. That guy's got it and makes it look so easy.
Wow, so people actually, unironically, love this movie? I had no idea.
And I re-watched Ferris Bueller's Day Off recently, and it totally holds up. Fie, I say!
Even tho' this movie falls into my category of "period films where the hair does match the decade" (read: the Swayz's wisconsin waterfall), I do mark this as one of the films me and my mom shared in the theater one rainy afternoon and could agree on in the 80's.
Ferris Bueller's Day Off blows Dirty Dancing out of the fucking water. In fact, it's a toss up between Bueller and Say Anything for the best 80's schlock. It's the Breakfast Club that sucks ass. Get your shit straight.
WTF! Nobody puts Ferris in a corner!
Ferris Beuller's Day Off totally holds up. I can still sit and watch that movie and enjoy every second...particularlly those seconds involving Sloan Peterson. mmmmmmm.
"It is his fault he didn't lock the garage."
classic!
Thank you, guys. I was starting to feel I'd lost my mind or entered some kind of 80s-movie-bizarro-world.
Now, now, everyone. All of these movies are equally wonderful. Even though some of them are, upon a recent viewing, horribly racist or homophobic, they're still monuments to their time.
And I still love the dialogue of Ferris Beuller's Day Off. And the fact that the water tower says "Save Ferris".
And Jonathan only commented on the guy's impression of this movie (I honestly haven't known many guys to go beyond joking about not putting baby in a corner). I was 14 when this movie came out. Fourteen, and a dancer. I was so damn desperate to find some guy who would dance with me like that. It was a far superior campy "movie about dancing" compared to say, Flashdance, for all the reasons Jonathan mentions (nostalgia, summer camp titillation, the actual believability of the characters, um Patrick f'ing Swayze) and because I totally related to Baby. That damn unfailing optimism, like you could really stand up to all the weird social and familial forces pushing on you from all directions at such a ridiculously vulnerable age. Oh sigh. I could watch this big slobbery piece of schlock over and over and never tire of it.
Give me a fucking break. Ferris is a classic while DD was pure 80s mediocrity.
Jonathan Zwickel, how old were you when these movies came out (1986-87)?
I don't know if I agree that the 1960s were a "simpler time." 1950s, on the other hand...
are you sure you people arent cruising on ferris beuler nostalgia? when was the last time you actually saw it? i wouldve said the same thing before i re-watched FBDO a couple years ago: of course its better than dirty dancing. but then i watched it again, and all of ferris beuler was so damn implausible that it took all the fun out of it. sure, there are a series of great scenes and memorable characters, and i love it for those. but thats all it is--the story is totally ridiculous.
yes, im dissecting '80s teen film fare here, which flouts the very laws that hold the universe together. but hell, its fun.
also, were these the only two movies jennifer grey was EVER in? where the hell is she now?
@14, i was 13 when both movies came out, pretty much the bottom end of the demographic each film aimed for.
@15, DD took place in 1963, before the '60 were really the '60s. thats another transition the movie highlights.
and ill repeat: anybody who holds dear to their opinions of either ferris beuler or dirty dancing without having recently seen them--your argument is moot.
I carried a watermelon.
#15: The opening narration of the movie mentions that the film takes place BEFORE Kennedy was assasinated. The pre-November 1963 Sixties are of course much different between the '68-'69 Sixties.
@9
Breakfast Club sucks ass!!! How can you say that? That movie perfectly captured the real teen angst/world view. The library was perfect place for a microsm of the teen world in the '80's (and I wager now).
"Breakfast Club sucks ass"
Oh, it is on!
I've recently seen both on TV and DD still blows.
Watched Pretty and Pink last week on the tube and I actually liked it better than when I saw it in the 80s. Go figure.
Probably been a few months since I've watched FBDO so it depends on how you define recent.
And Ferris Beuller's semi-implausability is exactly what makes it a fantastic film. Much of what happens (with the exception of the parade and maybe the Abe Frohman bit) is completely reasonable when isolated scene by scene. But put them together in a movie and wham!, you have a fun film that every kid wishes was his life. I did. Didn't matter how unlikely it was that everything could come together like that.
Oh, and not to mention that the premises of most films are completely implausible but some how people seem to get past that fact. Sometimes, seeing what we wish would happen instead of what we know would actually happen is what makes something worth watching.
As I said in my post, I just re-watched Bueller a couple months ago. Still rules.
Jennifer Gray got a nosejob and has done a whole lot of not much: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000426/
"(..., i'm looking at you)" is officially old and hack. please update your blog style guide, zwickel.
@23--huh. alright, i guess i have to watch beuller again then. the last time was in college and i was stoned to the gills, which youda thought would improve its standing, but did the opposite.
i just found a few current jennifer grey shots on the web. nosejob aside, shes aged really well.
http://www.weht.net/WEHT/Jennifer_Grey.html
I CAN'T BELIEVE I MISSED THAT! whaah!
Maybe the Egyptian could be convinced to run it as a midnight movie. . .
Heathers was the ultimate '80's teen movie!!
Gawd, what's your damage??
the movie is pretty awful....
the ReBar/Brown Derby production last year was pretty fucking awesome...
Fuck all these gay 80's movies. If you want to see an 80's comedy cult classic, rent Repo Man.
I loved DD when I was a kid and love it still today for all the reasons you say. FWIW, the husband bravely agreed to start tango lessons (I prefer swing, but since I already knew Lindy, I figured it would be more fun to learn something new together)...and yes, he did suck at first, but so did I...it's all about practice. It's damn fun when you finally get it right. :)
Good review Jonathan.
I cant say this film does anything for my nostalgia, but I loved this line of yours, "captures a certain sense of ephemera--the passing of summer, the passing of youth. And since it's captured, we want to hold onto it, knowing it can't be contained. "
The film that does for me is Beat Street from 81. As an aging B-boy from north Philly, that movie still chokes me up.
"Yo Bronx rockets are here, lets serve them!"
The outdoor cinema in my town runs Ferris Bueller's Day Off every year, and every year is an absolute delight. Shame on you, Mr. Zwickel.
Now, Soul Man, on the other hand, is one that should never be revisited.
Hello everyone, wanna be part of some kind of community, possible here? anyone here?
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