Movie #11: Footloose

[asterroc]

Footloose (Wikipedia, IMDB), despite what it claims, is not a movie about dancing and rock'n'roll. It is a movie about country values vs. city values, and misguided religious intolerance. Don't get me wrong, there's lots of dancin' and half of the Billboard Top 10 hits from the 80's were written for this movie, however those things are a metaphor. The dancing and music serve as scapegoats for the town leaders, including the preacher, just as do the references to banning and burning books.

Plot is mostly cliche and insipid, and even the music failed to energize me this time, though I think that's more me today than the music itself. I do like 80's music, and I like knowing where it came from. Despite the music being actually written for the movie, it often felt out of place to me where it actually came in - that's the drawback to knowing the soundtrack of a movie before seeing it. For example, "I Need a Hero" is the music during a game of Chicken with tractors! WTH?!

Wikipedia doesn't say whether Kevin Bacon did most of his own dance scenes - there's an impressive one in a warehouse where he's railing against the restrictive culture of the small town, and simultaneously is torn about a girl he likes. I'd like to know if he did the whole thing (other than the stunts) or not.

My favorite part of the movie (of course, see icon) is when Kevin Bacon at a town meeting moves to strike a law from the books, and speaks to his motion by quoting from the Bible about dancing. Classic! :-P

Comments

[calzephyr77.livejournal.com]

Ooof. We had to watch that movie in Grade 8 Health class. I'm still not sure what we were supposed to learn from it :-D

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

*blinks* Um, maybe something about human sexuality can't be repressed?

I've been trying to watch all the 80's movies with famous songs that somehow I never actually saw in the 80's. I like music. I don't, however, like all movies with music in them. Every time another one arrives T$ groans and insists I watch it while he's out of the house. He's getting back from a trip to Philly later tonight.

[seekingferret.livejournal.com]

See... to me, "I Need a Hero" makes sense there because it's so over the top. It makes that scene the lynchpin, the turning point of the film. Which is hilarious, but the town is so small and out of the loop that a heroic deed in a tractor chicken match is the moment that changes everything.