You Can Fly If You'd Only Cut Loose
Oh hello, friends and readers and friendly readers. I hope you've all been enjoying the holidays. I spent the past 48 hours or so in New Jersey (down near Philly), and while all of the festive activities were lovely, the high point was probably a viewing, starting at around 11 p.m. Christmas night, of Footloose.
Whoa.
Like any sentient creature alive in 1984, I am quite familiar -- traumatically familiar -- with the movie's soundtrack (which knocked Thriller from the top of the Billboard charts and saw its own reign later ended by Huey Lewis and the News' Sports), but I had miraculously avoided ever watching the movie. I'm not sure I didn't know it better when it existed only in my head as a two-minute clip of Kevin Bacon (or rather, "Kevin Bacon," thoroughly transformed as some hyper-gymnastic body double) dancing through the shadows of a burned-out industrial space (or barn?), but, to borrow a phrase from my friend JF: sweet bippy. Is it the worst successful mainstream movie of all time? It has to be on a short list. As the two others I watched it with can attest, though, it is surpassingly strong Mystery Science Theater material, and we had a ball with it. I wish I could have an equally good time with it here, with all of you, but that might take two or three hours that I don't have.
Whoa.
Like any sentient creature alive in 1984, I am quite familiar -- traumatically familiar -- with the movie's soundtrack (which knocked Thriller from the top of the Billboard charts and saw its own reign later ended by Huey Lewis and the News' Sports), but I had miraculously avoided ever watching the movie. I'm not sure I didn't know it better when it existed only in my head as a two-minute clip of Kevin Bacon (or rather, "Kevin Bacon," thoroughly transformed as some hyper-gymnastic body double) dancing through the shadows of a burned-out industrial space (or barn?), but, to borrow a phrase from my friend JF: sweet bippy. Is it the worst successful mainstream movie of all time? It has to be on a short list. As the two others I watched it with can attest, though, it is surpassingly strong Mystery Science Theater material, and we had a ball with it. I wish I could have an equally good time with it here, with all of you, but that might take two or three hours that I don't have.
posted by JMW at 11:09 PM
2 Comments:
Watching Footloose is like watching Platoon in that suddenly you find yourself confronted with the horrible but unironic birth of every jokey stereotype you've had in your head for years. It's kind of unsettling, but then, so is watching Kevin Bacon shadowbox his problems away with nothing more than verve and the tape deck of a VM bug.
Dueling tractors. So stupid, so funny.
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