Product: Dirty Dancing (1987)
Rating: 5.0
hungry eyes
Ok. I just watched Dirty Dancing for the first time in a decade, at the very least, after buying it on DVD. As an older and far more seasoned, horizons-broadened moviewatcher, I just have to say: I was SO not disappointed. It was all I remembered--and let me tell you, I remembered it in almost embarrassingly excruciating detail--and even a bit more.As some reviewers have astutely (and maybe a little jadedly?) pointed out, there are quite a few elements of this story that are predictable--and yes, even cliched--now. But I think that an important point is that, if you see this movie at the age that you really SHOULD--between 12 and 15, let's say, whether that was in 1987 or right now--they are far less predictable and most likely not at all cliched. Rebellion, passion, love, and sex should be relatively new to the first-time viewer. And if they are, this movie hits like a bomb. Hell, it's a revelation.Now, that being said, I got things out of this most recent viewing--at a salty old age 27--that I never did at 12 to 15. For one thing, the importance of the era in which the film takes place had little or no relevance for me at the time. Class conflict, as such, was pretty foreign, and while I recognized it in a naive way back then, it has more relevance now. The number of levels on which this movie is a coming-of-age story--feminism, the freedom riders, the sexual revolution, the Camelot years when they had yet to come to an end, the idealism that usually can't help but get squashed down a bit by what adults superciliously referred to as the "real world"--these concepts were fuzzy or nonexistent for me the first time I was introduced to the former hotness known as Patrick Swayze.And speaking of which--I think this movie has one of THE best sex scenes in history--for girls and women, that is. For the average guy, there may be a bit too little...substance. But this movie is, in my opinion, sexy in a way that is innocent and knowing at the same time. It was tantalizing then and almost tender now. An added perk.So, in short--go buy this, Baby. You won't regret it.