page_title: Musical Chairs (film)
section_title: Media coverage and reception
hierarchical_section_title: Musical Chairs (film) / Media coverage and reception
caption_attribution_description: English: The cast &amp; crew of the film "Musical Chairs" at the 2012 Miami international Film Festival presentation at the Olympia Theater at the Gusman Center for the Performing Arts. From left:Producer Mareo Ryan, producer Janet Carrus, unknown, choreographer Jose Edger Osorio, unknown, Laverne Cox, unknown, EJ Bonilla &amp; producer Joey Dedio
context_page_description: Musical Chairs is a 2011 American dance film starring Leah Pipes, E. J. Bonilla, Auti Angel, Laverne Cox, and Priscilla Lopez, and directed by Susan Seidelman. It is a romance involving a couple who participates in wheelchair ballroom dancing. In development for eight years before it was finally made, the film played at several festivals starting in 2011, including the Woodstock Film Festival. It was released on March 23, 2012. It played only a week in New York City, where it was entirely filmed, but as of March 30, 2012, opened in other locations in platform release. It premiered on cable TV in December 2013.
context_section_description: The motion picture, originally distributed by Paladin Films, opened in limited release with almost no mainstream media coverage and little publicity, except for some online interviews and articles. This was perhaps due to the media blitz given to the first Hunger Games film, which came to theatres on the same day as Musical Chairs and trounced every other film which opened that week. Musical Chairs did not do well financially, partly perhaps it played at only twelve theatres, but also perhaps because the buzz over The Hunger Games was so strong.
  However, in an interview on Deadline Hollywood, director Susan Seidelman said that she hoped the film would gain attention through "word of mouth", and that showings of the film were targeted at specific target groups (Latinos in its Florida showings, for instance; several Latino actors appear in the film). There was little if any national television coverage of it, and only a few major publications reviewed it, among them the New York Times, the New York Daily News, the Village Voice, and the Chicago Tribune. Neither Entertainment Weekly nor Rolling Stone magazine reviewed the film. It was left to online reviewers such as Harvey Karten to review it, though James Berardinelli did not. Roger Ebert also reviewed it.
  So far, 170 people have voted on the film at the Internet Movie Database as of March 2013, and its score there is currently low (the highest score possible on the Internet Movie Database is a 10). However, it has received considerably higher scores from the general public on sites such as Rotten Tomatoes, receiving an 85% favorable audience review.
  There has been some controversy over the fact that some of the disabled characters in the film  were played by able-bodied actors. Mia, the leading female character, starts out as able-bodied, so an actress who is not disabled in real life had to be found for the role. However, whenever possible the producers and director hired disabled performers and dancers in key acting roles. This includes Auti Angel, professional wheelchair dancer and reality TV star of Push Girls.
caption: The cast & crew of the film "Musical Chairs" at the 2012 Miami International Film Festival presentation of the film
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "3000", "Image ImageLength": "1882", "Image BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8]", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon EOS 7D", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS5.1 Macintosh", "Image DateTime": "2012:03:03 23:53:41", "Image Artist": "Alberto E. Tamargo", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image Copyright": "AET Photo", "Image ExifOffset": "372", "GPS GPSVersionID": "[2, 2, 0, 0]", "Image GPSInfo": "1144", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1258", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "10118", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/200", "EXIF FNumber": "63/10", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "400", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2012:03:03 07:50:58", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2012:03:03 07:50:58", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "61/8", "EXIF ApertureValue": "43/8", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF SubjectDistance": "61/50", "EXIF Flash": "Flash fired, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "17", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3000", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1882", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "Interoperability RelatedImageWidth": "3000", "Interoperability RelatedImageLength": "1882", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "1088", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "5184000/907", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "691200/119", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Manual Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}