When I set out to write a stream of consciousness movie review of the 80s classic that is Footloose, I was as giddy as a virgin on prom night. And then I realized something: I actually had to go rent it. Damn you Movies on Demand. Your film library is thinner than Jay Mohr's hair. Walking into Blockbuster to rent this movie is the equivalent of going to buy edible, glow in the dark prophylactics with your mother. But I fought through the humiliation for you.
(Twenty-Second Timeout: Will my Dad will think less of me as a man because I'm actually really excited that this movie is about to come on? The line in Vegas on this one is currently 5:2 on "yes.")
Welcome to the Footloose Experience:
-If Lori Singer had at least a hint of a boob I guarantee this flic wouldn't have been rated PG.
-Here comes the old footstomping intro. Forgot about this beauty. Wow, and I thought Ugg's were unbearable. Shoes in the 80s were a trainwreck. Leg warmers over sneakers? What the fuck? But I will admit, I'd buy a pair of zipper-ankle jeans in a heartbeat.
-John Lithgow (the Reverend Shaw Moore) can play a good prick, can't he? And where was the town Bomont actually located? Don't tell me whoever wrote the script didn't have an EXACT place in mind. I smell a bad and damaging childhood inspiring this one. In real reviews, I've only read Bomont described as "a small town in the Midwest." Ahh, ya think? No shit Sherlock. I keep expecting to see a Bush/Cheney '04 bumper sticker on a passing pickup's bumper; right below the Jesus fish of course.
-Yee haw! The first Kevin Bacon sighting. And he's grimacing to the Reverend's sermon preaching "obscene rock 'n roll music" has a "gospel of easy sexuality and relaxed morality." Poetic genius. It whets the palet and leaves you wanting more, doesn't it folks?
-Ooh, the Reverend's wife, she looks like she's a tomcat just waiting for the right sinner to fly by. What, is that wrong?
-"Ren" (it's Mr. Kevin Bacon to you), "Ariel" (Lori Singer) AND "Rusty" (Sarah Jessica Parker)? Come on Mr. Script Writer, I'll give you two absurd names. But not three. You went too far.
(Twenty-Second Timeout: Reason # 4,563,984 why I LOVE the Internet...Lori Singer's brother is Marc Singer. Yeah that's right, the original Beastmaster. A TBS legend and the man who single-handedly, sorry Jack Lalane, pushed the fitness movement into the mainstream.)
-Does Sarah Jessica Parker age? She's so bubbly and cute. I just want to gobble her up.
-Wait, you're telling me Ariel is straddling two cars traveling at approximately 50mph in a pleated schoolgirl mini-skirt and it doesn't even fly up ONCE for the gratuitous granny-panty shot? DAMN YOU REVEREND. Uh oh, here comes the truck. One of the two main characters is going to die in the first five minutes of the movie. I'm so (yawn) nervous for her.
-She survived. Barely. How unpredictable. Must've been Chuck's lucky deer antlers tied atop his pickup truck.
-Chuck. Oh, he's a conundrum alright. Pink Floyd and Grateful Dead stickers adorning his 4x4, yet all he ever listens to is Van Halen. I can never possibly hope to understand the depths of Chuck.
-Oooh, the first real signs of belief-system clash between Ren and the townspeople: a Slaughterhouse Five discussion. "A classic in any town." Yeah, stick to your guns Renny baby. They're Nazi bible beaters. Atta boy. The guy with the bow tie kills me by the way.
-The first uncomfortable dance scene is a beaut I tell ya, Clark. Everyone has that friend who gets drunk too early in the night and starts dancing in a bar well before the crowd reaches that fever pitch of drunkenness. Well, apparently Bomont is full of his relatives because these cats LOVE to boogie. And they don't care who's watching.
-Wow, I never caught that before. When the Reverend poops on their party and shuts the music off it's timed to the Pac-Man dying noise. 80s irony overload.
-I like Ren's style. Kickin' it formal David Bowie style on his first day at a redneck school where he doesn't know anyone. Rebel WITH a cause. But I never understood his ride: the yellow VW beatle. I can't say this for sure, but I'm pretty sure they weren't engineered with rebels in mind.
-Good bonding moment with Willard. Ren clobbers him with a "hey, I like that hat man, they sell men's clothes where you got that?" Pow. Willard takes it in stride. I knew I was gonna like him. Always trust someone who can take a good bust. These are words to live by.
-Wow, Ariel just big-timed Ren in the halls real bagood. Fucking chicks man.
-The following is a GREAT exchange. Sets the tone for the rest of the movie:
Willard: "Well, you won't get any of that here." Ren: "What's that?" Willard: "Dancin'. There's no dancin'." Ren: (incredulously) "Why?" Willard: "It's illegal."
(favorite line of the movie thus far alert...)
Ren: "JUMP BACK."
(I should also note that Ren follows this up about five minutes later with a "Get serious" that knocked the wind out of me. The 80s were divine.)
-As Ren's "interviewing" for a job in the flour mill, the foreman asks him "Where ya from?" When Ren replies "Chicago," the foreman chimes in one more time in a God-awful hick accent "Are ya stooopid?" That brought out a loud "HEH!" from deep within my belly.
I'm One Bad Motha-Fucka. And I Knows It.
-The subtlety-level of Ariel wearing red boots isn't exactly mild. Nice symbolism fellas. I catch your drift. Although, I'm more focused on how she gets into those jeans. Or better yet, how she gets out of them? I think she's vacuum packed into those suckers like coffee grinds.
-Oh, Ren is an inner city gymnast from Chicago? Yeah, that makes sense. There were tons of those type guys pommel-horsing around the ghettos in the 80s, weren't there?
-Ahhh, the infamous playing chicken in tractors scene. So let me get this straight: the entire teen population of Bomont is scared to death of dancing, yet they race tractors at one another after smoking weed and boozing? That's consistent.
-Again, did they really cast an A-cup as the leading seductress? I don't get this. I'm not a superficial boob guy but give me a little something up top.
-How about jeans in the 80s by the way. High waisters? There isn't a less flattering look out there. I know fashion trends come and go but like thong underwear, I can't see low rider jeans ever being allowed to go out of style by the male population. You hear me Diesel? We won't let it happen.
-Chuck lost the tractor chicken challenge followed by Ariel switching her crush over to Ren. This is huge and surprising plot twist #2 for those keeping count.
-Alright, this is getting tense now. Ren's pissed, he took the car. The whole town's against him and he just found a random abandoned warehouse in which to take out his frustrations. Gymnastics anyone? For a town that got rid of its video games it's pretty freaking easy for adolescents to get beer and cigarettes. Damn you Director, give me some consistency. That's all I ask.
-Holy shit, this scene is like Fame meets Rocky IV. Ren's having flashbacks of his enemies, just like Rocky did with Drago, Clubber Lang and Thunderlips. As I watch Kevin Bacon perform homoerotic dance moves in really tight acid washed jeans and a wife beater I wonder if his agent sold him on this movie saying it was the next Dance Fever?
-Why is Ren so embarrassed that Ariel caught him (dance)freaking out? While most of it was kind of awkward to watch, there were some Bat Man-level moves buried in that routine. Did Bela Karolyi consult on this film's action scenes?
-Yep, here it comes, the inevitable "Dead Poets' Society moment." Ariel is showing Ren "the yearbook." A place where everybody writes down passages of banned books on the inside of a locomotive.
(laughing, giggling....hold on, sorry....still giggling)
You just can't keep the creative spirit of youth under wraps. Especially not in Bomont.
-The Ariel screaming at the oncoming train scene was so awful I'm going to pretend it didn't make the final cut and I accidentally saw it by clicking on the "deleted scenes" section. Fucking terrible.
-The Reverend just put his foot down and told Ariel she can't see Ren anymore. Dad's forbidding their daughters to see a certain boy. Yep, that always works. I predict she stops liking him and the movie ends in the next five minutes. PLEASE let me be right. This isn't as fun as I thought it was going to be.
-Does it strike anyone else odd that Bomont, the capital of Hickdom, has a gymnastics team?
-This is exactly why Willard is my favorite character. When asked by Ren at the bar "across state lines" if he was gonna dance, Willard responds "I drink better than I dance." Preach it my brotha. But then again, he just got his nose exploded five minutes later by some crud in a flannel shirt who, oddly enough, has his gut padded. Not sure what the wardrobe department was trying to prove on that one.
-The Rev just popped Ariel with a right cross. That'll teach her. When will women learn that they shouldn't talk back?
-Willard's in dance camp now. I don't believe it myself but I'm going to compare it to Rocky again. However, this time it's Rocky III. Remember when Apollo was teaching the Stallion how to fight like a brotha? That's what I feel like Ren is doing for Willard. And I'm even getting those icky feelings in my stomach just like when Apollo and Rock have that uncomfortable post-race hugging celebration on the beach in their tiny running shorts. (Sing it) "Let's hear it for the boys!"
-Whoa, Chuck and Ariel just broke up. Officially. Luckily she's a quick healer because they don't do it with a handshake in Bomont. They do it beat down style.
-Lovvvve a good town council meeting in the Midwest, don't they? Too bad Ren doesn't know Jimmy Chitwood. That would make things so much easier for him: "The way I see it is, if Ren doesn't get his dance, I don't play ball."
-A brick with "burn in hell" written on it was just thrown through Ren's window. Was this the point in the scriptwriting sessions where the writers were thinking no one was taking their movie seriously so they had to step it up a notch? Come on, this isn't Mississippi Burning.
-Ariel just told her father, the Reverend, that she wasn't a virgin. In the middle of his church. I'll give her one thing: she's got a flair for the dramatic.
-If there's one scene the Director got right, it was the awkward warmup moments at the big dance. Some random dude going two knuckles deep into his nostril was a bit over the top, but you get the point here. Getting to the climax and then sweet crescendo in Footloose was no easy task. They even broke down the Reverend into emotional oatmeal right as the final fight scene broke out. But Ren and Willard took Chuck and his gang down Roadhouse style. I was worried they were going to lose that fight and Chuck was going to cancel the dance. Check that, no I wasn't.
And on the 8th Day: They Danced.
-Everyone's dancing now. They're happy. And I tell ya, for a town full of kids who've had their feet cemented to the ground by Johnny Law for the last five years, most of them can get after it pretty good. Even the nerds with braces are breaking it down like Turbo.
I don't even know how to sum up what I just put myself through other than that therapy is no longer something I'm completely ruling out as an option for dealing with my demons.
Straddling two cars Posted: 4/14/2005by: Michael Your comment missed one point. Wouldn't we have heard a whistle from her Puss while doing the splits with the wind howling at 60 mph? hahahahhahahh Posted: 4/14/2005by: mike this was great! the fact that you watched this movie is good enough but the review of it is even better. bacon is incredible, you shoudl review all his movies. Beumont Posted: 4/14/2005by: chris Beumont is in Southern Texas about an hour east of Houston Posted: 4/14/2005by: Jackie uMm..if u havent noticed Legwarmers are back (ahem old navy commercial). WHO DOESN'T LIKE A LITTLE BACON? Posted: 4/14/2005by: Rob All I know is that when I move to a small town that outlaws dancing, it gets me so frustrated that the only way I can release all my pent-up anger by DANCING! Particularly, in the still of the night in an old factory with a lot of spotlights going through the rustic steel that casts really weird shadows on the walls. Fuck yeah.
-If Lori Singer had at least a hint of a boob I guarantee this flic wouldn't have been rated PG. 
