Year 18, Day 60 - 3/1/26 - Movie #5,260
BEFORE: February is over, but the romance chain still has a way to go - two more weeks at least. That damn Romance Groundhog saw his shadow this year, so we won't be ending this chain any time soon. Some more classics to get off the list, and maybe a couple of weird ones coming up in March. As promised, here are the actor links that will get me to the end of the romance chain: Julia Stiles, Miranda Richardson, Alfred Molina, Marisa Tomei, Claudia Wilkens, Amy Adams, Matthew Perry, Jon Tenney, Sean Bridgers, Jean Smart, Hayley Seat, Chris Pine, Lindsay Lohan, Jane Seymour and Parker Sawyers. I wish I could tell you what's going to happen after that but I can't, because I have no idea. I should probably work on that.
But I've finally gotten in sync with TCM's "31 Days of Oscar" programming, their topic today was "Oscar Goes Dancing" and my film today is about dancing, too. How about that? Now here's their line-up for tomorrow, March 2, which will be their Day 17, and the themes are "Oscar Goes on the Run" and "Oscar Goes a Few Rounds":
THE PLOT: A white midwestern girl moves from the Chicago suburbs to the city, where her new boyfriend is a black teen from the South Side with a rough, semi-criminal past.
AFTER: There's a reason I'm programming this film here, you know, this film has a reputation as a classic film made by MTV Films for the MTV generation, which is now officially OVER because the channel is going off the air after what, 45 years? Well, they had a good run, hell I still remember when all they played was music videos, and then a few years later, everything was a music video. But when the novelty wore off MTV turned to reality shows like "Teen Mom" and "Catfish" and now they only show music videos for 1 hour every week, the channel's programming has been absorbed into the giant sponge that is Paramount Plus ("One of US! "One of US!).
Well, in addition to the films "Election" and "Hustle & Flow", MTV Films also made THIS movie, about a white teen who dances ballet moving to Chicago and falling in love with a black classmate. This all comes about because Sara's mother died in a car crash and she was forced to move in with her father, who she barely knows, and he's a nightclub jazz musician in Chi-Town. Look, I'll be honest, this movie really isn't my thing, but it's bound to get some nominations for the Honky Awards at the end of this year, like "Best Romance (High School)" or "Best Romance (Inter-racial)" - yes, that's a category, and any other thing I notice that movies have in common on some level can be a category that I make up.
But a lot of this I just can't relate to, not the ballet stuff, not the hip-hop stuff, and I also never dated in high school, I waited for college to get started there. (So, yeah, it's my ex-wife's birthday, I'm not in touch with her but that doesn't mean I can't spare a thought for her today - also the Nets were playing the Cleveland Cavaliers, and my ex-in-laws lived near Cleveland.) There are so many other topics that this film touches on, like teen mothers, single mothers, dead mothers, then also gang-bangers, dance clubs, and dance tryouts. Interracial dating, infidelity, teen sex. To say this film is all over the place would be an understatement - I kind of wish there had been a little more focus, like maybe stop and think about what first and foremost a film should be ABOUT, and then realize that every thematic deviation from that is just kind of taking the film in a different direction, and you'll never get anywhere that way, at least I don't think so.
Sara starts having fights in gym class with Nikki, Derek's ex, and then Sara and Derek start getting it on, meanwhile Sara's father remains the most hands-off parent possible - maybe he just doesn't get bothered by much, I don't know. Derek and Sara also start dancing together, in a style that is a bit hip-hop and a bit ballet, and he convinces her to get back to her dream of studying dance at Juilliard, which she gave up after her mother died. Coincidentally, the people who audition ballet dancers for that school are coming to Chicago in about a month, so they agree to work out a routine for the "modern dance" portion of her interview. Perhaps this is the part she tanked the first time?
But Derek's friend Malakai, who is still involved in the gang lifestyle, pressures Derek to help him with a drive-by shooting, which takes place exactly when Sara's audition does, because of course, we need some kind of conflict, and Derek needs to make some kind of choice between his past and his future with Sara - don't forget he just got accepted to Georgetown, too, that university probably would not want to find out that the inner-city teen they just accepted is still causing mayhem in the streets. So Derek backs out of the gang shooting so he can be there for Sara, but really, he should have done that anyway, for his own college future's sake. OK, so we know Derek is going to Georgetown and quite probably Sara will be going to Juilliard, so with one in Washington DC and the other in NYC, what is the future for their relationship? Maddeningly, the film can't or won't tell us, so this all feels kind of unfinished, like the director just gave up halfway through and left it for the audience to figure out. I guess they made a sequel, but with a different cast and it seems that nobody watched it.
Directed by Thomas Carter (director of "Coach Carter")
Also starring Julia Stiles (last seen in "It's a Disaster"), Sean Patrick Thomas (last seen in "Till"), Kerry Washington (last seen in "The Six Triple Eight"), Fredro Starr (last seen in "Clockers"), Bianca Lawson (last seen in "Primary Colors"), Vince Green (last seen in "Hardball"), Garland Whitt (last seen in "Dolemite Is My Name"), Elisabeth Oas, Artel Great (last seen in "The Soloist"), Cory Stewart, Jennifer Anglin (last seen in "The Watcher"), Andrew Rothenberg (ditto), Dorothy Martin, Kim Tlusty, Felicia Fields (last seen in "Slice"), Ora Jones (last seen in "The Weather Man"), Tab Baker (last seen in "The Ice Harvest"), Kevin Reid, Mekdes Bruk, Ronnie Ray, Tai Davis (last seen in "Widows"), Karima Westbrook (last seen in "The Rum Diary"), Erica Hubbard, Whitney Powell, Brenda Pickleman (last seen in "U.S. Marshals"), Julie Greenberg, Anna Paskevska, Malaika Paul, Jennifer Echols (last seen in "Fathers' Day"), Ellie Weingardt, Safia Jalila
RATING: 4 out of 10 cafeteria lunch trays
