Emile Ardolino
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Filmography
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Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights (2004)
Directed by Guy Ferland
influenced by Dirty Dancing (1987)
Plot Themes
It's apparently a retread of the original Dirty Dancing, but I've never seen that film, actually, so I got pretty caught up in the adolescent passion, which isn't just of the sexual variety but also redolent with the rebellious itch of the almost grownup to really do something with this life thing.
A treacly clone in nearly every miserable, measurable aspect of the surprise hit of 1987, Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights' one point of deviation is that where the first film delicately pranced around the issue of race in its gentile/Jew Catskills confusion, its sequel stampedes over its own blue-eyed/brown-eyed intrigue roughshod with a plodder's grace.
With Puerto Rico convincingly standing in for pre-Castro Cuba and charismatic leads who learned to dance up a storm to Afro-Cuban and Latin music, this "Dirty Dancing" stays afloat until it sinks with cliched, perfunctorily relayed ideology and an unbelievably hokey wrapup.
In the 1987 "Dirty Dancing" and 2004's Havana-set remake, the settings of the stories are virtually the same except in their particulars: A Catskills resort, a Havana hotel; pre-JFK assassination America, pre-Batista overthrow Cuba.
Not if you experienced it in 1987 watching the original "Dirty Dancing."
It’s also awash in American and British pop culture by way of Dirty Dancing (1987) and George Michael—and the film itself appears not to feel superior to these elements, though in the case of Dirty Dancing and George Michael, it probably should.
To fully appreciate the pleasures of Pascal Chaumeil’s debut feature, Heartbreaker, it helps to know—and love—Dirty Dancing.
Her love for the movie, “Dirty Dancing,” its sexy choreography and the music of the band Wham are fodder for Alex’s arsenal of weapon of marital destruction.
Duris rams his way through Paradis’ formidable defenses in large part by pretending to share her love for George Michael and learning/mastering all of the choreography from Dirty Dancing, her favorite movie.
The film portrays love as just a matter of finding out that the other person likes Dirty Dancing.
Duris has to pretend to love Dirty Dancing, and the whole film is really his and Paradis' love tango.
Notwithstanding the fact that this movie features a Dirty Dancing -inspired fantasy sequence nine years after Crazy, Stupid, Love made fun of the exact same fantasy in a much smarter way, there are simply too many out-loud verbalizations of the “stuff that always happens” in romantic comedies in Holidate that its script decides to effectively duplicate without adding a twist or really even an acknowledgment that it’s doing itself.
When Emma Roberts and Luke Bracey (who certainly look the part as rom-com leads) do get to go full rom-com, such as with a Dirty Dancing lift at New Year's Eve or the inevitable public declaration, they have plenty of chemistry to make the individual moments work.
“Holidate” nods more than a few times to some classics but also pulls off a slightly intergenerational treat with Sloane and Jack riffing on the Ryan Gosling version of Patrick Swayze’s “Dirty Dancing” scene from “Crazy Stupid Love.”
Step Up Revolution (2012)
Directed by Scott Speer
influenced by Dirty Dancing (1987)
Plot Visuals Themes
With a nod to “Dirty Dancing,” Sean meets Emily (Kathryn McCormick) at a bar on the beach that is off-limits for the hotel staff.
Shamelessly derivative throughout, Step Up Revolution throws in a sensual dance rehearsal in the water à la Dirty Dancing, and an opening sequence of souped-up race cars in Fast and Furious mode - only this time there are dancers break-dancing on top of the cars!
Meanwhile, the way Sean helps Emily train by waterside for her performance at the dance company, and later consummates his feelings for her as they dance together in front of her disapproving father, helping to melt his heart along the way, there are definite hints of 1987's "Dirty Dancing" in its foundation.
The four “Step Up” films couldn’t exist without “ You Got Served ,” “ Dirty Dancing, ” “ Footloose ” (the original and its remake), “ Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo ,” “ Flashdance ,” “ Saturday Night Fever ” and, yes, even “ West Side Story .”
The original film, a Dirty Dancing/Strictly Ballroom hybrid, boasted more romancin' than kickin’ dance moves, but it was at least good enough to get Step Up 2 The Streets into production.
Sadly, the concept of the hip, tough guy with a troubled past who picked up his moves from the street teaching the pristine, prissy girl to loosen up and feel the music is such a tired premise, it's a drag to even have to mention other, better films like 2001's Save the Last Dance, wherein Julia Stiles used streets beats to dance her way into a Julliard audition, or even Dirty Dancing, which had way more memorable lines (“Nobody puts baby in the corner!”).
As far as “Save the Last Dance” / “Center Stage” / “Dirty Dancing”/”Fame”/ “Footloose”/etc.
Skip it: "Step Up" is so derivative of films like "Dirty Dancing," "Save the Last Dance" and more that it essentially comes pre-choreographed by other movies.
"Step Up" lacks the passion for dance found in the great films of the genre (the entire Astaire-Rogers canon), the kinda-great ("Dirty Dancing," "Footloose") and even the guiltily enjoyable ("Flashdance").
We've seen all this before in Dirty Dancing , Take the Lead , and a zillion other dance movies.
Crazy, Stupid, Love. (2011)
Directed by Glenn Ficarra
influenced by Dirty Dancing (1987)
Plot Visuals Music
Dan Fogelman 's script is snappy, if too proudly referential (it's hard to say if a motif involving the use of Dirty Dancing as a seduction tool was outright stolen from last year's French rom-com Heartbreaker, or if the similarity is mere coincidence).
If Gosling is a bit too cliched as the buffed and armoured seducer, Emma Stone is a fine comedic counterbalance and their Dirty Dancing rip-off is delightful.
Jacob and Hannah close their love deal in a very amusing comic scene that pokes well-deserved ridicule at the final dance sequence of Dirty Dancing with its Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes rendition of Time of My Life.
“Just One Look” and a classic from Dirty Dancing are also well done.
It's a pretty spectacular sequence, written and performed with refreshing candor and hugely funny, to boot (weaving in "Dirty Dancing" as a plot point sounds obvious but is delivered ingeniously).
(My favorite is still when Jacob does his "Dirty Dancing" move on Stone's Hannah.
Adding to the off-center, "Stepford Wives"-esque mood is Toby Jones' (2016's " The Darkness ") elegant, observant lensing, and a number of pitch-perfect soundtrack cues, among them Noel Gay and Ralph Butler's chilling, childlike "Run Rabbit Run" and Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes' Oscar-winning song "(I've Had) The Time of My Life," decidedly not used in quite the same way it was in 1987's "Dirty Dancing."
Relaxing, listening to “(I’ve Had) The Time Of My Life” from the Dirty Dancing soundtrack while dressed in neatly-pressed, buttoned dresses.
And after a few characters end up as corpses, Peele cuts to Williams blissfully listening to “(I’ve Had) the Time of My Life” — yep, the quintessential white suburban girl anthem from Dirty Dancing — on her headphones.
My favorite of all is the way he uses Allison Williams – TV’s Marnie Michaels, ass-eaten avatar of Caucasian obliviousness – dressed head to toe in white, drinking a giant glass of milk and missing out on a massacre because she’s listening to the Dirty Dancing soundtrack on her (white, of course) earbuds.
Early on in "Get Out," Chris, a talented young photographer (played by British actor Daniel Kaluuya) is getting ready to spend a weekend with the family of his beautiful girlfriend Rose ("Girls" co-star Allison Williams, doing a knowingly milk-drinking, "Dirty Dancing" soundtrack-listening white chick shtick).
Her moment of total white-girl relaxation – snacking on Fruit Loops, with a glass of milk at her side and the “Dirty Dancing” soundtrack on her iPod – is classic.
Even in casting former model Gabriella Wilde as Jade, the upper-crust high school senior pining for working-class peer David (Alex Pettyfer), Feste conceivably settled on someone whose tousled blond locks could catch the sun like wheat, and who, after sneaking out to steal first-love's kiss, could flail her alabaster limbs in a way that evokes Dirty Dancing 's swan-like Jennifer Grey.
What young actor with an uncertain future is going to turn down a remake of a Patrick Swayze movie that did well at the box office even before Dirty Dancing? (Trivia alert: Jennifer Grey was in the original Red Dawn as well.)
It brought together Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey three years before Dirty Dancing.
The resulting movie was not very good, but left an impression on impressionable minds and featured a veritable Brat Pack of 1980s-era actors: the late Patrick Swayze, Charlie Sheen, C. Thomas Howell, Lea Thompson and Jennifer Grey, Swayze’s soon-to-be “Dirty Dancing” dance partner.
Back when John Milius was the director and the Russians were the aggressors, Swayze’s fellow resistance fighters included Charlie Sheen, C. Thomas Howell and a pre- Dirty Dancing Jennifer Grey.
The club is populated with wealthy socialites who bump and grind to such a degree, they make Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey from “Dirty Dancing” look like prim and proper ballroom dancers.
The beginning scene in the dance hall, however, is well done and leaves the viewer craving more - side note: there is NO WAY people would have been dancing in a public club like that during the 1900s (for a minute I felt as if I was watching Dirty Dancing).
The lovebirds dance in a spacious ballroom and attempt their best “Dirty Dancing” routine that might be best defined as rhythmic canoodling.
Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb (2014)
Directed by Shawn Levy
influenced by Dirty Dancing (1987)
Save for the bits featuring The British Museum's cheerfully talkative security guard Tilly (Rebel Wilson), cute cameos from Hugh Jackman and Alice Eve, and some unexpectedly random film references to " Psycho ," "Dirty Dancing" and, believe it or not, the 2009 dolphin documentary "The Cove," comic inspiration is decidedly flaccid.
The strangely affable Baby (Elgort), not to be confused with Jennifer Grey in Dirty Dancing, spends most the movie tuning out his adrenaline-fueled lifestyle with his favorite songs that far exceed his years on steady rotation through earbuds -- putting him in a constantly chill mood and disconnected with the slimy thugs around him (played by Jamie Foxx, Jon Bernthal, Jon Hamm, Eiza González, and Kevin Spacey) he drives from crime scene after another.
Almost exactly 30 years after Dirty Dancing, finally another movie has a protagonist named “Baby.”
And so, it’s not surprising that in the nearly 30 years since its 1993 release, Hocus Pocus has become a movie that exists outside of objective context, in much the same vein as Grease or Dirty Dancing, the kind of bibbidi-bobbidi entertainment that renders any attempt at qualitative assessment a bootless endeavor, particularly each October.
It grabs those tropes by the waist and lifts them into the air, “Dirty Dancing”-style, before giving them a big, sloppy kiss on a crowded train platform in the rain.
But then her dog, Molly, becomes pregnant and she rudely accuses Travis’ pooch, Moby, of being the culprit—a situation that is oddly compared twice to the plot of “ Dirty Dancing .”
Dratch’s existential moment praying to the porcelain god, an homage to “Dirty Dancing” and a tragic spandex interlude are also full-on giggle worthy.
Yakin writes his story into a few corners, and the object of this, again having to do with numbers, is so pedestrian as to remind you the guy wrote “Prince of Persia” and the dreadful “Dirty Dancing” sequel.
The Croods include family leader Grug, dense son Thunk and our heroine Eep, a Cro-Magnon version of Jennifer Grey from "Dirty Dancing."
The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle (1939)
Directed by H. C. Potter
influenced Dirty Dancing (1987)
Themes
And like "Saturday Night Fever," "Flashdance," "The Turning Point" and, for that matter, "The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle," it is about the almost magical power of dance to transform the mean and mundane into the thrilling, the sexual and the transcendent.
In the realm of fantasy romances, Ruby Sparks is certainly leaps ahead of the likes of Mannequin, Chances Are and their ilk.