watched mad hot ballroom this week.
way back when, torgo disapproved of the movie.
well, i respectfully disagree. i thought it was wonderful, mostly because i'm sick of documentaries or movies that feature the inner city as an awful, terrible place riddled with drugs, violence, and kids who are going nowhere. this movie, in my opinion, really resisted that, and showed a lot of the joy, creativity, intelligence, and resilience kids growing up in urban areas have. it didn't shy away from the realities -- one of my favorite scenes was of two girls sitting in the park on a rock, discussing the kind of boy they would like to date: someone focused on school, not selling drugs, who respects them, just because it shows that they know what's out there, and they want something different for themselves.
the director of the place where i used to work in new jersey, urban promise, used to always say that people hear enough about the terrible things in the inner city, and when he was fundraising, he never wanted to get money out of people by telling them how bad the lives of the kids in camden were, but rather how wonderful the kids were, how they are talented, happy, and unique, how they like to play, how they get excited about learning, and how, given the same opportunities, could be just as (traditionally) successful as the kid in the wealthy suburb just a few miles away.
anyway, soap box finished. besides all that, it was funny -- kids are so funny. some of my favorite parts:
this one girl spouting off about "scientific research" all the time, while swinging her umbrella. "scientific research" told her both that 11 year olds are the prime target for kidnappers (to which her friend hilariously replies "what's a napper?"), and also that "women overall...are the advanced civilization."
one boy saying in front of his friends that he judges girls by their "outer beauty and their inner beauty...mostly their inner beauty," and then his friend looking at him like, "yeah, right. LIAR."
three of the boys from the italian neighborhood waxing philosophical over the foosball table:
*on ballroom dancing: "it's like a sport that...hasn't been invented yet."
*on being 11: "i find hard being eleven is school...you have to learn these new, really hard things, and sometimes teachers don't even understand it...like how, people think, like...marriage, parts of marriage is weird...like gay marriage, how they be talking about it." to which his friend replies, "in the Bible, it ain't say, like it says, it says people can get married. it doesn't say what KIND of people."
one boy from the wealthier school talking about being 11: "you gotta put deodorant, you gotta start washing TWO times a day, you start growing hair in weird places, and you don't change your sheets because you peed."
and i loved watching all of the kids from the winning school cheering on each other -- they were SO happy and excited to be there, they loved watching the "attitude" on the faces of their teammates, it was all so much fun for them...and the teacher and principal watching, so proud.
i thought it was great.
3 comments:
You don't know me but... I was just passing through and I agree. And it sure was tough to see them when they took "not winning" so hard.
I had to go back and read my review. I liked this movie. I disapproved of the competition element. I didn't like how they were forced into this ultra-competitive environment as a basis for learning dance. I liked everything else about it, though.
Actually I am a little confused by the kid who says "you don't change your sheets because you peed." Well, maybe that is explained by the kid being confused. I assume because he is talking about changes during puberty that he is describing what he thinks is a wet dream. In which case he is mistaken that during one you "pee" but more perplexingly, that you would NOT change your sheets after that. Maybe he misspoke or was misquoted, but it makes no sense, especially for including it in the film! Were they short footage to show that? Was it just to show how cute and confused some of them were?
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