Dirty Dancing (1987)

Oh God. What the hell, people? Why is this movie so famous and so popular? This is not a good movie, everyone. I watched this in a theater full of people who had all seen it before, and who thought it was the best thing ever, and boy was that frustrating. Luckily I didn't have to pay for it, since I'm a Brattle Member.


So apparently the premise of Dirty Dancing is that a family goes on a three week long (!) vacation to some resort where the main activities are eating breakfast and seeing Patrick Swayze dance with some woman nobody cares about. The hero (some girl) finances a lousy abortion, which means she also volunteers to dance on stage with Patrick Swayze at a different resort (the movie takes place in the Resort Valley found somewhere along the east coast). Despite having no formal training and only like 3 days to prepare for the performance she still manages to somehow become a professional dancer and fall in love with the Swayz. Too bad that’s a problem or something, because then her dad is mad at her (or whatever). And oh by the way this resort is maybe traveling at the speed of light, because despite this whole ordeal of a plot taking place over the course of 3 weeks standard time, it still manages to feel like forever, and all the characters act as though the events taking place in this little vacation-universe are the Most Significant Ever Ever of Their Lives (HINT: they’re not, except for the abortion lady - that’s usually a Thing).

I knew this movie wouldn’t be my thing going into it, and I appreciate that these sorts of movies (where a lady and a dude want to get together but stupid reasons act as obstacles to their stupid love until the end of the movie when everything works out SPOILER ALERT) are some people’s thing, but this was just stupid. I also resent it for tearing me away from my main activity of the past 24 hours. Also sorry I didn’t blog for a bunch of days, I was too busy watching Better Movies than this one.

2 out of 10.