Who payed the critics

Well Deserved Praise

I gave it a 7.5 out of 10

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

I've lost count of how many times I've seen this film -- at least once with each new friend. It is a celebration of beauty, childhood, and transition -- and, oh, yes, dance. I wish at my adult age I could dance with the grace and involvement of these children. The film maker follows them outside the studio, to show us their hopes and dreams. It is astoundingly rendered, particularly for this physically inept klutz reviewer that finally found his dance as he approached 50, and now agonizes: Where were these teachers when I needed them? If you have felt the music but never felt comfortable showing that feeling in public, believing you were too clumsy to exhibit your appreciation: See this movie. Glory in it. Then take a few lessons. It's there, go for it.

Each year within the New York Public School system is a ballroom dancing competition. This year we follow a couple of schools from inner-city areas and the pupils who find themselves sucked into the competitive dance-offs despite the reservations some of them feel.This film was billed as "this year's Spellbound", which was both a smart marketing move but also an unhelpful comparison. In regards the subject then it is a fair comparison because it deals with school kids in competition but unfortunately the quality is not quite as high. The weakness here is in the delivery and structure because I think it tries to throw its net too wide, taking in groups rather than individuals. As a result it never brings out specific characters as well as Spellbound did and as a viewer I never got engaged with individuals that much. In the general sweep approach though the film does work as a rather fun documentary. The kids are all wonderfully "Noo Yark", "BK" etc clichés and there is a certain pleasure in watching them get engaged in the dancing and enter into the competitive spirit.In a very white, middle-class way I suppose I'm suppose to take something bigger from this and certainly some of the reviews have come across as being "moved" in a rather condensing way. But this is the downside of having "underprivileged" (read "non-white") kids as a general group and not bringing individuals out apart from here and there – they become a mass and not a subject. The dance contests and the sass of the pupils does give it enough energy to carry it along but outside of this there is not a lot to get from it and I rarely found myself engaged in a general competition that I had little personal stock invested in. The classes focused on are all quite fun but again I did want the individuals to be brought out more.Overall then a colourful and quite fun film with plenty of energy but a weakness in the approach and structure. Unlike Spellbound we don't really have individuals that we can follow but rather groups and this approach stops stories and morals coming out. The result of this is an OK documentary but nowhere near as strong or as interesting as it could have been and in regards the quality of the film it certainly does not deserve its comparison with Spellbound.

I prefer to read this feature as background about the fall of the two towers, an event that affected most involved with this. This is not Spellbound (2002), though I can interpret that in this way too, even though it was filmed three-ish years before the fall and this three-ish years after. I understand that pressures that made some want the fall have increased as a consequence of the fall, that the whole thing is a minefield. Whatever solution, things can easily get worse. * A documentary with a lot of threads. Individuals, more than a hundred. Places too. It took a few viewings for me to properly feel at home in trying to follow this. Some threads felt rather familiar, recognisable. As a white European, PS150 Tribeca is where I looked to for that, but some of that aspect is role play. Tara having appeared in another feature straight after this, Swimmer – 2005, comments here tend to be favourable, underlining this. Recognisable; there is even a 10ish lookalike to Haley Hudson of Freaky Friday in Tara's class. Emma is special to me too. A range of individuals who are recognisable as individuals. PS115, Washington Heights, I found it difficult to notice individuals as individuals, its threads were as one thread to me. For PS115 I tried to look closer, by way of screen dumps and websites but did not get far. The spirit of their dance made it seem worth an attempt. Tending to view this in terms of the destruction of the two towers gives some scary aspects, but for that one's interpretation would need to find it fitting for those threads to be implied. This can read as a story about special training in certain skills and attitudes, a cooperative, winner-winner, scenario, followed by an impressive exam. Brief understandings of training for life are included, dance professionals being vastly different to the PS principals. * The story provides a framework for musing. For that musing to work I need first to enjoy the story of these grade 4 and 5, aged 9 to 11?, discovering bits of the world of dance over the ten week course. I need first to enjoy the story of some of them enjoying the contest exercise that shows their new skills. This story as having been built from a much wider set of detail. What has been selected for inclusion in the tapestry starts to be a problem for me, what it shows of PS115 and PS144 near the end, the threads about Tara and Emma, if I do not remind myself of that. I head for a Winter Garden interpretation because of that. The selecting and moulding of the threads. Tara and Jonathon and PS144. These having special roles. Do they look back on the film with a smile? I assume yes, maybe. Freeze frame can say unlikely, but looking with motion suggests yes, maybe. * Looking for comment re Two Towers I needed to look for echoes of what I have come across myself, in reality and in stories. I also needed to add that the director appears to favour such themes rather than simple nice education type stories. Yet this can also be a simple and nice education story. My own past says that round here, England, Tara and Jonathon and PS144 and Emma, etc, would likely be in big trouble from such as a documentary crew unless they 'passed the test' with them over and over again. To me this is close to the spirit of the energiser of two towers warfare. I likely get that aspect wrong as that likely mostly happens to three time loser types, not so much to winners. To me, error correction is central. Mad Hot dealing with ways that some of the fit are understood by some to avoid the worst of error correction, cute looks as a carrier for the concept that people need to feel to be dealt with in an okay way. Right place, right time, no problem, very useful, not error correction at all. But kids from Washington Heights are under pressure for that to be not so simple. Even more than the others are under pressure. Error correction. Tara and Jonathon and PS144, nice if these were just gross role play. Jonathon portraying symptoms akin to death by 99 ice cream, a popular form of error correction, one that I understand can give a lifetime in hell and trouble for those around the ice cream factory during its lifetime. So many ways to crash. His teacher notices that many of her school's little ones are prone to get sunk early. The PS150 teacher, symptoms of belief in some types of therapy solution? Cooperative with integrity is obvious sense to me, yet ways to make it work when those not considered to pass the test are concerned tend to get different understandings of integrity. Intolerance, and pressures to prefer war. I find it scary that by late 2008 these young ones are now of high school age. In a sensible world, no problem, they would have got there with a strong past behind them. Feet on the ground. I now read PS144 as trying to alienate the audience from having much interest in their school, they did really well but one could not see any reason why. Were 144 teachers glad at second? Sense or nonsense? * I find this to be a magnificent and fun story about individual development. But look at little bits, try to interpret those well, then there space for is all sorts of scary.

I found this film uplifting.Disadvantaged kids work hard and win a prize.It is a predictable film.It is a documentary with real teachers and real fifth grade students from several public schools in New York City.Several people connected with this film obviously did a lot of things right.I appreciate the fact that the characters are real and not professional actors.Those who enjoyed this film would probably also like the made-for-TV movie Knights of the South Bronx, although it is a fictionalized account with professional actors based on a real person.