recommended

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

The movie is made so realistic it has a lot of that WoW feeling at the right moments and never tooo over the top. the suspense is done so well and the emotion is felt. Very well put together with the music and all.

When I caught this movie on TV the other day, I kept watching it because I could tell the points they were trying to make, but somehow the filmmakers kept missing the mark. I really wanted to like this movie. I just kept getting distracted by its disjointedness and low production values. Case in point: Because I missed the opening, I had no idea what movie this was while I was watching it, but I could tell right away it had been made in the 80s even though it was obviously set in the 60s. The wardrobe and hair look like something a bunch of kids would do for a 60s theme dance with the help the their parents and 80s clothes out of their own closet. Every look was just enough off that it didn't look at all authentic.I could almost follow the story line, and I did want the main character to succeed. BUT almost every line of dialogue was mumbled, and every scene rang false, as if I could see a map outlining that the actors needed to get from from A to B in a particular scene, but they don't actually ever get there. Yet the next scene continues on as if they did. It took me almost the whole movie to really get what was going on, and a lot of time it felt as if there were entire chunks of the movie missing. Overall it's a mediocre movie. Not terribly bad, just not terribly good. I can't quite explain why I kept watching - maybe I just kept hoping a scene would succeed. It looks as if they point they were trying to make was that time in your life when you know everything is changing. It's just been done much better elsewhere. By the way, the dancing is kinda' cool, but boy some of the moves look like 80s break dancing instead of 60s jive.

I caught this one while channel searching. At first I simply took a look and then moved on but I found myself coming back and by about the third trip back I was hooked. Yeah it's a little campy and it is a dance movie but I found myself wanting to watch and even dance a little. It is a heartfelt coming of age movie for a young man growing up in the 50 - 60's. Teen love, angst, peer pressure, and the desire to find out who we really are; this movie has it all. I even tried to find it 2nd-hand to buy. I recomend it to anyone who remembers what teen life is all about.

If you lived through the Jerry Blavat Era in Philadelphia [c.1964-1969], this movie is a mirror of life. The locale's, mostly Cheltenham, Philadelphia and Wildwood touch a nerve of conciousness to all who lived through that turbulent time period.It is too bad that there is no sound track album, because it is exemplary. I can still feel the music pounding through my brain when I watch this film, as I did when I danced to it in real life.I highly recommend the film for a reminder of simpler times-and the closing "Like a Rolling Stone" is just the capstone on the end of an era.

This movie was overshadowed by the similarly themed "Hairspray" which was released a year earlier, but while Hairspray was more of a comedy, The In Crowd is more dramatic. The movie concerns a boy getting to dance on a local TV dance show in Philadelphia. There he finds a new set of friends who are resented by his old set. The dance scenes are well done, the music is great, Joe Palatino is great as Perry Parker, and Donovan Leitch does a good job as the lead. The ending is a little silly, and is sort of a more late 80's view of the 60's, but overall a very good film.