Antonio Banderas: My Hero

Last night, Emily and I went to see Take the Lead. We had a little arrangement: I did a little dance each night; in exchange, Emily paid for a movie about dancing and suffered through it. She wasn't a fan, but it was exactly what I was expecting and I LOVED it.

I read some reviews that said it was "plot heavy." HA! Maybe if you consider Disney animated movies plot heavy. I thought it was a little "plot schizophrenic." They tried to introduce too many plot lines and none of them went deep enough. Boy with a drunk dad, girl with a hooker mother, teen love triangle, angry principal, dance teacher with a dead wife. They scraped the surface and nothing more.

Anyway, that was my only complaint. The movie was joyfully hokey and included a whole lot of teenage stupidity and corny dancing scenes. Not to mention the two middle-aged black women two rows ahead who chimed in loudly with their commentary, the man behind us who actually started counting off the dance steps along with the characters in the movie and laughed (and snorted) too long and too hard at the mildly funny parts, and Emily's complete disgust over the fact that I had roped her into what she considered a terrible movie.

It was laughable as a piece of art, but every aspect of the evening was entertaining. Anyway, Rufio was in it, how can you go wrong?

UPDATE: If you choose to view the cheesy film, you should also take a look at the documentary it's based on: Mad Hot Ballroom. I have added it to our Netflix queue.