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<\/a>Taking a deeper look at current and past films and how they relate to the world today. <\/strong><\/p>\nJonathan Kim is an independent film critic who writes and produces film reviews for Uprising and other outlets. He is a former co-producer at Brave New Films. <\/em><\/p>\n
Read his reviews online at ReThinkReviews.net<\/a>. Watch his videos at www.youtube.com\/user\/jsjkim<\/a>, and follow him on Twitter at twitter.com\/ReThinkReviews<\/a>. ReThink Reviews’ theme song is by Restavrant<\/a>. <\/p>\n
Footloose<\/strong><\/p>\n
So there\u2019s a remake of the film \u2018Footloose\u2019. While I remember and still enjoy the titular pop single by Kenny Loggins, I\u2019ve never seen the 1984 original movie, which starred Kevin Bacon as a dancing city kid in an anti-dancing small town. So my objections to the remake weren\u2019t based on nostalgia, but on Hollywood\u2019s horrible record of remaking movies and TV shows, as well as the implicit admission that there are apparently no more original ideas. But the new \u2018Footloose\u2019 is actually a really nice movie that not only avoids feeling dated, but actually might work better now than when it came out in 1984. <\/p>\n
You probably know the story. \u2018Footloose\u2019 is about a troubled teen with a dance and gymnastics background named Ren MacCormack, played in the new version by professional dancer Kenny Wormald, who moves from Boston to the conservative town of Bomont, Georgia after his mother dies of cancer. Three years prior, Bomont experienced a tragedy when a carful of high school seniors was killed coming home from an unauthorized dance. And in a spasm of grief and shock, the town, led by its minister (played by Dennis Quaid) voted to protect their children from the corrupting dangers of sin and modern culture by passing restrictive laws on the town\u2019s youth, including bans on loud music and public dancing.<\/p>\n
Ren, some new friends, and the minister\u2019s rebellious daughter Ariel (played by Dancing with the Stars\u2019 Julianne Hough), set out to challenge and eventually overturn the dancing ban, thus reaffirming that kids should be allowed to have some fun before they\u2019re lives are inevitably crushed by the weight of adult responsibility.<\/p>\n
When I first heard about \u2018Footloose\u2019 in 1984, the idea of a town that outlawed dancing seemed silly, even back then. But sadly, it\u2019s much easier to imagine that kind of thing happening in America now. In the wake of several school shootings, harsh zero-tolerance policies have been implemented throughout America\u2019s schools, complete with armed cops, metal detectors, and surveillance cameras, so I think kids today understand the dangers of overreacting to tragedy. And as conservatives have increasingly tried to demolish the wall between church and state, the religious overtones of Bomont\u2019s laws might also feel familiar.<\/p>\n
Which brings me to one of the great things about \u2018Footloose\u2019. That Ren, the film\u2019s star, is quite clearly an atheist. He shows no respect for religion, is outraged by the religious overtones of Bomont\u2019s anti-youth laws, and only cites the Bible to show that Bomont\u2019s moralizing Christians are hypocrites who haven\u2019t actually read the bible. <\/p>\n
\u2018Footloose\u2019 also isn\u2019t a film that portrays urban denizens as snooty, shallow, secretly unhappy people who need a dose of country for some humility and to remind them what life is REALLY about. Ren has traveled the world with his gymnastics team and been exposed to a lot of things growing up in Boston that you don\u2019t get in Bomont, and he doesn\u2019t apologize for it. Nor should he, since a lot of our nation\u2019s best stuff comes from our cities, whether it\u2019s culture, diversity or progressive ideas about civil rights and social justice, and I\u2019m glad there\u2019s a movie for young people that says that having a wider perspective on the world can actually be a good thing.<\/p>\n
\u2018Footloose\u2019 is by no means a perfect movie. It\u2019s about 10 minutes too long, and Andie MacDowell is terrible as the minister\u2019s wife, another reminder that she\u2019s rarely good in anything. But first-time actors Wormald and Hough are unexpectedly good, and watching them dance for real in long takes is fun to watch. There are some strong performances \u2014 particular Quaid and Miles Teller as Willard, Ren\u2019s new country boy buddy \u2014 and the cast is much more diverse, compared to the nearly all-white original. <\/p>\n
While I\u2019m not the one to compare the 2011 \u2018Footloose\u2019 with the original, I can tell you that the new version does a great job of standing on its own dancing feet.<\/p>\n
\u2018Footloose\u2019 is rated PG-13 and is in theaters now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Taking a deeper look at current and past films and how they relate to the world today. Jonathan Kim is an independent film critic who writes and produces film reviews for Uprising and other outlets. He is a former co-producer at Brave New Films. Read his reviews online at ReThinkReviews.net. Watch his videos at www.youtube.com\/user\/jsjkim, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-program"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24959\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}