Spoilt for choice this week with a plethora of excellent movies to choose from. I’ve plumped for a bit of fluff, not only to prove that I’m not an out-and-out sci-fi/western/horror/kevin spacey (yes there’s one of his available for the picking too, as usual) freak but also to give my feminine side an airing. Oooer missus.
Strictly Ballroom is one of a crop of excellent Ozzie movies in a similar mould (Muriel’s Wedding followed two years later, and Priscilla, Queen of the Desert also comes to mind), but for many it sits on top of the pile. Written and directed by Baz Luhrmann this film could so easily be formulaic, with its rebel ballroom dancer and its novice dancer who blossoms under his tutelage, but it is so engaging and laugh-a-minute funny you can’t help but be sucked in.
Scott Hastings (Paul Mercurio) is a champion ballroom dancer, but he’s his own man. He wants to dance his own steps, and this attitude gets right up the nose of the Australian ballroom dance federation, and their whole dancing community.
Fran (Tara Morice) is a novice dancer and a traditional “ugly duckling” who plucks up the courage to ask if she can be Scott’s partner when his attitude and insistence on continuing with his unorthodox style leads to a split with his regular partner.
The new pair are determined to win the Australian Pan Pacific Championships both for their own satisfaction and to prove to the crusty old ballroom federation that they’re wrong to say there are “no new steps.”
Strictly Ballroom: Film4, Saturday 22 September, 7.15pm
Worth a look:
Superman: Five, Sunday 23 September, 5.25pm
LA Confidential: C4, Monday 24 September, 10.55pm
The Graduate: ITV1, Monday 24 September, 11.05pm
Escape from Alcatraz: BBC One, Wednesday 26 September, 11.45pm
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre: TCM, Thursday 27 September, 3pm
I adore this film. I came across it on TV as it started, lacking foreknowledge of it. I was captivated from the start. Yes, the story is basic and familiar, but it is told with such flair and charm, that it never feels like a familiar plot. I think one of its strengths is that the characters are all, except perhaps for Scott and Fran, off centre to varying degrees. In less skilled hands, such a move would result in unbelievable caricatures, but Luhrmann avoids this neatly, instead giving them more life and vibrancy.
The film has a number of excellent “Hell, yeah!” moments that I could watch over and over. Acquiring a copy of Doris Day’s “Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps” was an immediate consequence of first viewing. Re-watching it regularly since is a real pleasure.