Movie Moment: Footloose

Oh, Footloose.  That quintessential tale of teenage rebellion.  Who could resist its conflicts between country and city, church and state, and authority and freedom?  Apparently not me because despite not being a huge fan of the original, I found myself queuing up for the remake.

This time breakout star Kenny Wormald fills Kevin Bacon's dancing shoes (sorry, I couldn't help myself) as Ren MacCormack, the city boy who moves to the small southern town of Bomont where dancing is a crime.  Armed with an attitude, Ren goes head to head with the man, who literally happens to be Minister Moore (Dennis Quaid), a key enforcer of the anti-dancing law and the father of Ariel Moore (Julianne Hough), the good girl-gone-bad with whom he's smitten.  Exploding cars compete with even more explosive dance numbers as Ren fights to free Ariel from her race car-driving redneck boyfriend and Bomont from its funk.  The highlight is Wormald's version of Bacon's iconic warehouse dance scene.  Infused with all the righteous teenage indignation of his predecessor, Ren number two busts out gymnastics moves to the rhythm of an appropriately updated iPod.  Anger never looked so good.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the remake is a little edgier than the original.  There's definitely more sex, as well as a deeper exploration of death.  Still, the original retains a melancholy all its own, as well as its signature 1980s appeal.  This is why I think Kevin Bacon was smart to decline making a cameo.  Such a move would have been a little cheesy.  (And speaking of Kevin, did anyone happen to catch that old "Will & Grace" episode where Jack [Sean Hayes] stalks Kevin only to have the star invite him in and signal the Footloose theme song with the clap of his hands?  Hilarious.)

Finally, I can't very well write a post about Footloose without commenting on the dancing.  It was good.  Darned impressive.  And that comes from someone whose dance skills fall somewhere in line with those of "Seinfeld's" Elaine.             

Movie Moment: Crazy Stupid Love

Nine times out of ten, the trailers spoil the movie. Yet when I went to see Crazy Stupid Love I was surprised to find that it offered more story and more layers than the previews had promised. Part romantic comedy, part drama, Crazy Stupid Love centers around Cal Weaver (Steve Carell), a nice-guy insurance salesman who's just been dumped by his wife (Julianne Moore). Depressed and alone, he starts haunting bars and spouting his sad story to anyone who will listen. Enter gorgeous, confident trust fund case Jacob Palmer (Ryan Gosling). Taking pity on Cal and his lack of game, Jacob revamps Cal's wardrobe, brings him to a salon, and shows him how to chat up women in a My Fair Lady-style transformation. (Well, if My Fair Lady were a bromance.)

But then Jacob meets Hannah (Emma Stone), the "game changer." Just jilted by her dweeby lawyer boyfriend (Josh Grobin), a guy whose only charm was his security, Hannah sets out to do something reckless only to soften Jacob with the allure of her naivete.

Had things ended here, this would've been a different kind of movie. A more surface kind of movie. But Love isn't about easy hookups or black and white relationships that can be saved on the strength of grand gestures. It's about the gray areas and the complications and the parts that get left in between.

If I say too much I'll spoil it, but this cast of characters, which includes Marisa Tomei and Kevin Bacon, is unexpectedly intertwined, creating plot twists that are not only entertaining but that deepen the story. And although the ending is marked by a grand gesture, it's more a culmination of the many false starts that came before it than an out-of-the-blue deus ex machina.

Tender and thought-provoking, Crazy Stupid Love is about all the stuff we have to go through to find and keep our soul mates. Yet it's spiked with just enough humor to prevent it from taking itself too seriously.

Movie Moment: X-Men: First Class

I've been watching a lot of movies lately.

The most recent was X-Men: First Class. I wasn't too keen on seeing it. It was the bf's pick, and while I enjoy the occasional Marvel movie adaptation, I'm more of a Spider-Man kind of girl. Nevertheless, I'd seen all of the other X-Men installments, so it was kind of interesting to find out how some of the mutants came to be who they are through the lens of this 1960s-era prequel. For example, the smoldering go-to-hell Mystique (in this version Jennifer Lawrence) was once a scared little girl hiding her blue scales and red hair. Beast (Nicholas Hoult) was a glasses-wearing nerd, and Magneto (Michael Fassbender) began on the side of the mutants before killing his mentor (a menacing Kevin Bacon) and crossing over to the dark side. All that and we find out how Xavier (James McAvoy) becomes wheelchair-bound, too. Despite the convoluted, somewhat drawn-out plot, these kernels of information provided the kind of human interest necessary to keep my interest in a movie barraged by explosions and guns. The 1960s fashions helped, too. At least I didn't fall asleep like I did during Transformers 2 at the IMAX a few years back. With Transformers 3 out in theaters, I may want to stock up on Coca Cola . . .