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Dirty Dancing: The Corner’ingation of Baby

Mon, 05 Jun 2006 17:15:00 +0000

This latest from Team Tiger Awesome is a bit of a stretch from their A.C. Slater obsessions. But we enjoyed watching it a lot. Dare I say it, but I think we might've had the time of our lives.

“Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights”

Fri, 27 Feb 2004 21:47:00 +0000

If you go to "Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights" to enjoy the sexiness of the two young leads, Romola Garai and Diego Luna, you're not likely to be disappointed.

In last year's charming and overlooked film version of "I Capture the Castle," Garai gave a subtle performance as a young girl coming to terms with what used to be called her "womanly desires." You could see the transformation in the change of her carriage over the course of the movie, from slightly hunched-over to a self-assured upright bearing. Here, as the American daughter of a Ford executive relocated to Havana in the fall of 1958 (right before the revolution that drove Batista out of the country and put Castro in power), she gets to enact another young woman's sexual blossoming.

Garai's Katey is a bookworm (it's always the bookworms who effect the ripest transformation) who falls for Javier (Luna, one of the stars of "Y Tu Mamá También") a busboy at the luxury hotel where she and her family live. As in the first "Dirty Dancing," the change comes from dance. Javier teaches her Latin dancing and his exhortations to "feel the music" become the means out of her cocoon.

Seinfeld considers crawling back

Mon, 25 Jun 2001 16:50:00 +0000

The return of "Seinfeld"?

Well, possibly not for a while, but Jerry Seinfeld says reviving the four whiniest characters in TV history is not completely out of the question.

"That'll be a possibility once all four [of our] careers are definitely in the toilet," Seinfeld tells TV Guide.

And while some of his erstwhile costars have been doing their parts to make old Jerry a man of his word, Seinfeld himself says he's been kicking back and enjoying his own reruns.

Since the show went off the air, he says, "I've gotten to watch the show myself a little bit, which I never did during the nine years ... In fact, when people come up to me now and say, 'You know, I never saw your show when it was on, but I'm really getting into the reruns,' I always say, 'Yeah, me too.'"

I'm sure there's a "master of his own domain" joke in there somewhere ...

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No business like monkey business

"It's flattering to be asked to be a chimp, because you know they haven't cast you for what you look like."

-- Helena Bonham Carter, looking on the bright side of her simian turn in "The Planet of the Apes," in Premiere.

Blue Glow

Fri, 01 Sep 2000 19:15:00 +0000

Series

On Making the Band (9:30 p.m. Fri., ABC), O-Town heads to Cancun to chill out, but one of the boys comes home with a broken heart. Backstory (5:30 p.m. ET/9 PT, Sat., American Movie Classics) looks at the making of the WWII epic "The Longest Day." The movie follows. The updated The Outer Limits (8 p.m. Sun., Showtime) ends its run with a 90-minute finale featuring a liberal's most terrifying nightmare: Supreme Court Justice Charlton Heston. E! True Hollywood Story (9 p.m. Sun., E!) does some dirty dissing about the making of "Dirty Dancing." Moesha (8 p.m. Mon., UPN) opens its sixth season. With the future of UPN up in the air, black sitcoms may soon be homeless. As Chris Rock said on his recent season opener, "we could go from 'Moesha' to 'no-esha'." Biography (8 p.m. Mon., A&E) kicks off "Batman Week" with a new episode titled (no kidding) "Adam West: Behind the Cowl."

Specials

Queen Amilambada

Mon, 15 May 2000 16:00:00 +0000

Thought "Dirty Dancing" was as much a thing of the past as Jennifer Grey's old nose? Think again.

Last week, at the Cannes Film Festival, Artisan Entertainment and Miramax Films announced plans to make "Dirty Dancing 2," a sequel to the 1987 flick that had us all humming "(I've Had) The Time of My Life" for way too long.

But don't expect a nostalgic trip back to the Catskills, circa 1963. Oh no. This time the action will take place in present-day South Beach and be spiked with a Latin Miami twist.

According to Variety, Ricky Martin and Natalie Portman are in talks to reprise Patrick Swayze and Grey's twinkle-toed roles. It's also rumored that Swayze will make a cameo appearance.

So why the Forbidden Dance? Why now? "'Dirty Dancing' is a cultural touchstone and a phenomenal franchise property," opined Miramax co-chairman Harvey Weinstein.

Just so long as the Lambada doesn't make a comeback.

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Holy Father

"He thinks this makes him God."

-- Jeremy Sisto on why his father's tickled to bits that he landed the role of Jesus in a CBS miniseries.

Movies in heat

Tue, 09 May 2000 16:00:00 +0000

In a long, charged sequence in "Dirty Dancing," the working-class hunk Johnny (Patrick Swayze) is teaching the pampered teenager Baby (Jennifer Grey) how to dance.

At one point he's behind her and, with one hand on her bare belly, he uses the other to raise her arm up behind his head in a passionately nuzzling posture. Then he releases her arm and lets his free hand trail down her side, tracing her underarm and the outside curve of her breast. Baby bursts into laughter. And every time he attempts the move, the squirmy, eager girl gets the giggles. She just can't contain herself.

Finally, after a few stern, almost disgusted looks from Johnny, Baby manages to keep a straight face. Her eyes twinkle softly, and her movements and breathing slow down -- Baby has found her groove. Only now can the dance lesson proceed.

"Dirty Dancing" is the movie equivalent of a dopey juvenile novel, but it has a number of such primal scenes, and when it opened in 1987 it quickly became a surprise hit. Theaters were jammed with beaming, liquefying women of all ages, many of whom saw the movie over and over. What excited and pleased them wasn't just images of great pecs, fab butts and poppin' energy. It was the movie's portrayal of a young woman opening up to her deep sensations of lust and desire (and perhaps also the fantasy that she could come into her own, sexually, in a matter of weeks).

Time for one thing: A guide to fast-forwarding to the most sensuous moments on film

Fri, 06 Mar 1998 20:00:00 +0000

It was one of the biggest myths of parenting -- right up there with "we'll fit our new baby into our lifestyle." In exchange for forfeiting our right to ever be current on movies again, we would have all that stay-at-home time to catch up on videos after the kids were tucked in. But who has the time to rent a video, much less the stamina to watch one? Still, many of us, intent on keeping up appearances, continue to rent film after film instead of admitting that the only real reason to watch "The Postman Always Rings Twice" again is for the scene where Jack Nicholson grabs Jessica Lange, a frustrated and lustful housewife, throws her down on the flour-covered table where she's been making bread and kneads her creamy flesh before he devours her. For you lost souls, here's some help: Salon's guide to the most luscious, lip-biting, blanket-wringing celluloid moments.

Wings of Desire

BY MICHELLE GOLDBERG