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Awix (3310 KP) rated Dirty Dancing (1987) in Movies

Sep 14, 2020 (Updated Sep 14, 2020)

Dirty Dancing (1987)

1987 | Drama, Music, Romance

8.1

(55 Ratings)

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(My partner made me watch it after I forced her to sit through one Hammer horror too many.) Cheese-tastic dance movie. Innocent young girl experiences dance-oriented sexual awakening at a grim holiday camp in 1963. This mostly takes the form of her just standing there looking bemused while Patrick Swayze performs whole-body pelvic thrusts in her direction.

'The ultimate chick flick' (according to her indoors anyway) but looks just like a rather corny terpsichorean melodrama to me, not especially well-acted or directed - very reminiscent of films from the period in which it is set, although with a bit of slightly grittier content. That said, the soundtrack ping-pongs back and forth between the early 60s and the late 80s. In the end I did enjoy it a lot, although probably not for the reasons the makers intended (I particularly liked the moment where a bit of suspect editing makes it look like one guy is playing a sax solo on a trumpet). Silly, harmless fun.

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Awix (3310 KP) rated Nosferatu (Eine Symphonie Des Grauens) (1922) in Movies

Jan 28, 2021

Hugely influential unauthorised adaptation of Dracula. Young estate agent's helper Hutter trots off to Transylvania to oversee the sale of a house to the reclusive (and rather repulsive) Count Orlok; Orlok takes a fancy to Hutter's wife; bad things ensue.

Basically just handles the first half of the book, and bolts a different ending on, but you can still see why the Stoker estate sued. Nevertheless, the presentation of Dracula/Orlok as a near-feral atavism is striking (and also much closer to the book than most films get); the film was designed by practising occultists which may explain the carefully composed visual sense of it (also the use of genuine magical script in some of the scenes). Very creepy and effective, though you have to take the age of the thing into account, not to mention the performance styles. Which soundtrack you listen to may also make a big difference (I recommend James Bernard's Hammer-style offering from the late 1990s). One of the great foundational horror films.