Center Stage (2000)

Cartoony variation on "Fame" concerns a group of teenagers enrolled at the American Ballet Company who rebel against their instructors, struggle with their weight, battle with their parents and--most especially--check each other out during morning ballet exercises! While cobbling together scenes from "Flashdance", "All That Jazz", "A Chorus Line" along with "Fame" (its prime inspiration), director Nicholas Hytner and screenwriter Carol Heikkinen appear to assume that a few jazzy dance montages set to an artificial backbeat will substitute for the lack of honest characters--or any kind of characters, for that matter. Despite stray vulgarities and a bit of underage sex, "Center Stage" is squeaky-clean and square, the kind of matinée underachiever which attempts to combine Michael Jackson moves with tutus. As timid over its sexuality as it is about dramatic backstage business, the movie is nothing more than a smelly soaper scored for gullible 'tweens. * from ****

This movie isn't perfect. The acting and script are sometimes a little clunky, but considering dance movies are notoriously difficult to get right, I love this film and I think it gels together well. The casting of Ethan Stiefel as the lead male is a master stroke -- he plays the egotistical yet gifted star extremely well. Amanda Schull as the naive female lead is, to me, more of a natural dancer than actor, but overall, she really does well in quite a meaty role. I love the soundtrack, especially Jamiroquai's 'Canned Heat', and the dancing is fantastic. The locations are very impressive. The sub-plot of the pushy mom living her dreams through her anorexic daughter who doesn't want to be a dance star, is impressive. One flaw is how everything is neatly tied up at the end, and the love scene is terribly awkward, complete with over-wrought music. Also Schull's character stating to her ex-lover that "as a boyfriend, you kind of suck" doesn't ring true. I mean, he's her future employer, and she just wouldn't say that.

Center StageThe main difference between attending ballet school and public school is that at ballet school they encourage you to sleep with your teacher to get ahead.A fact at least one student in this drama proves.With only a few openings for the prestigious ballet academy workshop, a group of aspiring dancers (Zoe Saldana, Susan May Pratt, Amanda Schull) compete against one another and themselves for the coveted positions.Meanwhile, there is a power struggle between the troupe's current choreographer Jonathon (Peter Gallagher) and Cooper (Ethan Stiefel), the lead dancer looking to replace him.Tackling the commonplace concerns facing ballet dancers, from eating disorders to complex love triangles that can only be explained through exaggerated movements, Center Stage is a realistic yet ridiculous look at the cutthroat art form.Besides, wouldn't sex with a ballerina have to involve 5 additional ballerinas, just to make it feel like there's someone else there? (Yellow Light)

If he were to make a dance film it might be something like this only much more extreme and there would have been the unexpected, don't ask me what. Still when I watch it I think of Kuchar, I see a film that ought to be attributed to the master underground dramatist as the means of its redemption. So I have a great affection for this so bad it's so good movie. I am a big dance fan but I honestly don't remember anything about the dance sequences in the movie. Except that the last number is so over the top it's under the bottom and Ethan Stiefel is sort of painful to watch as the bad bike boy Anacin to the disco beat. Anyway the movie is succulent it goes down like cheetos and coca-cola.If you want to see something with more depth I'd suggest "Stepping Out" with Liza, which is actually a pretty profound movie that suggests that the audience need not only pay tickets and watch, that they might also do and that that might be even better. I'd like to think that's dangerous stuff but of course no revolution resulted. Possibly because when Liza kicks up her heels in a solo turn, we're put in our proper place! And probably in the film the benefit of doing your own things are linked to romance. Still, there are people in the movie, amateurs, rising to the occasion and in the end getting in their small way to be artists.And, of course, "The Red Shoes"!!