Dance with Me (1998)

to sum it up, the movie actually made me get up and dance. generally, along with the masterpieces that make you think, wonder, guess, or everything at the same time, I love movies that just bring the positive vibes to me. "Dance with me is certainly not a highly valuable masterpiece with the deepest meaning... but I gave it 10 starts for being the kind of the movie that can actually make you feel positive and peaceful; and for having that incredibly relaxed and at the same time playful mood ... I'm ready to watch it again whenever I need some positive energy or whenever I'm into dancing mood:) Go ahead with it especially if you are or have ever been into dancing

Dance With Me (1998): Dir: Randa Haines / Cast: Vanessa Williams, Chayanne, Kris Kristofferson, Joan Plowright, Jane Krakowski: Misfire film about engagement of personalities. It is an inner request by the film's heroine in her need for companionship. Chayanne is from Cuba and he travels to Texas to accept a job at a dance club and meet his father. Kris Kristofferson fills that role and helps him get settled in. He meets a fascinating dancer but the father of her daughter is a successful dancer too. Directed by Randa Haines who previously made Children of a Lesser God and again creates relationships through expression and talent. Vanessa Williams is an engaging actress despite the predictable storytelling. She is a festive dancer and pulls of all the stops with her dance partner. Chayanne delivers the best performance as someone seeking opportunity and discovers romance and a reuniting with his father. However, it isn't difficult to predict where this is all heading. Kristofferson as Chayanne's father is standard, and Joan Plowright is subdued with a useless cardboard role. Jane Krakowski plays one of the one dimensional dancers. The dancing is graceful and certainly presents a positive distraction from the flimsy writing. With that said, the film's theme seems to work as an expression through artistic talent. It is about the love of dancing not the nature of it. Score: 5 / 10

First: I did dance myself but had to stop due to health reasons - and because I really sucked at dancing (two left feet and no coordination to boot), so I HATE dance movies (jealousy and all, y'know?) and tend to be a mean five letter word when it comes to critique. And although I watched Dirty Dancing eleventy million times when I was younger I never really liked it.I zapped in around the beginning of "Dance with Me", where Rafael talks to Ruby about dancing and she tells him off. My first impulse was "Hah! Serves you right. Dancing isn't the breeze you believe it to be." and to switch channels.I don't know what made me stay. Maybe it was Chayanne's boyish smile (which surprises me a lot as neither he himself nor the character he portrays is my type at all), maybe it was the overall lightness of the movie, I couldn't say. But stay I did.And I didn't regret it. The dancing is wonderful. It speaks. It tells me things about the characters that no dialogue could ever bring across without being - well, yes - cliché. And yes, the movie is predictable and - here we go again - cliché (I seem to like this word a lot tonight...) but somehow this does not diminish its charm one jot. In a sort of twisted logic it even adds to it. Don't ask me why, for me, it just did. The lack of dialogue had the potential for a decided minus for the film, but I found the dancing, the music, the scenes (the engagement party, for example) expressed more than words alone could say.The movie is kinda cheesy, uneventful on a bigger Michael Bay-ish scale and slow, granted, but hey, that's life. In consequence, the film itself lives and breathes and one becomes part of the dance studio family, whether one wants to or not.Consequently, I was no where near ready for the end after the dance contest. I wanted to see more of the gang. I wanted to share their lives just a little longer. I was really sad the movie was already over.It left me with a light hearted feeling of contentment, almost joy. I didn't know where it came from, for I passionately loath dance movies, especially dance movies containing dances I did or always wanted to do. Not so in this case. I liked it. Heck, I LOVED it! For the first time a dance movie left me with a "Hey, you did it! Congrats!"-feeling. Thank you, "Dance with me". You did it!

The whole story of Rafael Infante's dancing dream starts in the still conformist country of Cuba, in the town of Santiago. He is waiting for his visa to leave Cuba and enter the United States from a letter from John Burnett, who runs a ballroom dance studio in Texas. After the conformation of the visa, news of Rafael's acceptance spreads across his friends and with some magic, the salsa song "Good-bye Santiago" wails across a salsa party as the friends say good-bye to Rafael, wondering if Rafael will ever return to his homeland. As Rafael goes to the USA, he is met up by a professional ballroom dancer, Ruby Sinclair at an intercity bus station, and then, finally takes him to the ballroom studio to meet John Burnett. Later on, as Rafael is introduced to his new home, Ruby and one of his dance partners practice a cha-cha routine, and Rafael is astounded by their cha-cha dancing. Rafael then realizes Vanessa's cha-cha solo dance practice and that her cha-cha does not resemble the traditional cha-cha done in Cuba.Rafael, later on, releases his new talent as a mechanic, spotting John Burnett's old truck that never has been driven for a while, and his strong interest in fishing, which he explains to John. John returns his favor, saying that he loves fishing as a hobby. Later on, Rafael eventually does overhaul repairs on his truck and made it like new, shocking John.Ruby, at the same time, at the ballroom studio, is waiting on his old dance partner, Julian Marshall, as the Open Professional Dance Championships in Las Vegas is days away and some studio participants practice for this big dance competition. I can spot Rafael's crush on Ruby at a studio dance party where he grabs her into a rolling-in turn during a social swing dance and zips up a loose zipper on her dress in the middle of her dance. With that, this leads to their first date at a dance club at Titon's and I liked Johnny Palanco's "La Receta" as they tried to do their first dance. All went well before Rafael accepts an invitation from a Cuban female stranger to dance, and their date spirals down to an insulting end. Ruby almost does not accept Rafael's apology for the botched date, but as the story goes on, their second date at Titon's involving a mambo round is much better, enhancing Rafael's and Ruby's relationship. Rafael meets with Patricia, partnering up with John for the theatrical arts category, and spotting an opportunity, lifts Patricia in the air. John then complains that his back is giving away too much and Patricia finding out that Rafael took ballet. So with that, Rafael and Patricia will compete in Las Vegas while John watches. Ruby now realizes that Rafael has a partner, and Ruby realizes that because she is now with her son Peter, he and Julian have to win the dancesport event so they can have a great professional ballroom dance career. In the fishing scene, Rafael almost discounts Rafael's American ties as a Cuban citizen and almost rejects him completely, but not until the height of the Las Vegas championships does he forgive Rafael and says out loud to him that you are actually an American citizen, not a Cuban citizen that he thought he was....After making it to the final round after doing a great semi-final samba heat, the final Latin dances in Julian and Ruby's championship face-off with 5 other couples (samba, cha-cha, rumba, and paso doble) has several domestic disputes but they go well. Their last dance, the rumba, is interrupted by Ruby's daydreaming of Rafael, which almost ruin their chance of winning 1st place, but all of this resolves, and when the dancing was over, they still got 1st place. The win was like magic...thanks to Rafael!!The showcase salsa dance between Rafael and Ruby at a post-championship dance party was amazing. Amazing moves, and finally, looks like Ruby had incarnation with Rafael even though Julian and Ruby will have their success later on. So that's what the movie is basically about.