Havana Nights! Oh what a night!

DancingMommy

DancingMommy

Active Member
Just rented the DVD of Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights. My goodness what a lovely film. It was incredible to see such a great production from a technical aspect. The costuming was UNREAL for its authenticity and the characters were very believable (unlike the 1st installment :!: ).

The music was incredible as well. I especially liked the use of more contemporary musical styles (hip hop) merged into the traditional latin sound. I ran out yesterday and bought the soundtrack CD and that's a rare thing for me to do. 8)

What I enjoed most about the film was that the choreographer Joan Jansen lent her personal story for the plot. I do believe that is what gave it an air of believability. Coupling that and some of my mom's experiences during the same time period, made it even more "real".

This is one DVD I have to own. But then, I have the original DD as well...

One thing I appreciated was the authentic "cheesiness" of the 1950s Mambo. It's neat to see the way the dance has evolved over time. I think I would have had less respect for the choreographer had she/her team attempted to use Salsa and call it Mambo,

Muscially speaking, the track from the dance competition is like straight up Xavier Cugat. Gives me the chills and takes me back... Boy does it take me back...
 
I know we already have threads dedicated to the movie from earlier in the year. (Darn it, we need a search feature here.)

I guess for me, I was NOT as crazy about integrating the hip-hop into the music as much... partly because it seemed to be the case for most of the music they put in the movie. As more of a music nut who notices these things, I wish they had at least a few more authentic-sounding pieces in the movie. Sure, I liked the competition pieces a lot, but to me and many of the other critics, it felt more like something specifically geared to a VH1/MTV crowd than it was. Plus, I wanted a bit more development of the characters around the two kids; the parents were championship ballroomers, and I would have liked to see a deeper look at the clash of cultures than they gave. The difference between the "rules" of ballroom and the "no rules" of that particular club salsa...
 
I agree about character development, lol! But there's only so much you can do in 120 pages of script, lol! Unless of corse you have Kevin Costner producing it..... But then the title would have been Dirty Dancing With Dictators.....
 
etchuck said:
(Darn it, we need a search feature here.)
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Headline block at the top of the page, second small icon in from the left: magnifying glass/search....

DancingMommy said:
I agree about character development, lol! But there's only so much you can do in 120 pages of script, lol!
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Yes, but that movie was also on the short side time-wise... I certainly think they could have easily added 5-10 minutes of character development and *still* had a short movie... :?
 
I liked the dancing, and I thought the movie was ok overall. It was an enjoyable watch. However, I thought the acting was terrible!

Oh yeah, I also loved the costuming. Simply gorgeous!
 
ok honestly.. i wasn't impressed at all with the Dancing and/or Acting.. may be its because with the dancing they tried to reflect the level back then? .. i dont know since i don't have much history knowledge in that sense.. but also maybe because unfortunately i'm not a great fan of ballroom styles.. no offense intended, but i could have went to sleep watching the dancing :? .. didn't do it for me.. certainly not as a dance movie.. but maybe thats just me.
 
I am glad I am not the only one. In fact that scene where they go to the club would actuallly turn me off of dancing salsa if I didn't already do it. I do have to watch the DVD to see if they extended the dance scenes somewhat.
 
I thought the movie was cute, but I couldn't stand the music and thought the dancing was rather boring. Just once I'd like to see salsa dancing in a movie that looks like what I see when I hit a hot club...just once.
 
:lol: Let's not start this discussion. Yes I know it was Mambo--I wish they'd show mambo dancing in a movie they way I see it in hot club. I just didn't see any passion in the competition scenes...it seemed so sterile.
 
I think a two week long partnership between two different dancing backgrounds would be sterile. I thought it was actually more authentic that way. I watched the extra scenes on the DVD and liked how they did so much of their own dancing. Expecially with her parents in the crowd and the conservative mindset of the 50's I think it would be tough to let it all out.

I remember in the first DD movie how Baby kept forgetting to close her fingers on her right hand even after repeated corrections. That is a very common beginner mistake when learning in a studio. I think it added to the authenticity of learning to dance and probably wasn't planned.

I think they do need another dance movie with more advanced couple dancing, maybe that J-Lo movie will be it, if it ever gets released.
 
Ditto DanceAm!

You can't expect a movie set in the 1950s to reflect modern sensibilities. That is just plain ridiculous. ;)
 
The J'Lo will still released. At least it should Instyle and Marie Claire both feature her on the cover this month. I never saw the issue of people. I would doubt they would do so many tie ins and not release it.

I like DD for what it is. I wasn't expecting it to be all hot and sexy. To have dancing in it that looks like it does today would ruin the movie imho

Tracks 6 and 8 are my favs on the soundtrack
 
Guajira and Represent, Cuba! are my faves and Number 11 (the competition track) is my husband's fave. He's all about authentic sounding music. ;-)
 
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