This is some hot tango! ( With Jean-Claude Van Damme martial artist actor)

Well I have to admit fasc, I'm with you on that one. It reminds me of watching actors "play" musical instruments.

Then again there are probably so many military movies that I watch and think its legit meanwhile others are groaning that's its so poorly done and inaccurate lol
 
fascination said:
wow...looking back on it now...call me a snob...I think they all are pretty stinky
Click to expand...

Yes, it is interesting to watch with the perspective of dancer's eyes now at these scenes that I thought were so amazing when I first saw them in the movies. If you take away the camera angles, passionate looks of the actors and just break it down into what they are actually doing step and technique wise, it is not as exciting a dance scene as it seemed when I first saw it in the movies.
 
Feel free to shoot me down, but I don't think it matters if it's good or bad tango. (Yes. I agree it's bad.) I also remember being wowed by the True Lies tango, however bad. We've had these conversations here billions (okay lots) of times, especially in the DWTS threads. My take is same as always. Exposure of the general public to dance is a good thing, net net.

People can always do what many of us, myself included, did. They can find out how bad movie dancing is AFTER movie dancing motivates them to get into a studio to learn how to dance. :cool:
 
debmc said:
I wonder why the tango is usually the dance that most movies use as the partner dance to demonstrate how "hot" the stars are dancing??....
They don't have the celebs do a rumba or a bolero... always a tango... and, always argentine tango too, from what little I know of tango.....
Click to expand...
I'm guessing the tango has the masculine aspect built in for the character development. Doing a bolero rumba makes the main male look effeminate to the general non dancer crowd.
 
Looking at Van Damme number, a woman viewer is not concentrating on technique that much, but how unbelievably sexy he is, even though his tango is not perfect. That was a special clip for the song; obviously he was invited to do a clip. And of cause it is very theatrical.
I did not watch nether “True lies” or any Van Damme movies, but will rent them now out of curiosity.
From research I learned that Van Damme is a martial art guy, and there is a movie "The Expendables 2” where all three Stallone, Schwarzenegger and Van Damme are in , but no tango though:) . Hope it is not all non-stop fighting/martial art and car smashing.
 
Remember the movie "Black Swan"... I think that was the name... when the actress supposedly mastered ballet in 9 months. All the ballet dancers were protesting that she had a ballet double, and that you just could not claim an actress through "hard work" mastered 20 years of ballet training in 9 months. Yes, she did do some things... but it was mostly the body double, and camera angles and good acting. The original Flashdance... Jennifer Beals looked awesome dancing, until it was revealed that it was not actually Jennifer Beals. Dancing in movies.. never representative .... though I was most impressed with Vanessa Williams in Dance With Me... but she did have an extensive dance and musical theater background.
 
Actors act, dancers dance. Some do a little bit of both, but in almost all cases, only one well.

As far as True Lies vs. Scent of a Woman, remember, Lies is an action movie, and basically over the top--I mean they blew up the Seven Mile Bridge to the Florida Keys in the movie. I think they were going for something a little more dramatic with the tango. Scent is a story-driven movie, and as such tries for a little more believeability. I actually read that Pacino didn't want to learn to dance properly, so they just filmed a bunch of steps and edited them together to make it look like he was actually dancing.
 
Joe said:
Actors act, dancers dance. Some do a little bit of both, but in almost all cases, only one well.
Click to expand...

I feel that dancers don't make very good actors (although you would think the opposite), as made very clear by the ballet movie Center Stage. And actors... well I don't know how I feel about some actors dancing sometimes....
 
I think whoever it was that talked about musical instruments made a great point. It's very unusual to have an actor in a music movie actually play the instrument. If you do play an instrument, just save yourself the angst and DO NOT look at the fingering or bowing or whatever when they are pretending to play.

I almost fell over, the time when I was watching that stupid Nick at Night show (My Wife and Kids?) when I realized that the cute little kid, Noah Gray-Cabey, was actually playing the piano. (He's a prodigy. I can't remember what classical piece he was playing, but he was maybe 8 or 9 at the time.) It was obvious that he was actually playing. Blew me away, but he is definitely the exception rather than the rule.

I don't expect movie dancing to be any different. Most actors don't do it well. Maybe my expectations are too low. *shrug*
 
smidra86 said:
I feel that dancers don't make very good actors (although you would think the opposite), as made very clear by the ballet movie Center Stage.
Click to expand...

I think it would depend largely on the style of dance. I can't imagine a ballroom couple doing well if they can't turn on the appropriate acting mode for Cha Cha versus Bolero, e.g.
 
Pacino's dance in SoaW was the first time I'd ever seen anything onscreen that made me want to go out and learn partner dancing. And wasn't Gabrielle Anwar delicious? It's hard to remember her like that; nowadays, my mental image of her is with a gun in her hands.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Dance Ads

Advertise on Dance Forums Reach dancers, teachers, studios, event organizers, and dance-friendly brands. View ad options
Back
Top