Wednesday, August 24, 2005

I've been watching all these Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers movies lately, and then I see this on Dark Horizons--a little story about Hugh Jackman wanting to employ an Australian dance competition winner, Tom Williams, in his new Wolverine movie. The article provides a link to footage of the winning dance and, boy, do I ever miss the days of Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly.

Am I crazy or can this guy barely dance at all? He's hardly keeping time with the awful music, forgoing any steps in favour of rickety poses that aren't even particularly attractive or interesting. And the gracelessness of the dancers' movements is mirrored by their pathetic clothes. The girl's only sexy because she's almost naked. Which is nice, but actual nudity is too readily available in this world for it to mean anything.

One of the cool things about these Astaire/Rogers disks is that they all come with vintage shorts and cartoons, so you can somewhat simulate the 1930s moviegoing experience. Swing Time has a short called Hotel a la Swing that features a segment with a hell-themed floor show. They were studio dancers--no big names. But with only four cuts (each shot longer than Tom Williams' whole routine), they managed with dance and costumes to not only out-dance this Williams mug, but also to be sexier.

We are living in the Hanna Barbara era of sexiness. Mass-produced images of scantily clad crashing bores bully their way into the limelight, while only the lucky find out about quality art and porn.

All hail the lazy, horny prude.

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