Cinema Science

Sometime later today or tomorrow Lauren is going to offer up a guest review of Step Up 2: Step Upper. I'm sure that is not actually what it is called and I can't bring myself to go over to IMDB to find out the real title. To get everyone a little warmed up for that I offer up her review of the original Step Up.

I finally saw the film Step Up. It was pretty intense. If by intense I mean terrible. And by terrible I mean awesome. If by that, it is really awesome.

Again, it's in my favorite vein of movies where someone has to choose between _________ and jail. In this case, it was dancing. Dancing or jail. I wish these were the sort of situations that presented themselves to me on a daily basis.

The premise of this film is that Tyler (the main character) and his homeboys Mac and Skinny leave a party and break into the Maryland School of the Arts. Mac and Skinny get away, while Tyler gets caught. By the judge, Tyler has to do community service at the scene of the crime. This gives him ample opportunity to demonstrate his dance skillz on the hood of a stolen car courtesy of Mac and Skinny after work. This grabs the attention of dance aficionado Nora, who is in desperate need of a dance partner for the Senior Showcase.

Interesting things I have to point out:

-Skinny has a scrolling marquee belt that says "SKINNY." I believe that Skinny is 12 years old.

-These guys hug. A lot. Mac and Tyler (and probably Skinny as well, but his character is really stupid so I don't remember half the time he was on screen) play basketball. Street basketball. You know it must be intense. So intense that they hug after every basket. It got to the point where they hugged more than me and my girlfriends, and we hug a lot.

-Nora and Tyler dance on a roof of some industrial building. You know, because that's where she used to go as a kid. Now seriously, who lets their kids hang out in the industrial district of Baltimore? That's really not ok.

-Eventually Tyler quits the dancing because Nora's partner comes back. He does, however, show up five minutes before her Senior Showcase and tell her he's ready to do it. They go with "the old routine."

-After all this (or maybe before some of this, who knows) 12 year old Skinny steals PJ's Escalade. PJ shoots him, and he dies.

That's why it's not a good idea to steal PJ's Escalade.

EDIT: Best quote of the movie:

Tyler: I know about having nothing. It sucks.