Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Footloss

There's a lot wrong with the movie "Footloose" but let's start with the fact that a small rural town has a tragedy where some drunk driving teenagers on their way to or from some dancing with rock and roll end up getting into an accident and get killed. In most towns, the locals would get together and after mourning the tragedy (or the Darwinism, if you're less charitable) and then enact some strict anti-drunk driving and anti-speeding laws, and perhaps set up some sort of "saferides" system to enable drunk kids to get home safely. But not the small town of Footloose! The town that seems to be run by Reverend John Lithgow decides instead to ban rock and roll music. What do they NOT ban?

1) Straddling two moving cars on a two lane road.

2) Sarah Jessica Parker.

3) A David Bowie-style haircut on Kevin Bacon that went out of style in the early '70s.

4) Games of chicken played with tractors.

See, it's my theory that the only problem with Kenny Loggins (who of course sang the theme song for the movie) is that if you let him sing for too long you end up with some "Highway to the Danger Zone" going on and suddenly Tom Cruise interrupts his homoerotic tryst with Val Kilmer and leaves the Top Gun training school long enough to start a shooting war with the Russians. (However, Loggins also sang the theme to Caddyshack so it's also equally likely that it could lead to all sorts of golf course hijinks and Rodney Dangerfield so let's give some credit where credit's due!).

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