Dance Flick

I've got a ton of errands to do for my upcoming trip, and yesterday I was up in Nashua to cross a few items off my list. I took the opportunity to duck into the AMC in Tyngsboro for a pre-noon four buck showing of Dance Flick, the new Wayans Brothers comedy that came out over the weekend.

One of my favorite things about the AMC are the goofy promos before the movie featuring the AMC mascot, which is basically a small man made out of film. My favorite is the intro to the trailers, in which the film dude waves his film hands over a crystal ball (to see what's coming in the future, get it?). The soundtrack of this clip is a little scratchy, as if they have been playing it for about twenty years. Like decrepit drive-ins, there is something soothing about the continuity of these types of experiences.

I mention this because in a couple days I should be overseas. I've noticed that there is actually an AMC in this first place I'm visiting. I'm eager to see if they have the same mascot in their promos.

Note: I just went and looked on-line and found out that the mascot's name is "Clip." Here's a photo of him (from this page), and there are several video on this page.

As far as the movie, after a string of disappointments and disgruntlements lately, I was really in the mood for something that wasn't going to offend me. I suppose that was a dangerous position to put myself in, walking into a movie like Dance Flick, but I still held out hope.

As I've mentioned, comedy get plays by different rules than drama. This goes double for parody movies like this one. The story in this case needs to be only enough to hold ones interest as a platform for a string of stupid jokes.

Beyond this, the most I usually hope for is that the movie is not disgustingly gross. In that respect, I was really worried in the first two minutes, when we got an over-the-top urination joke, followed by a view of a guy who literally puts his head up his own ass. Cripes, this was going to be a long movie.

But it was as if the Wayans Brothers, conscious of the fact that a certain segment of today's audiences expect a dose of scatalogy in order to laugh, provided the obligatory helping right up front, in to get it out of the most. The nadir of taste in the movie was right at the beginning. From that point forward, the disgust-o-meter registered at much milder levels.

So was the movie funny? Yes. I found myself laughing out loud at least a dozen times.

Was that enough to make me happy that I had spent the time to see this movie? Indeed it was. It was exactly what I expected and hoped it would be, nothing more and nothing less. But it was enough to break a losing streak and set my mood right again.