Featured attraction
As they say on fight night, are you ready to rhumba? And mambo? And samba? Not since Strictly Ballroom, to which Dance With Me owes more than a shake of its sleek hips, has there been a film that so tempted you to rush out afterward and sign up for lessons at the nearest Arthur Murray dance studio.
Dance With Me is stuffed to bursting with vivacious, sexy, Latin-influenced dance sequences. All this shimmying and shaking doesn't make this romantic drama, adeptly directed by Randa Haines (Wrestling Ernest Hemingway), an especially great or original movie, but it sure makes it a fun one. Dance tells the story of a young Cuban (Chayanne) who moves to Houston—the details of exactly how he gets out of Cuba are glossed over—to reunite with the American (Kristofferson) he knows to be his father. The older man, a dance instructor who owns his own studio, is clueless to the fact that Chayanne, whom he hires as a janitor, is actually his son. In between changing light bulbs and displaying smooth terpsichorean moves of his own, Chayanne casts poignant looks Kristofferson's way and romantic ones toward Williams, a hardworking, ambitious single mom who teaches at the studio.
This plot is as creaky and clichéd as they come, but it is served up appealingly here with oodles of energy and sincerity by an attractive, multicultural cast. Chayanne, a Puerto Rican-born, monomonikered, Latin market singing sensation, displays a sleepy charm and the kind of dreamy, chiseled good looks that decades ago turned Robert Taylor and Tyrone Power into matinee idols but are now more frequently seen on soap stars playing characters with names like Ridge and Tyler. The equally gorgeous Williams, whose acting is getting better with every film, comes on strong here, and her dancing sizzles. Kristofferson is grizzledly effective, and Joan Plowright scores laughs as an older dance student panting after Chayanne. (PG)
Bottom Line: An invitation worth accepting
Wesley Snipes, Stephen Dorff
Blade, a silly, pumped-up techno-thriller in which Snipes spends 24-7 slaying vampires, is full of helpful tips on how best to battle what the movie calls nocturnus humanis. Give vampires a whiff of garlic and you send 'em into anabolic shock. Flashing a cross is pish-posh, but silver stakes are worth their cost in gold. To blow a vampire away forever, fill hollow-point bullets with garlic and aim for heads and hearts. Who says movies can't be educational?
If you have no pressing need to eliminate the undead, there's little else to be gained by seeing Blade, which is based on a Marvel Comics superhero. As the title character, Snipes, decked out in leather, shades and a scowl, does some nifty martial arts work, but he's not really stretching his acting muscles. Dorff, all attitude and messy hair, snarls through his role as a megalomaniacal vampire ("Tonight, mankind comes to an end!"). (R)
Bottom Line: Lots of action and special effects, but toothless
Ralph Fiennes, Uma Thurman, Sean Connery
When a bottle of champagne is uncorked late in The Avengers, it is the only moment of effervescence in an otherwise disastrously flat, would-be blockbuster. Allegedly based on the witty, ultra-cool British TV series that aired here from 1966 to '69, the only thing this Avengers shares with its swinging, earlier incarnation is a London setting. The plot, about a power-crazed maniac (Connery, wearing a truly moldy rug) out to control the world's weather, is incomprehensible blather, and neither Fiennes nor Thurman, playing British secret agent John Steed and his helper Mrs. Emma Peel, can hold a teacup to the incomparable originals (Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg). (PG)
Bottom Line: How do you say "stinks" with an English accent?
Alan Arkin, Marisa Tomei, Natasha Lyonne
Decamping under cover of early morning darkness, the Abramowitz clan sneaks out owing the rent on yet another dumpy apartment at the seedy edges of Beverly Hills. "It's not normal to move every three months," whines 15-year-old Vivian (Lyonne, a gifted young actress) as she, her dad (Arkin, terrific as ever) and two brothers drive around waiting for enough light to find an even cheaper place in 90210 land. Slums of Beverly Hills, set in 1976, is a comically poignant tale about a troubled family—Mom has long since split—trying desperately to hang on. Director-writer Tamara Jenkins, who has said that her debut movie is semiautobiographical, exhibits a vigorous, original voice and is well-served by an exceptionally skilled cast. (R)
Bottom Line: Cute movie about growing up poor among the rich
>THE YOUNG GIRLS OF ROCHEFORT A mod, candy-colored 1967 musical about French twin sisters who long for the bright lights of Paris, the newly rereleased The Young Girls of Rochefort offers the welcome chance to see Catherine Deneuve alongside the saucy, sparkling Françoise Dorléac, her real-life older sister. Dorléac, who made more than 20 films, was only 25 when she died in a car crash in Nice in 1967, shortly after completing Girls for director Jacques Demy (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg). Seen today, the film is an exquisite time piece, filled with romantic Michel Legrand songs that all sound the same, white go-go boots and a dapper Gene Kelly. (G)
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
