Save the Last Dance

Rating:
Summary: Best movie of 2001
Review: What up?!? this movies tite and shows real aspects of life combined with stuff you totally wish your life was like, and some hot dance moves too!

Rating:
Summary: Hip Hop Juliet
Review: The just released movie "Save The Last Dance" is a must see for everybody, this movie has multiple elements that will please even the hardest critic. There is romance, conflict, music, dance, dance, and more dance. The cast is beautiful and everyone will instantly fall in love with the 2 main characters. This movie is not yet on DVD or video but this is definetly a movie you will want to add to your collection. A modern day romeo and juliet with feel good music, humor, and romance. This movie is touching enough to make girls cry but hip enough to make the guys stay in their seats. This movie is very enjoyable and as soon as this DVD is offered, I am snagging one.

Rating:
Summary: mtv does it again... but worse.
Review: I'm not a teenager anymore, but I still like to see teen flicks. And I'm still a little bitter about the lack of teen movies that came out when I was actually a teenager. With the exception of Clueless, the '90s were lacking in teenage films. Luckily we had 90210 and My So-Called Life. Back to the real subject - Save the Last Dance. It just didn't do it for me. It's an MTV production - those same people who put out Varsity Blues which was a surprisingly good movie. Save the Last Dance doesn't have the same depth. It was pretty cheesy. I didn't believe that Sarah (Julia Stiles) could fit in that well at her new school and barely look back to her old school and friends. Besides just the race factor, switching schools in high school is tough even if you're moving to a school with similar demographics. During the course of the movie, she talked to her old "best" friend once! The best friend had approximately 30 seconds of screen time. That doesn't seem realistic at all. I don't think someone would leave their old environment so easily and cleanly. And the dancing... ummm... it was ok. Julia Stiles doesn't look like a ballet dancer at all. My recommendation - wait until it comes out on video...

Rating:
Summary: Hip-hop-ingly Great
Review: This movie (aka flick) is one of the greatest works I've seen to this day. It draws your imagination and energy out at the same time making you wish you were there! Julia Stiles is magnificent in her role while Sean Patrick Thomas is relentless in helping her get over her fears and hardships to achieve happiness. It's simply wonderful!

Rating:
Summary: Really Good
Review: This movie will make you laugh and cry hystericaly. admitedly, there were more funny parts than sad, but the sad scenes were enough to jerk a tear or two. Very good.

Rating:
Summary: A Dance
Review: A girl (Stiles) from a small Midwestern town is moved to the south side of Chicago when her mother dies in a car accident, and she has to live with her father. Starting over at a new high school, she soon falls for an African American teenager (Thomas) with a less than idyllic past. They share a love for dance (ballet and hip hop respectively) and together they tackle the problems that go with an interracial relationship...

Rating:
Summary: Don't Save This Movie For Last
Review: Want to see a great movie with realistic drama, great characters, and plenty of excitement? Than make sure not to miss "Save The Last Dance".

Starring in "Save The Last Dance" is Julie Stiles, who plays Sarah. Sarah has just moved in with her dad into a not-so-nice neighborhood in Chicago. Sarah's mother died on the way to Sarah's Julliard dance recital, leaving Sarah overwhelmed with guilt and wanting nothing to do with dancing any longer. Sarah is immediately thrust into a new school where she is outnumbered by race. However, she manages to fit in, yet at the same time make some enemies. She finds a place for herself in a crowd that frequents the local dance clubs; and it's through this dancing she finds herself a boyfriend, a guy named Derek (played by Sean Patrick Thomas) who is planning to become a doctor. Derek is a sensitive and intelligent young man, but his friends leave a lot to be desired. After a somewhat rough start between Sarah and Derek, they hit it off pretty well.

But things are never far from exploding into disaster. Racial tension mounts between Derek's best friend and Sarah, who openly disapproves of their interracial relationship. Derek meanwhile is trying to get Sarah to open herself back up to dance and at the same time confront her irrational feeling of guilt over her mother's death. With pressure coming in at all sides to Sarah and Derek, their relationship seems doomed. Will Sarah ever be able to achieve her once strong desire to become a dancer? Will she and Derek ever be able to overcome their many obstacles? Will violence overcome both Sarah's relationship and friendship? Watch Save The Last Dance and find out.

A major plus in this movie is some of the dance scenes and music, if you like rap/hip-hop and dance. Sarah's last dance scene actually gave me goose bumps; it was an awesome display of modern dance and hip-hop mixed in with ballet. In the after-movie interview that you get with the video, Julia Stiles confessed that it took weeks to film that one dance scene, and that she trained very hard for the part. It shows. Another plus in this movie was the realistically gritty scenes between the characters. Racial tension is a difficult subject to tackle sometimes. However, Save The Last Dance manages to pull it off pretty well.

I really liked Sarah, the character that Julia Stiles played. She comes across as a tough, won't-take-anything-from-anyone type of girl who also has her share of emotional issues. I loved how she was so straight out and wouldn't take any crap from the people who insulted her. Many will also be able to empathize with her guilt and heartache at losing her mother, and her uncertainty in dealing with her father, who she barely knows. I also liked the part that Sean Patrick Thomas, as Derek, played. He managed quite admirably to pull off the role as bad-boy-turned-good and a serious student headed for Medical School. He also came across very convincingly as a caring boyfriend any girl would love to have. In the movie, one of Derek's best friends, to whom he is actually indebted (the guy covered for Derek in a past crime they both committed, back when Derek was into petty crimes and such), is trying to both bring him down by insulting Derek's girlfriend and by coercing him to join into his violent and illegal activities.

The other characters in "Save The Last Dance", although I didn't like them all, played their parts very well and helped the movie come together as a realistic, gritty high-school drama.

There wasn't much about this movie I didn't like. There is however a little bit of violence in the movie (it is rated PG13), and some disturbing racial tension. Sometimes I felt the racial problems were a little overdone, and sometimes the characters in that way were too cruel. I was a little annoyed at all the people who obviously wanted Derek and Sarah apart because of their different races. I mean, if they are happy, who cares about color? Leave them alone already! The movie seems to have a bit more meaning to it then you would think, especially if you've watched it as many times as I have.

Overall, I think many people will like this movie. It is of course available in both DVD and VHS formats, and sometimes is played on the premium movie channels on cable TV. Why not rent it and check it out if you already haven't? If you are turned off by movies with racial tension and some violence, then by all means skip this one. However, if you want a dramatic and realistic movie about growing up in a ghetto-like Chicago neighborhood, with a little romance thrown in, and want to see some awesome dancing, make sure to check out "Save The Last Dance"!

Rating:
Summary: One of the best movies
Review: This is one of my favorite movies of all time. It was the first movie I ever saw with Julia Stiles in, and she is now one of my favorite actresses. The story is so real. It starts when Julia's character, Sarah's, mother dies, in a car accident. She goes to live with her estranged father, in an almost-all black community. There is this whole inter-racial theme going on, and really puts up with what it is for whites to date blacks. The whole story is amazing, and there are so many sub-plots; teenage pregnancy, drugs, parent problems, (i.e. splitting, and death,) moving, and relationship. Sarah wants to go to Julliard for ballet, but then after she moves she goes to a club where everything is hip-hop, and she's on the outside. An amazing movie with an excellant cast.

Rating:
Summary: Terrific feel-good movie
Review: First off, I feel compelled to explain my rating system. I don't hold all movies to the same standard. Rather, I rate based on whether I feel the movie has achieved its goal or not. With this in mind, Save The Last Dance has done very well in being a feel-good dance movie that caters to the young generation without at the same time alienating anybody else who doesn't necessarily fit into the MTV mold.

I think this movie succeeds at being a little of everything; it's hip, it's accessible, it's got comedy and drama, exciting dance routines, it showcases fine acting talents, and, most of all, it's never corny (cliched at times, yes, but not corny). I think the biggest success of this film was that it incorporated elements of both black and white cultures in a way that was entertaining without being disrespectful. It's highly watchable -- I watched it with my entire family and we all enjoyed it immensely.

Sean Patrick Thomas steals the show as Derek, the male lead. He makes a charismatic performance as the young man from the 'hood trying to get into medical school. His character called for someone who could believably play 1) a boy who grew up in south side and 2) someone intelligent and well-read enough to get into Georgetown to study medicine. Whether he's hanging out with his friends who aspire to become thugs or debating literature in the classroom, Sean Patrick Thomas pulls off both very believably, which is really what makes his character fly.

Julia Stiles, on the other hand, plays the firecracker Sarah who was an aspiring ballerina until the untimely death of her mother, which causes her to move in with her father who lives on the wrong side of the tracks. Julia Stiles sparkles in this movie, and it was delightful to see her and Thomas play off each other.

Each of the supporting cast was well cast, as well. The dancing, too, was hip, exciting, and well-choreographed. The dances were well-orchestrated exclamation marks to scenes. MTV doesn't over-reach in this film and that's what made it work. They knew what they wanted and they did it well.

The genius of this film is the good balances it achieves between so many aspects. It's cool without alienating non-high schoolers, it's dramatic without being sappy, and it resorts to cliches at times without being corny. That, combined with the dances and the acting, make this movie a rock-solid feel-good crowd-pleaser. It's unfair to judge a crowd-pleaser to bio-epics and Oscar-winning dramas and say the former isn't a good movie. There are different types of movies, and this is one of the better feel-good movies I've seen in a while.

Rating:
Summary: PURE TRASH!!
Review: Trash is the softest word for this "movie". If we can call it movie, has no plot, bad perfomance, bad music, bad direction, everything's bad, starting by Julia Stiles, trying to play to be an actress. Don't waste money and time.