Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 23, 1990 TAG: 9003231756
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Chris Gladden
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Up until last week, I hadn't paid much attention to the lambada, the Brazilian dance craze that involves a lot of suggestive body contact. Up until last week, there weren't two movies about the lambada playing in town.
Even then, I would have had no interest whatsoever in the lambada if a colleague - who keeps tabs on such things - hadn't told me that women who dance it are required to buy their clothes at Frederick's of Hollywood.
Last Friday I walked into Salem Valley 8 with the intention of reviewing "Blue Steel." My expectations were high. Jamie Lee Curtis is an interesting actress. Director Kathryn Bigelow showed a certain flair for stylistic sensationalism with the vampire cult movie "Near Dark." And word had it that "Blue Steel" was the hottest ticket at the New York Film Festival.
But problems in the projection booth kept "Blue Steel" off of the screen. So I wandered into "The Forbidden Dance."
It very likely is the worst movie made in the last decade. It's so bad that I enjoyed it immensely, despite the fact that the camera was almost always out of focus, diminishing some of the guilty pleasure to be derived from the movie's more lurid moments.
It opens with a wild Brazilian tribal dance that looks a lot like the PG-13 version of an orgy I saw in one of the "Emmanuelle" sequels on late-night cable. The sole woman in this dance is a Brazilian princess who is being prepared for a trip to America so she can save the Brazilian rain forest from an evil American corporation. She comes to America with a medicine man who has more tricks than Carlos Castaneda's Don Juan.
Before the movie ends, the princess lands a job as a maid, catches the eye of a rich young man whose sole purpose in life is dancing, moves on to work in a sleazy sex shop and is ultimately kidnapped by the evil company man who deep down wants nothing more than to learn the lambada.
Of course, the only way the princess and the wealthy dancing fool can save the rain forest is to land a spot on a TV dance show hosted by Kid Creole and the Coconuts. That way, the entire nation can be alerted to the plight of the rain forest.
I still can't believe any movie can be this unintentionally bad. I suspect director Greydon Clark is really John Waters, the titan of tacky, using a nom de plume.
My curiosity piqued, I decided to see "Lambada: Set the Night on Fire." Could it be as bad?
Not quite.
The camera was in focus, and the performers seem to have some rudimentary acting skills. It's slicker and not quite as dumb, though it gives "Forbidden Dance" a run for the money in the numbskull department.
This one could have been titled "Dance and Deliver." J. Eddie Peck plays Blade, a math teacher at a Beverly Hills high school by day and a lambada-dancing, motorcycle-riding home boy by night. Once a young tough, Blade received an education and is determined to teach other underprivileged kids how to pass their GED tests.
To gain their attention, he trades in his button-down shirts for a leather jacket and participates in dances with the young women down at the club that would probably violate Roanoke ordinances. This despite the fact that Blade is a good family man: His lambada moves are just a noble sacrifice for education.
But a rich high-school Lolita who looks like a 25-year-old Penthouse centerfold is determined to seduce him, thus jeopardizing his after-hours tutoring. You've seen every element of this hackneyed plot before from the stuffy principal to the spoiled little rich girl who becomes an instant humanitarian.
There are reports of at least three other lambada movies in the works. But if these are any indication, the lambada is bada.
\ The Grandin Theatre is getting "Crazy People," the movie filmed partly in Roanoke, for a sneak preview April 7 and a general run April 11. Most movies released by large studios show in more than one theater in Roanoke these days, and that may happen with this one, starring Dudley Moore and Darryl Hannah. But other theaters haven't received word from their bookers yet.
The Grandin served as one of the movie's locations. Its manager, Julie Hunsaker, regards the booking as a coup of sorts. She worked for more than two months persuading Paramount executives to let an independent theater have the movie. Tom Barad, the movie's producer, is now a vice president in Paramount's production department, and he helped Hunsaker out.
Hunsaker is also hoping that the studio will grant her permission to throw a party April 6 at which the movie would be shown. Those instrumental in making the movie, city officials and others would be invited free. Any tickets left over would be sold on a first-come-first-served basis. She's talking about $15 a ticket. Proceeds would go to Total Action Against Poverty, Hunsaker said.
Watch this space for further details.
by CNB