Suzan and I have been on a movie tear lately since our smmers are lulling together for the first time in recent memory. Sunday night we took in a late screening of Mad Hot Ballroom at the 4-Star, a wonderful neighborhood theater in the Richmond district of San Francisco, the kind of place where the owner takes your ticket and sells you popcorn. Highly recommended. Mad Hot Ballroom is a documentary about a program at lower middle class elementary schools in New York where the kids learn ballroom. Yes, it’s cute. But it’s also a facinating look at the role of the arts in education, at race and class and at growing up in urban America. I’ve heard it called “Spellbound with Dancing” or “Hoop Dreams in Ballet Shoes.” I liked it better than both of them.
Last night, we cought an earlier show of Hustle and Flow. I had been listening to an interview with the director Craig Brewer on “The Treatment” and decided I had to see this movie like NOW.
It did not let me down. Terrance Howard (light years away from his performance in Crash.) lines himself up for an Oscar nomination. Taryn Manning isn’t a new comer but her role here brougt her into my conscience to stay. And Craig Brewer? Damn. I’ll see just about anything her does from here on out. Hustle and Flow is a miraculous, moving, funny, sad movie about the American Dream. And that doesn’t really begin to describe it. See it, see it, see it. You’ll be glad you did.
