11
Wednesday, August 26, 1998
The University Daily Kansan
Section A·Page 7
Dance movie lacks the right moves
By Jeremy M. Doherty Kansan movie critic
Rafael (Chayanne) and Ruby (Vanessa Williams) loosen up on the dance floor in the Columbia Pictures movie Dance With Me. Contributed art.
Vanessa Williams is easy on the eyes and can belt out a tune like nobody's business.
But Lord help her, she couldn't act her way out of a paper sack.
Fortunately for her, Dance with Me is not exactly a movie that would make Meryl Streep say, "Rats, I should've grabbed that one."
Directed by Randa Haines, the movie contains practically no deep messages or hint of subtext and character development is nonexistent. Anyone who's ever seen more than a few movies in their life will be able to guess its ending within the first 10 minutes.
What Dance with Me has in its favor is a slew of intense, tightly choreographed dance numbers. In fact, if Haines were to cut the hoofing sequences, she'd probably have about 45 minutes of material left.
Latin singer Chayanne (no last name required) stars as Rafael, a 20-something Cadan lad who catches a bus to Houston after his mother kicks the bucket. In the land of 10-gallon hats, he gets a job mopping floors and repairing floorboards at the broken-down dance studio owned by John Burnett (Kris Kristofferson).
Rafael did not come across the job by accident. Burnett is actually his father, having donated his seed during a one-night stand on a cruise ship many moons ago. As a promise to his dying mama, Rafael decides he ought to strike up a relationship with the unsuspecting guy.
Rafael then falls for Ruby (Williams), Burnett's top instructor. Ruby is an emotionally-cold woman who shies away from relationships after her boyfriend dumped her and their infant son.
Ruby finally takes an interest in Rafael after he stuns her with some fancy salsa moves. As the world dancing championships in Las Vegas draw closer, their relationship goes into high gear.
Daryl Matthews' screenplay pushes the action forward at a deliberate pace, introducing sub-
plots and characters with a predictability that is almost reassuring. The audience meets some kinky, older dancers, a blonde instructor who takes a fancy to Rafael and the evil dance king who wants to claim Ruby as his own trophy. The actors and scenery are so gosh-darn attractive that the movie nearly gets away with all this.
Chayanne and Williams aren't required to do much more than dance well and look sexy, and
DANCE WITH ME
Kansan rating: ** out of ******
Running time: 2 hours, 5 minutes
Rated PG for mild profanity and dirty dancin'
Kristofferson's role is so dinky he may as well not even be in the movie.
Lance with Me does not seem to have much ambition; they could buy a car and live among People in Tight Outfits, and it wouldn't make much difference.
New drama on Lifetime to shine Any Day Now
The Associated Press
LOS ANGELES — Combine these elements: race relations in the tumultuous 1960s and the tense 1990s, a Southern setting, a focus on girls and women instead of boys and men and faint-hearted TV networks.
What you get is the Lifetime series Any Day Now. Broadcasters repeatedly said no to the drama, but the cable channel said ves.
Yes to the idea of exploring the friendship of two girls, one black and one white, in segregated Birmingham, Ala., in the '60s. Yes to cutting between their childhood and adult years, weaving the past and the present in a sophisticated quilt.
And yes to a drama that has charm and heart — and that figures viewers are willing to think as well as feel.
Potts (Designing Women, Dangerous Minds) is Mary Elizabeth Brian, a white woman whose teen-age pregnancy and marriage have kept her bound to her hometown. She is a loving wife and mother who cannot ignore how narrow her world is.
Any Day Now, starring Annie Potts and Lorraine Toussaint, airs at 8 p.m. as part of Lifetime's new Tuesday series lineup that includes the comedies Oh Baby and Maggie.
Toussaint (Amazing Grace,
Law & Order) plays Rene Jackson, who fled Birmingham to work as a big-city corporate attorney, turning away from her father's tradition of civil rights activism. Success, however, has come at a price.
A death brings Rene back home, where she tries to create a new life amid bitter memories that include her estrangement from her childhood friend.
The big themes are there, but so are the little touches: We see the girls swoon about the idea of their brassieres, dispatch bullies and swipe cigarettes.
For Nancy Miller, the show's creator, Any Day Now was a matter of any year now.
It was in 1990 that she envisioned a drama she describes as "a Wonder Years meets Mississippi Burning." The former is the 1988-93 coming-of-age TV series; the latter the 1988 film about the volunteer '60s South.
CBS ordered six episodes, but the studio pulled the plug 10 days before shooting began. Too expensive, they said. Miller refused to surrender.
"Every development season I carried this script under my arm and begged them (the networks) to make it," she said.
They balked at the cost, the racial theme and this: "It was about girls. I think if it was about boys, it would have gotten made," Miller said.
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