"Take The Lead" 2006

Take the Lead (2006)

I literally just finished watching this on TNT about half an hour ago and I thought it was AMAZING!

This movie is based on the true story of a teacher who taught ballroom dancing to the detention kids of the inner-city. Yes, this is basically one of those movies where there are a bunch of delinquents, a caring adult comes and actually cares about them, and they turn around and become amazing. But you know what I thought was cool? A lot of the things Mr. Dulaine (the main character) said made sense.

Admittedly, almost all inspirational movies seem impossible because we're just that insecure or we think it's cool to be cynical like that. But you know what? This is actually a true story, and that made me think: maybe this actually applies to my life. Maybe I can actually get inspiration from this instead of just watching a good movie and feeling safe for a couple of hours, then waking up to the "real world" again.

Although this movie is agonizingly slow-paced in some parts and so fast in others that you can barely keep up, I think this just helps it relate more to life because life is slow sometimes and life is fast sometimes. Because this is a story about the life of inner-city students, there are many things that non-inner-city residents wouldn't understand, such as drug and gang problems, an extra hatred for racism, etc. If you look past that, though, and accept it as something that all cultures have in one form or another, it's possible to see how the inner-city-students-ballroom-dancing metaphor can connect to breaking out of stereotypes in other cultures.

So yes, I love this movie.