Cheap Slam Dance (Video) (Wayne Wang) Price

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Customer Reviews of Slam Dance

"She betrayed me."
Cartoonist Drood (Tom Hulce) is drawn into a web of corruption, blackmail and deceit in the neo-noir thriller, "Slam Dance" from director Wayne Wang. Drood is a disconnected character who exists in a peculiar apartment, avoiding deadlines, contact with the outside world, and parental responsibilities. When Drood, who's separated from his wife, Helen (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio) is kidnapped and beaten by two strangers, he turns to the police for help. While being questioned by detectives, he discovers that his lover Yolanda Caldwell (Virginia Madsen) has been murdered, and that he's labeled a suspect. Drood, who has a lifetime habit of avoiding responsibility, shrugs off Yolanda's murder--or at least he tries to .... <
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>"Slam Dance" exudes an atmosphere of the bizarre and the weird set against the murder of the mysterious Yolanda. Yolanda's death, and Drood's unexplained kidnapping are freak occurrences in a surreal world. The film establishes this atmosphere by the well-placed use of background devices--such as radio talk shows reporting alien abductions. Drood's stone-deaf, loony landlady adds to the atmosphere with her theories of post offices conspiracies, and Drood, whose character gradually shifts from passivity to action, discovers the hard way that nothing is quite what it seems. <
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>While the film's neo-noir style is nicely established (with shades of David Lynch), the film's plot holes are enough to trip even the most determined. By the film's conclusion, there are far too many questions, and a sense of lingering annoyance at the more preposterous aspects of the plot. Adam Ant has a fairly small part as club owner, Jim, and fans will want to see him in the film. Mary Mastrantonio seems horribly miscast as Drood's wife. All in all, rather disappointing--displacedhuman

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A MOVIE THAT STARS TOM HULCE.....REMEMBER HIM?
Slam Dance tells the story of a Los Angeles loser named Drood who looks like Amadeus and draws unfunny cartoons for a living. He has an ex-wife with an out-of-control perm who works in a day care with a bunch of kids that look like they take the short bus (one of them hits Drood in the crotch with a rubber chicken). He also has a little daughter named Bean who likes him to take his teeth out and runs in during inappropriate moments like when Drood mistakes a nude prostitute for a secretary (don't ask). <
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>Drood is cool enough at least to have Adam Ant play his best friend. Adam doesn't do a whole hell of a lot in this movie except wear late 80s mod clothes and come out with bad jokes like "How many surrealist painters does it take to screw in a lightbulb? The fish." <
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>It seems that before the movie started Drood was involved with a mysterious blond played by Virginia Madsen, who made an 80s career out of playing mysterious blonds before she was in "Candyman." She was recently resurrected from the dead for the movie "Sideways" and earned an Oscar nomination for it. I'm glad the Academy is no longer prejudiced against walking corpses. But I digress. Virginia isn't in the movie very much except in flashback sequences and a reoccurring photograph where she's smiling at two men facing her wearing scuba masks looking like they're going to pee on her. But hey, she got on the DVD cover!!! She's been murdered and Drood is the main suspect. I guess because he slept with her. Among his other problems, Drood keeps getting stalked by a skinny guy wearing sunglasses and a red Members Only jacket. The guy beats up Drood a lot and sticks a gun in his face while saying stuff like "she thought you were so smart." Alluding to the concept that he knew the mysterious blond. <
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>Flashbacks seem to be the main way Wang tells the story. And he makes that very clear about 20 minutes into the movie. Problem is, the flashbacks he's showing are things that we, the audience, viewed in the first 20 minutes as well. Why does he feel a need to show us these things again? It actually doesn't help the plot along and it just makes the movie longer. Maybe that's the point. Because actually there really isn't much of a plot to sustain the running time. To fill the gaps Wang uses the aforementioned flashbacks, music montages, and long gaps between dialogue bits. The dialogue is sparse in this film which is effective for two reasons, one because it helps to maintain the strange atmosphere (which the film has plenty of) but also because the dialogue sucks, so the less of it the better. One example: <
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>Drood: Are you going to help me or not? <
>Adam Ant: No! You're a selfish f%@k! I'm calling the police. <
>Drood: Let me borrow your car. <
>Adam Ant: No. <
>Drood: Give me the keys. <
>Adam Ant: No. <
>Drood: I said give me the f%&king keys!! <
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>You get the point. Somehow I don't think Wang was too concerned about the dialogue, he was more concerned about being stylish. And in that he succeeds. The film ultimately makes no sense but Wang uses a lot of deliberate pausing, an effective score, and great photography to wrap around a crappy script. Hey, it worked for me, I own it. It's a great film to have on when you want to go brain-dead or when you're playing the game, "Zombies." Other than that, forget it. <
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From Amadeus to this?
Apparently when this was first released it was largely ignored and it should have stayed that way. While Adam Ant was memorable in this film, the other actors should wipe it from their resumes. Hulce, the star of "Amadeus" was over-the-top, an over-emoting unbelievable character. At times the editing was confusing as the movie darted about. The only good thing I can find to say about this is that it is over. To compare this to Hitchcock is an insult to Hitchcock! Though I may stand alone in my opinion here, you may be the person who would agree with me, so, caveat emptor.