Mad Hot Ballroom
June 1st, 2007The blurb on the cover said, “Expect to grin the entire time you’re watching.” I think I really did!
I’m finding that I appreciate documentaries, and this one is a success story. New York City kids learn ballroom dancing, and the film argues that through the process they come to hope in the future and in themselves.
Kids have the most beautiful faces. And they have so many problems. It makes me want to cry, even as I smile, because they look so happy, and there is so much pain and ugliness, and I don’t know that school teachers can do all that much to help.
Or that anybody else can, either, because we don’t have those kinds of answers here. I only have the promise of a solution someday. We were biking the other day at sunset, and I nearly caught a glimpse of Heaven. A jagged bit of brilliant orange cloud away up high caught by the rays of the dying sun…I like to think it was really the final hilltop hiding a glorious view of Paradise.
I ADORED THIS MOVIE!
“There’s a party going on downstairs!” hahaha!!!
“Oh, yeah, my *tired* students…” (when he turned on ‘Everybody Dance’)
I loved the teachers, their different personalities and the different results those personalities got…I think this movie should be used to train teachers!
I loved the kids, the glimpses into their life, the effect that the learning had on them…
There is a book you might like called “Educating Esme” about a first-year teacher in NYC.
I finally saw this! Really liked it — the winning teacher’s kind of like Miss Monique, no? And the fun part of watching the Indigo team was how much they emulated their teacher. The impact of teachers is all over this — the kids obviously spouting their philosophies and using their vocabulary. I loved watching the non-English-speaker and partner. Great faces, yeah! (*forces self to stop gushing*)