Save the Last Dance 1: Amazon.ca: DVD: DVD

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From Amazon.com

Save the Last Dance enjoyed a profitable release in early 2001, with box-office earnings that exceeded anyone's expectations. Its performance illustrates the staying power of a formulaic movie that avoids the pitfalls and clichés that would otherwise render it forgettable. Since there's nothing new here, you'll appreciate the original quirks in a character-based plot that's just around the corner from Flashdance, and just as familiar. Sara (Julia Stiles) gave up a promising ballet career when her mother was killed while rushing to attend her daughter's crucial audition to Juilliard; Sara blames herself for the accident, and at her new, mostly African American high school in Chicago, she's uncertain of her future.

Derek (Sean Patrick Thomas) has no such doubts; his own future is bright, and his attraction to Sara is immediate; they connect (predictably), and Sara's dormant funk emerges, with Derek's coaching, as she learns hip-hop dancing in a local club. Obligatory subplots are equally routine: Derek's sister (Kerry Washington) is a single mom struggling with her child's absentee father; Derek's best friend (Fredro Starr) feels trapped in his gangsta lifestyle; and Sara's once-estranged father (Terry Kinney) is doing his best to correct past mistakes. Within the confines of this standard follow-your-dream drama, director Thomas Carter capitalizes on a script that allows these characters to be real, intelligent, and thoughtful about their lives and their futures. It's obvious that Stiles's dancing was intercut with that of a professional double, but that illusion hardly matters when the rest of the movie's so earnestly positive and genuine. --Jeff Shannon

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Customer Reviews

169 Reviews

5 star:		(89)
4 star:		(46)
3 star:		(17)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(13)

Average Customer Review

4.1 out of 5 stars (169 customer reviews)

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1.0 out of 5 stars save your money and buy another movie., Dec 1 2003

By

SHAWN JAMES "Amateur Film critic" (Bronx, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Save the Last Dance (Widescreen) (DVD)

Save the last dance was a billed as a powerrful interacial love story set on the south side of Chicago. After watching I wish someone could have saved me from this ridiculous cliché ridden movie.
In the aftermath of her mother's death Save the Last Dance puts its main character a middle class white girl into a ghetto to live with her musician father.(all Musicians live in the ghetto by Hollywood standards) The movie then shows her adjusting to life at the public high school full of sterotype black characters such as the teenage mom best friend and the top of his class troubled black male who falls for her.oh yeah, there's the subplot about the black guy's freind trying to seduce him "back to the streets" and another silly subplot about interracial dating. These subplots take our minds off the shallow main plot: She wants to go juliard but is to traumatized to dance becaue her mother died on the way to the auditon. With the support of her black boyfriend she musters up enough strength to live her dream. Bleech! I thought I was watching an ABC afterschool special instead of a movie. Julia Stiles does her best with this racist ridculous material but it's just too cheesy to work with. This film meant to enlighten its teen audience about interracial dating is worthy of Shirley Temple and Al Jolson's tapdance sequences and Sidney Potier's character in the Blackboard Jungle.

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1.0 out of 5 stars Just not a good movie, Mar 11 2003

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Sierra N. Crane (Meshoppen, PA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Save the Last Dance (Widescreen) (DVD)

This movie, in my opinion, was boring. It had a lot of trash talk, no really good dancing, and a predictable ending. Julia Stiles was dull, but Sean Patrick Thomas was good, so if you like him watch it.

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1.0 out of 5 stars Please forget the last dance, May 5 2002

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Marsha McAllister (Bossier City, Louisiana USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Save the Last Dance (Widescreen) (DVD)

This movie is such garbage. 1 and 1/2 hours of a Flashdance remake with ethnic bump n' grind. And a girl, the ever boring Julia Stiles, wanting to learn how to do the ethnic bump n' grind. Oh and there is a "message" in this film, kind of a West Side Story thing. All the cliches are there and if I were black, this movie would offend me. The black women are either street walkers or welfare mommas and the black men are gangsters. Way to go with the stereotypes. GAG GAG GAG.

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Most recent customer reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best movies
This is one of my favorite movies of all time. It was the first movie I ever saw with Julia Stiles in, and she is now one of my favorite actresses. The story is so real. Read more

Published on July 10 2004 by fcb_cb

5.0 out of 5 stars AWESOME Movie !!!
What more can I say - Julia Stiles ROCKS !!

Published on July 10 2004 by Sandi