Slam Dance (film)
| Slam Dance | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Wayne Wang |
| Produced by | Don Keith Opper |
| Written by | Don Keith Opper |
| Starring |
Virginia Madsen Tom Hulce Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio |
| Music by | Mitchell Froom |
| Cinematography | Amir M. Mokri |
| Edited by |
Sandy Nervig Lee Percy |
| Distributed by | Island Pictures |
Release dates | October 2, 1987 |
Running time | 100 minutes |
| Country |
United Kingdom United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $4.5 million |
| Box office | $406,881 |
Slam Dance is a 1987 thriller directed by Wayne Wang and starring Virginia Madsen, Tom Hulce, and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio. It was screened out of competition at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival.
Slam Dance Marked the final live action movie of Judith Barsi before her murder the following year. [1]
Plot
A married cartoonist named C.C. Drood becomes involved in the cover up of a political sex scandal after his lover, Yolanda, a call girl, is found murdered.
Drood has betrayed his wife Helen with the exotic Yolanda, who takes him to a club where the patrons slam dance, violently crashing into one another on the dance floor.
Bobby Nye, a former lesbian lover of Yolanda's, hires a hit man named Buddy to do away with Drood, who is also hotly pursued by the police. Drood ultimately comes to believe that Bobby and Buddy are the ones responsible for Yolanda's death. A corrupt cop, Gilbert, is doing everything in his power to pin the whole thing on Drood, but a police colleague, Smiley, intervenes on the wanted man's behalf.
Buddy is eventually overcome with guilt in his role in the killing of Yolanda, so he spares Drood's life and takes his own. To escape with his wife and his life, Drood tries to make Nye and the cops believe that Buddy's body is actually his.
Cast
- Virginia Madsen as Yolanda Caldwell
- Tom Hulce as C.C. Drood
- Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio as Helen Drood
- Don Keith Opper as Buddy
- Adam Ant as Jim Campbell
- John Doe as John Gilbert
- Harry Dean Stanton as Smiley
- Judith Barsi as Bean
- Lisa Niemi as Miss Schell
- Herta Ware as Mrs. Raines
- Millie Perkins as Bobby Nye
Production and reception
After writing and directing Chan Is Missing and Dim Sum: A Little Bit of Heart, the films involving Chinese American characters and the latter that received "mixed reviews [and] modest [...] box office earnings", Wayne Wang chose to direct Slam Dance in effort to not limit himself to just films about Chinese Americans, and it was Wang's first film not to include any Chinese characters.[2][3] Despite the film's $4.5 million budget, the film grossed "less than $407,000," and reviews were mixed at the time of theatrical release. New York Times film critic Vincent Canby wrote in his November 6,1987 review that Wang "goes straight if quite gracefully to the bottom with his first mainstream movie", describing it as "less interesting for its characters than for its fancy decor and images."[3]
Release dates
- Canada - September 11, 1987 (Toronto Film Festival)
- United States - October 2, 1987
- Finland - November 27, 1987
- Norway - December 26, 1987
- Sweden - February 5, 1988
References
- ↑ "Festival de Cannes: Slam Dance". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 2009-07-25.
- ↑ Weinraub, Bernard (September 5, 1993). "FILM; 'I Didn't Want To Do Another Chinese Movie'". The New York Times.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Liu, Sandra (2000). "Negotiating the Meaning of Access: Wayne Wang's Contingent Film Practice". Countervisions: Asian-American Film Criticism. Temple University Press. p. 94. ISBN 1-56639-775-8. For paperback: ISBN 1-56639-776-6.
External links
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