2008 Woodie Awards
Epileptic siezures set to music
Colin Covert
Issue date: 1/15/07 Section: Entertainment
- Page 1 of 1
Colin Covert
McClatchy Newspapers
Stomp the Yard is by no means great drama, but if you do not feel like cheering half a dozen times, check yourself for low blood pressure. Some plot maneuvers are implausibly convenient, some moments too earnest, but the movie is a musical, so we should allow for some cliches, pathos and a saccharine resolution to all the hero's difficulties along with the dance, drama and dazzle.
The story follows an uncomplicated trajectory. DJ (Columbus Short), a Los Angeles teenager, is a champ at competitions where inner city crews work out their factional rivalries on the dance floor, the frenetic clash of whirling bodies channeling aggression that could otherwise trigger a drive-by shooting.
But it remains a dangerous scene. In a last-ditch effort to salvage his future, he travels to Atlanta where his aunt and uncle arrange for him to attend a posh, historically black college. Adjusting to his new surroundings is difficult, but his dancing prowess attracts the attention of two fraternities that are longtime rivals in an annual synchronized-dance championship. He also catches the eye of a lovely but unavailable coed (Meagan Good) whose overprotective father is a campus bigwig.
The movie does not bog itself down with a lot of plot blabber, but it does get tangled in its obsession with flashy editing and visuals, undercutting the exuberant, intricate choreography. The camera dissects the dancers, speeds them up, slows them down to still lifes, and sends them skittering through their paces with the stuttering, hesitant strobe effects.
The best dance sequences are the simplest, when the director Sylvain White holds the camera steady and the steppers go berserk. At first the spasmodic boogying is almost dizzying to watch: a relentlessly kinetic wrench of limbs that at first appears to be an epileptic seizure set to music. As the show goes on the technique, dexterity and variations of the form become more easily decipherable and more noticeably inspiring.
The spectacular abilities of the dancers make most of the performance footage a joy to watch, even when it's slathered with superfluous technical lily-gilding. Short is a frenetic marvel to behold, and not a bad actor either. Stomp the Yard sometimes stumbles in its storytelling, but the movie goes rollicking along whenever it hits the dance floor, breezing past preposterous coincidences and melodramatic situations with infectious high spirits.
McClatchy Newspapers
Stomp the Yard is by no means great drama, but if you do not feel like cheering half a dozen times, check yourself for low blood pressure. Some plot maneuvers are implausibly convenient, some moments too earnest, but the movie is a musical, so we should allow for some cliches, pathos and a saccharine resolution to all the hero's difficulties along with the dance, drama and dazzle.
The story follows an uncomplicated trajectory. DJ (Columbus Short), a Los Angeles teenager, is a champ at competitions where inner city crews work out their factional rivalries on the dance floor, the frenetic clash of whirling bodies channeling aggression that could otherwise trigger a drive-by shooting.
But it remains a dangerous scene. In a last-ditch effort to salvage his future, he travels to Atlanta where his aunt and uncle arrange for him to attend a posh, historically black college. Adjusting to his new surroundings is difficult, but his dancing prowess attracts the attention of two fraternities that are longtime rivals in an annual synchronized-dance championship. He also catches the eye of a lovely but unavailable coed (Meagan Good) whose overprotective father is a campus bigwig.
The movie does not bog itself down with a lot of plot blabber, but it does get tangled in its obsession with flashy editing and visuals, undercutting the exuberant, intricate choreography. The camera dissects the dancers, speeds them up, slows them down to still lifes, and sends them skittering through their paces with the stuttering, hesitant strobe effects.
The best dance sequences are the simplest, when the director Sylvain White holds the camera steady and the steppers go berserk. At first the spasmodic boogying is almost dizzying to watch: a relentlessly kinetic wrench of limbs that at first appears to be an epileptic seizure set to music. As the show goes on the technique, dexterity and variations of the form become more easily decipherable and more noticeably inspiring.
The spectacular abilities of the dancers make most of the performance footage a joy to watch, even when it's slathered with superfluous technical lily-gilding. Short is a frenetic marvel to behold, and not a bad actor either. Stomp the Yard sometimes stumbles in its storytelling, but the movie goes rollicking along whenever it hits the dance floor, breezing past preposterous coincidences and melodramatic situations with infectious high spirits.
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