Path: ...!weretis.net!feeder9.news.weretis.net!news.quux.org!news.building-m.net!eternal-september.org!feeder3.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail
From: "Ian J. Ball" <ijball@mac.invalid>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.tv
Subject: Re: What Did You Watch? 2024-11-25 (Monday)
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2024 12:27:19 -0800
Organization: A noiseless patient Spider
Lines: 59
Message-ID: <vi5av7$3ja36$1@dont-email.me>
References: <UBI20241125@dont-email.me> <vi4vko$3gsi0$1@dont-email.me>
 <vi57p5$3irvu$1@dont-email.me>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
Injection-Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2024 21:27:20 +0100 (CET)
Injection-Info: dont-email.me; posting-host="91bde98816e4a9207fad1e16e7dff45a";
	logging-data="3778662"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org";	posting-account="U2FsdGVkX1/L+jMQ/33TTYt2Z0W4jFGo"
User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird
Cancel-Lock: sha1:WMHDCsH6z9+3G+SVa5sxN0+4uyI=
Content-Language: en-US
In-Reply-To: <vi57p5$3irvu$1@dont-email.me>
Bytes: 4088

On 11/26/24 11:32 AM, Arthur Lipscomb wrote:

> On 11/26/2024 9:13 AM, Ian J. Ball wrote:
>> On 11/26/24 1:30 AM, Ubiquitous wrote:
>>
>>> What did you watch?
>>
>> After grading and teaching, I finally got to Thanksgiving Break 
>> yesterday. So, I "celebrated" by watching a couple of movies, and...:
>>
>> [snip]
>>
>> Center Stage: Turn It Up (Tubi) - So, apparently, Tubi has all 3 
>> "Center Stage" films, but is losing them by the end of the month. I've 
>> seen the first one multiple times, and I've seen the third one, 
>> "Center State: On Pointe" once, but I've never seen the middle one, 
>> from 2008 - this one. So I jumped on it, 'cos who knows if it will be 
>> available anywhere after Tubi?!!
>>     "On Pointe" is pretty much a straight up sequel to "Turn It Up" - 
>> Nicole Munoz is in both films (as is Kenny Wormald); Peter Gallagher 
>> and Ethan Stiefel are in all three films... But Munoz is literally a 
>> *child* in "Turn It Up" (they say she's 13, and she was actually 14 at 
>> the time, but she honestly looks younger), playing the lead's sister. 
>> In "On Pointe", Munoz (who was 22 by 2016) is the lead, trying to get 
>> out of her sister's shadow... I'm disappointed to what happened with 
>> Munoz - I saw her in something recently (must have been either "Wild 
>> Cards" or "Tracker"), and she was all tatted up, and didn't look good 
>> at all... FTR, "On Pointe" was the weakest of the films, to my 
>> recollection.
>>     Anyway, the lead in this film is Rachele Brooke Smith, in pretty 
>> much her first acting role, ever! and it's clear in 2008 that Smith 
>> was still a dancer first, and an actress second. (It'll take Smith 
>> another decade before she starts doing Lifetime films!)
>>     The movie plays a lot more like a "Step Up" ripoff 
> 
> I was just about to ask if this series was a "Step-up" ripoff.

The first "Center Stage" is definitely not, and even predates the first 
"Step Up" film by half-a-decade. (IOW, it's likely that "Step Up" was 
inspired by/ripping off "Center Stage" (and "Bring It On"), not the 
other way around!!)

This sequel, OTOH, plays a lot closer to a small-scale "Step Up" film 
than it does to the first "Center Stage" film (which was pretty much all 
ballet).

>> than a "sequel"
>> to "Center Stage" - Smith's character misses the cut into Peter 
>> Gallagher's snooty ballet academy, and ends up working in a bar where 
>> she does "sexy" dancing rather than ballet. Wormald's character, who 
>> is like the most promising male ballet dancer in Gallagher's academy's 
>> new class, ends up hitting Smith up for off-the-books "training" in 
>> pas de deux.
>>     You know where this is going...
>>     I don't know if this was filmed lousy, or if this was a lousy 
>> print, but it looked bad on Tubi - maybe even "480p/DVD-rip" bad. I 
>> wonder if there's a better print/rip of this out there somewhere...