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Too much of everything

Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

I saw this movie for the first time in my life a few days ago and i must say i loved this movie.If you think about the 80's the picture you have in mind is pretty close to what you see on the screen when you put in Flashdance. From the first second onwards it blasts 80's synthesizer-sound in your eardrums, you see the typical hairstyles and clothes (that you would instantly relate to that era in your head). It's just a perfect emulation of that period of time, i felt like i was there, totally immersed and ready to go. So regarding the atmosphere it was just perfect for me. In addition Jennifer Beals as the main character Alex Owens delivers an enchanting performance. She acts in a natural and relatable way, i was with her from the beginning till the end and felt all of her struggle to become a professional dancer. Her female role also struck me as rather atypical. She works in a man dominated job, she is living her life on her own and takes the active part in her relationship to the male love-interest. It's impressing how dynamic and fast-paced the movie is, there is not a single moment that leaves you bored. To me it represents a perfect example of a feel good movie.Even though i seem to only have praise for it, i am completely aware that there are multiple doubtful performances and that story-wise it has not that much to offer. It's not something you think about for days or something that leaves a deeper and lasting impression inside of you. But it leaves you with a smile on your face, with energy in your feet and makes you ready to dance yourself.Yeah I know that all mostly sounds like I am an all-out fanboy, but what should you do when you catch the Feeling?

What makes a good film for me is that it is enjoyable, entertaining, gripping, likable and emotional. Flashdance without a doubt ticks all these five boxes. Flahdance is a very retro, cheesy entertaining film that is at no point boring and never drags, and is also a very clear symbol of the great 1980's and the night club exotic dancing scene of the time. Jennifer Beals puts down an amazing performance, as a dancer and as an actress. I guess the story comes down to the fact that reality bites, that life is tough, but if you push hard you just might make it.All in all, Flashdance despite its few undeniable faults is a very decent and enjoyable film in my opinion. As it mostly meets all of my requirements I am happy to give it a positive review. This film is one of the quintessential 80's films, that works well as a symbolic artifact of its time. I highly recommend this film to anyone who loves 80's.Overall rating: 7 out of 10.

I really liked the first half hour of this film because of Lyne's fantastic direction and the great editing and sound. However, after that, the lack of story began to take its toll and I found the film dragged. I also felt the story was quite confused, with characters and sub plots popping up without rhyme or reason and being left with loose ends.I didn't like Jennifer Beals's acting and I found the portrayal of her character too aggressive. You can imagine her becoming a diva if she ever hit the big time. She wasn't given much back story so I never felt I know who she was, why she was working as a welder or why she wanted to get where she was going.The last 5 minutes, with the dance audition, became horrendously cheesy and quite out of tone with this otherwise mature film.

It takes practice to probe ourselves for insight of how we felt about something, it's not easy. Easier to numb ourselves, watch and forget it afterwards, but in this way we never really know anything. This is also in a roundabout way the point behind musicals, easy to be numbed, takes practice to probe and push yourself to create something that is true.The enemy of the protagonist in the musical or dance film then is compromise, mediocrity. It's the nagging worry that life will never amount to something, it will be drowned in routine—the antidote is dance, love, staging the circumstances that will permit purity of expression. In the musical this usually took the shape of showmen and women fighting to stage a show that sublimates the difficulties, this is also the case here, but with a twist.A final show is promised early on, a dance audition that makes or breaks her future (she thinks), failing which she's going to become just another 9 to 5 person chasing after the next bill. The place is glum Pittsburgh, she works in a factory by day. Around her we see the people who have been numbed by failure, lost their color—the failed comedian, her ice-rink dancer friend who ends up on the floor of a sleazy titty bar after a bad performance.They could have done something here. A bleak urban landscape instead of Broadway, the factory as the place where self is constructed to be only another cog in the machine—and yet in this place, dance, expression, sexuality. Her latenight show (she's an exotic dancer by night) struggling to find purity and truth in the midst of cheap thrills, still exhilarating in spite of how viewers consume it. Can dance become routine? Does it matter how the viewers see it?Their twist was something else. The final show is always postponed and the fight to stage it and dream to be someone are dredged from a pseudo Cassavetes desperation about life instead of using the snappy cadence of the musical. A bit of dance in the beginning and end and the whole middle is an hour of wallowing. The idea must have been, first make the viewer bleed, serve us 'reality' instead of a musical fairytale.But what I see is no less of a fairytale. A materialism about the difficulties but when it comes to the last release, the dance audition, we go back to the snappy, idealized Hollywood dance we expected all along. She triumphs of course. An awestruck committee member claps childishly at how good. The slice- of-life was merely an idealized style, a trope rather than commitment, so that it manages in one swoop to kill both the fun and the honesty. Terrible.