Footloose

"A time to mourn and a time to dance" - Ecclesiastes 3:4 RELEASED IN 1984 and directed by Herbert Ross, “Footloose” chronicles events in the small Western town of Bomont where dancing and loud music have been outlawed because of an accident that killed some kids years earlier. Preacher’s daughter Ariel (Lori Singer) rebels against the legalistic measures while taking liking to a new student from Chicago, Ren (Kevin Bacon), whom her father (John Lithgow) disapproves of because he perceives Ren as a “troublemaker” who wants to change the town laws against dancing. Also on hand are Chris Penn…

It's still one of my favorites and I could hardly walk when it first came out. And now it's legend, so writing a real review is almost needless. Just about everyone has seen it. It's still regarded as a classic. So I suppose the best thing to say is that it's like the Karate Kid...only with dancing rather than martial arts. Single mother and son move into a new town. Son is an outsider that gets in trouble with the local bully. Son starts dating the local bully's girlfriend. Son and bully fight and...resolution. However, it goes a bit deeper in that it references several cases of high school…

"Ren" (Kevin Bacon) moves from the big city to a small town run by the rather puritanical preacher "Moore" (John Lithgow) only to find that dancing, singing - indeed just about every form of entertainment has been banished. He claims that is to protect them and their children from ungodly corrupting influences. The new boy is treated with enough circumspection before "Ariel" (Lori Singer) takes a shine to him, but once it's known that the daughter of the town bible-basher is having a romance with the disruptive influence, then battle lines are drawn. It's fair too say that "Ren" hasn't his…