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. Preachers 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 as Ren's country boy pal, Willard, and Sarah Jessica Parker as Ariel's friend, Rusty. Penn's character is real fun and Sarah was a real cutie back in '...

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 kids actually taking on town ordinances against dancing.

And Kevin Bacon is the new kid in town, so he's like the Karate Kid, but he als...

"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 problems to seek finding and keeping work and with the local lads who resent his cool, James Dean, style attitude. Things come to an head when he propose...