Footloose

Movie: Footloose

Genre: drama

Synopsis: This is a remake of the 1984 Kevin Bacon classic of the same name.  Ren (Kenny Wormald) was recently orphaned when his mother died of leukemia.  He moves from Boston to the small southern town of Bomont to live with his aunt and uncle.  He finds that in the aftermath of a tragic car accident three years earlier, a series of rather draconian laws were passed to “protect” the students, including a law that bans dancing in public.  Ren embarks on a campaign to revoke the law and to allow dancing back in the town.

My two cents: I really loved the original.  His version was pretty darn good – but not quite up to the 1984 original.  Character by character: Ren goes to Kevin Bacon in 1984, Reverend Moore goes John Lithgow in 1984, Mrs. Moore goes to Diane Wiest in 1984, Williard – I give this a tie between Miles Teller (2011) and Chris Penn (1984), Ariel Moore goes to Julianne Hough in 2011.  I also liked the aunt and uncle in 2011 better.  The 1984 versions were red-neck bible-thumpers whereas the 2011 were pretty decent people and very supportive of Ren.  The real stand-out I thought was Julianne Hough.  She is not only drop-dead beautiful, but is in a class of her own when it comes to dancing.  My only real disappointment was that they did not give Kevin Bacon some kind of cameo.

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Where Soldiers Come From

Movie: Where Soldiers Come From

Genre: documentary

Synopsis: This documentary starts out shortly before the 2008 presidential election.  It follows five recent high-school graduates in a small town in the Upper Michigan Peninsula.  These five have grown up together and are inseparable friends.  Two of them enlist in the National Guard and talk the other three into also enlisting.  The five are trained in a unit that disposes of IEDs.  Ultimately, the unit – and the five friends – get sent to Afghanistan.  The documentary shows the men discussing whey they enlisted, it shows how they react to being deployed and how they are physically and mentally changed for the rest of their lives.  It also follows their families and girlfriends so we can see the effect the deployment has on them . . . and how they deal with the changes in their sons/boyfriends when they return.

My two cents:  I have seen a lot of movies/documentaries about soldiers in the war in Afghanistan and Iraq.  Until this now, “Stop Loss” was the only one that really touched on how soldiers handled things when they were back in the states. “Where Soldiers Come From” gives us a real-life look at the impact a soldier’s deployment can have on their families and loved-ones.  It also shows how a single deployment can so totally change a man for the rest of his life.  An example of how the family can suffer was given by the father of one of the soldiers.  He said that every time the phone rang, he was afraid it was a call to tell him his son had been injured or killed.  Every time he heard a car door slam outside his house, he was afraid it was the Army coming to notify him that his son was dead.

Bottom line: I have never had anyone I know, much less a family member, deployed in a combat situation.  This is one of those movies that I feel people in my situation need to see in order to gain some kind of understanding about the degree of the sacrifice made by our soldiers and their families and loved-ones and corresponding high cost of war.

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