BREAKING NEWS!

PHOEBE HAS READ AND APPROVED OUR REVIEW.

I now present to you, dear reader, Phoebe Unfiltered:

When I was 14, Center Stage was the utter apogee of cinema in my eyes. I was in love with more than one of the characters, I felt it described life completely accurately, and I just couldn't get enough of all that Jamiroquai.

Here in 2009, my dear, dear friends Alicia and Erin have become obsessed with teen competition movies (I mean who can blame them?) and have set up a blog to review ALL OF THEM EVER. Their criteria is incredibly specific and scientifically calculated... really, it's Siskel and Ebert level stuff.

To humor me, we all watched Center Stage about two weeks ago. I was supposed to be a guest reviewer for the blog, but I applied my procrastination skills in this situation as well. But, I'm quite glad I did. Alicia and Erin really posted a genius review of the movie written, as they would say, in the key of Phoebe. It would be almost completely accurate if it mentioned the incredible applicability of the lessons learned therein to real life and how OMG AMAZING it is that MOTHERFUCKING ILIA KULIK (1998 Olympic Figure Skating Champion) plays a small role. Also, around there it should be mentioned that Ilia Kulik may have been the first in a very long line of figure skaters I have fallen in love with.

Center Stage

This post is meant to be sung in the key of Phoebe.

Author's note: Let's be real here, you guys. This isn't a teen competition movie. We're doing this for Phoebe's sake because we love her and we think she's wonderful.


This is the best movie of all time. It taught me how to live, it taught me how to love, it has influenced every move I've ever made. Every move in my home life, in my love life, in my academic life, in my extracurricular life, in my sex life. Especially in my sex life. This taught me how a man should love and please a woman. Center Stage is cinematic poetry, and seeing it for the first time changed my life forever. The love scene is still the pinnacle of my existence, and to this day nothing in this plebeian world will ever compare to the fire it set in my loins.

Criteria:

• 0 points because this movie didn't see the strife between races, but there was tension in my love muscles
• 10 points for pursuing a love interest, not liking the love interest anymore, and then finding out you were being pursued the whole time, which is EVERY GIRL'S DREAM EVER
  
• 0 points because the coryphées chose to find inspiration in themselves rather than from a mentor
  
• 10 points for a mid-movie setback of Jonathan being too much of a philistine to see the true beauty and potential of Jody's "bad feet"
• 10 points for the entire film comprising of a training montage
• 0 points for all of the danseurs being too dedicated to their craft to leave the school
• 10 points for a message of finding a happy accord among fellow artists
  
• 10 points for everyone striving towards an academy goal, but MINUS FIVE POINTS because all the terpsichoreans earned an accolade in the end

Bonus points:

• 0 points for a competition between races; this is a competition between artists
• 0 points because because krumping isn't elegant enough for a masterpiece like that
• 1 point for a tango of talent
• 1 point for a boyfriend who was promiscuous Ethan Stiefel, but when you're the most perfect man in the world, that can be forgiven
• 1 point for parents who just don't understand what it means to follow a dream that consumes your lfie
• 0 points for a non-existent mentor not falling from grace
• 1 point for the chance to reach the pinnacle of achievement in artistic movement
• 0 points for there not being a tie-breaker because she was in a league of her own
• 1 point because I get chills down my spine every time I see them perform as a cohesive group
• 0 points because, although there were several luminaries of the ballet and figure skating worlds, none of them were judges for the final performance
• Author's note: We're going to step in here because Phoebe would give him 45 points but we're going to award him a whopping two points. Back into character, Phoebe would describe Cooper like so: Ethan Stiefel. Light of my life, fire of my loins, my sin, my soul. E-than Stie-fel. The tip of the tongue, taking a trip of four steps down the pallate, to lisp at three on the teeth.
• 0 points because the artistic integrity of this film would have been compromised had there been a "humorous" credit sequence

Final Score: 52

FAIL, CENTER STAGE. FAIL TO THE MAX.