“Dance Flick” is a hilarious comedy that brings together the talents of two generations of the Wayans family, the explosively funny clan who brought us the “Scary Movie” franchise and “White Chicks,” as well as the groundbreaking TV series “In Living Color.” “Dance Flick” sends up the dance movie genre, including such recent hits as “Step Up” and “You Got Served,” as well as the classic “Flashdance.” There have been few screen comedy families who have successfully passed the torch from one generation to the next as the Wayans family has.
The film opens with a large dance showdown. Thomas Uncles (Damon Wayans Jr.) and his crew are engaged in a fierce showdown which results in a tie. During the dance off, Thomas pees on the competition, only to be countered with a dancer who spins so fast he drills into the floor. The judge says that the only way to settle the score is with a rematch.
Thomas doesnt want to bet someone elses money on the match, but one of his crew says they can win if they pull off a signature move. Thomas warns against it since the person who does the move could become crippled for life. Thomas tells him that theres no I in team and the other man starts listing words that could have an I and include others. He disregards what Thomas is saying and bets 5,000 on the outcome of the match. The judge lies about the amount of money several times, each time getting a gun pointed at his head until he announces that the winner walks away with 10,000 dollars.
Thomas crew member, D, takes up the challenge and does a special move on his head. However, the other team put oil on the floor and D flies out of the building and down the street while on his head. He then falls off an overpass and dies. Thomas’s team loses and their boss is angry that they lost 5,000 dollars.
Megan White (Shoshana Bush) is on a train. A very large black woman with a bunch of kids asks if the seat next to her is taken. Her kids smack Megan into the glass. The mother sees Megan looking at a Dance catalog and asks if she dances. Megan recounts how she used to be a ballet dancer and smacked her family in the face before going to a dance competition.
Her mother was on her way to the competition when she was in a crash. Ignored by people who just wanted to steal free gas, her mother was forced to get out of the car on her on. She gets hit by several cars until Halle Berrys Catwoman hits her with her car and forces her into an open grave. Meanwhile, Megan dances for the judges in a scene which parodies Abigail Breslins dance routine at the end of Little Miss Sunshine until the judges throw a pie in her face. The judges reject her and then tell her that her mom died. The lady on the train, disgusted by the story, takes her kids away from Megan and leave Megan with Punch Me written on her and cornrows.
Dance Flick is a 2009 American musical comedy film directed by Damien Dante Wayans in his directorial debut and written by many of the Wayans family. It stars Shoshana Bush and Damon Wayans Jr. The film was set for release in the United States on February 6, 2009, and changed to May 22, 2009.
About the Production
The idea for “Dance Flick” came from a combination of suggestions from the younger Damien Dante and Craig Wayans and their uncle, Shawn, the latter often credited with starting new Wayans concepts. “Shawn is like a start-up engine,” says his brother Marlon. “When it comes to coming up with ideas, he’s like an idiot savant. Mostly idiot,” he laughs teasingly.
Ideas for Wayans projects come from the strangest places and at the strangest times, Marlon says. “Shawn will call me up at some weird hour in the morning with an idea, and I’ll just go, ‘Oh, that’s funny,’ we’ll start building from there.”
So why a send-up of dance movies? “We had just come off a stream of really good dance movies, like ‘You Got Served,’ ‘Step Up’ and “Stomp the Yard,’” says producer Rick Alvarez, a longtime partner of the Wayans brothers. “But they were all starting to tell the same stories. They were all doing the same kinds of dances and everything started to feel the same. We just knew it was time.”
“Dance movies are incredible,” says comic actor Affion Crockett, who plays A-Con, an aspiring convict, in the film. “But the acting is usually atrocious, and there’s no story line. It’s like you find a couple of kids that are down and out and have no direction, and all of a sudden dancing saves their lives.”
It was not only the preponderance of dance movies in movie theaters, but also on TV shows like “Dancing with the Stars” and “So You Think You Can Dance” that inspired the Wayans to action. “‘Dancing with the Stars’ has all these B movie stars and singers,” notes Damon Jr. “I mean, Heather Mills – everybody wanted that leg to fly off. I was watching, just hoping, ‘Come on, just once, just let it slide on the floor and turn it into a dance move.’” He adds, simply, “There’s been so much dance involved in our culture lately that somebody needed to make fun of it.”
Send-ups are, it seems, a way of life for the Wayans. “They notice trends and things that have passed their prime, that are at a place where they have almost become parodies of themselves,” says Alvarez. Damon agrees. “They just see a trend and then act accordingly – ‘Somebody should make fun of that.’”
Adds Crockett, “The Wayans have a way of taking movies that you would have seen in the theater, ones where you might have watched a scene and said to yourself, ‘Wow, that was corny – but what if this would have happened? That would have made it funnier.’ They have a way of tapping into that and translating it to the screen and bringing the jokes forward.”
Once a project is underway, team Wayans gets to work, starting with selecting the movies to send-up, classics like “Flashdance” and “Fame,” as well as most of the recent crop, including “Save the Last Dance” and “High School Musical.”
“We look for the best story that will fit the genre,” explains Craig. “A lot of other parodies, they just take whatever the biggest movies were, period, and throw them in and say it’s genre when it’s not. We pretty much just load up on the genre and go for it and have fun.”
As one might expect, a gathering of Wayans all watching movies and looking for moments to take-off on isn’t an event anyone would want to miss. “It’s like going to a movie with a bunch of teenagers,” describes Craig, “and a bunch of Monster energy drinks and candy, and you hear people talking in the background and making fun of what’s on the screen.”
The environment is a far cry from the standard writer’s room. “I’ve seen other writer’s rooms and they’re boring,” he adds. “With us, it really doesn’t seem like work. I’m with my family, my best friends, and all we do is laugh, crack jokes and put it on paper.”
The crew gathered at Keenen’s or Shawn’s house, or wherever was convenient, to review potential parodies. “If somebody had a stand-up gig, we’d go on the road and, before and after, we’d just write,” Craig continues. “We’d hang out with each other all the time, so even if we were going somewhere to have fun, we could work until it was time for fun and then work afterwards. You come up with your best stuff that way.”
Joke suggestion periods weren’t necessarily limited to daytime. “We’d get a lot of calls at 3 o’clock in the morning,” Craig says. “It’ll be 3 a.m. and Shawn will call, going, ‘Oh, man, I was just doing such-and-such and this happened.
Wouldn’t that be funny in the movie?’ I’m, like, ‘Hey, this couldn’t wait until tomorrow? Ever heard of a pad and pen?’” But that door swung both ways, Craig confesses. “And sometimes, you’d call somebody at four in the morning and say something funny, and they’re like, ‘Hey, man that wasn’t that funny. Go back to sleep. Don’t call with this nonsense.’”
Compilations of great gags are nothing new to the Wayans, whose work is rooted in gag-after-gag sketch comedy. “To them (the Wayans family),” notes choreographer Dave Scott, “doing a send-up gives them an opportunity to go to more places in one project, without having to be locked into just one genre. They can add in a send-up of ‘Crash’ or ‘Black Snake Moan.’ It gives them an opportunity to be even more insane in one project because they’re not locked down to making fun of just one thing.”
“A theater with a laughing audience is all we want,” Marlon continues. “If we can get the people we’re making fun of to laugh, we know we did a good job. We don’t want to see anybody cry. We just want to see people crying from laughter.”
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Dance Flick (2009)
Directed by: Damien Dante Wayans
Starring: Damon Wayans Jr., Craig Wayans, Shoshana Bush, Essence Atkins, Affion Crockett, Lauren Bowles, Chelsea Makela, Shawn Wayans, Ross Thomas, Christina Murphy, Amy Sedaris, Chris Elliott
Screenplay by: Keenen Ivory Wayans, Shawn Wayans, Marlon Wayans, Damien Dante Wayans
Production Design by: Aaron Osborne
Cinematography by: Mark Irwin
Film Editing by: Scott Hill
Costume Design by: Judy L. Ruskin
Set Decoration by: Jennifer M. Gentile
Art Direction by: Erin Cochran
Music by: Dwayne Wayans, Erik D. Willis
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for crude and sexual content, and language.
Distributed by: Paramount Pictures
Release Date: May 22, 2009
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