A Chorus Line

You might look at the cover and wonder if it’s worth it, if you will enjoy watching a 29-year old film of a musical that made its Broadway debut in 1976. Well don’t think about it too much, because the answer is a resounding YES. Directed by Richard Attenborough (Gandhi, Chaplin) the film follows a group of young (and not-so-young) dancers as they go through a hellish audition process before a talented jerk of a director named Zach (Michael Douglas). While some of the situations may come across as a bit  dated and cliché – the old chorus girl trying to keep up with her younger competition, the gay chorus boy trying to prove his family that real men dance, too – the cast does a pretty good job of making them feel alive. The same goes for the music, although "Dance Ten looks Three,” once a show-stopper is a bit embarrassing now. Best part of all is the dancing, which Attenborough captures with a visual flair that is sorely missing from the majority of modern dance movies, where the editing does the heavy lifting. In A Chorus Line, you know the  people on screen are dancing for real and it’s brilliant.