Raya (Tre Armstrong) är fast beslutsam att göra något av sitt liv efter systerns drogrelaterade död och hennes passion i livet är streetdance. För att kunna studera medicin på universitetet behöver hon pengar och då dyker chansen upp i och med danstävlingen Stomp Monster där förstapriset är 50 000 Dollar. Nu gäller det bara att få in en fot i en dansgrupp, vilket visar sig svårare än väntat.

Fullt medveten om att jag inte tillhör målgruppen, måste jag ändå konstatera att jag förblir tämligen oberörd hela filmen genom. Historien känns recyclad en gång för mycket och det är vare sig vidare snyggt gjort eller speciellt spännande. Visserligen visar man upp en sida av USA som Disney-koncernen gör sitt bästa för att gömma och glömma, men ett gäng duktigare dansare får inte detta att bli någon höjdare i mina ögon.

Betyg: 2

Dya reckon the same guys who made the newest movie poster for Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li had tips from the people who made the poster for How She Move (I feel very uneasy saying that out loud) ?

Again, just sayin’ …

Stomp the Yard is an unassuming film about a young man, played by Columbus Short, who finds a family of brotherhood through stepping at a southern, black university. Stomp the Yard is a Dance Flick, but it isn’t only a Dance Flick.  It’s a good dance flick; the best I’ve ever seen. When Stomp the Yard was over I realized the Dance Flick is an established genre in Hollywood with its own rules and requirements, much like the Scary Movie or the Romantic Comedy. What defines the Dance Flick, I wondered, and how did Stomp the Yard do it so well?

The Evolution of the Dance Flick

The dance flick has been big money for Hollywood for 30 years. When John Travolta strutted through Bay Ridge to the soundtrack of the BeeGees popular music and contemporary style merged in a visual way that blew bell bottom disco style out of Brooklyn and into the rest of the world. But Saturday Night Fever was more than a dance movie. It was a tale of post-adolescence told in the context of the lower-middle-class Italian American community of New York.  Dance wasn’t the story; dance was the setting.

By 1987 Dirty Dancing came around and began to define what we now understand to be a Dance Flick. There was a love story, there was crossover between the music of the movie and the pop charts of the time, there were plot points and character arcs told explicitly through choreographed dance routines. Our contemporary understanding of Dance Flicks, however, didn’t begin to crystallize until 2001, following the Boy Band Explosion of the ’90s, when MTV Films and Paramount released Save the Last Dance. The story of Julia Stiles’ exile to the South Side of Chicago and her subsequent salvation through Sean Patrick Thomas and hip-hop dance established the basic themes and structure that all future dance movies would mimic.

The Rules

Let’s play like Randy Meeks in Scream and break down the top 10 rules of the Dance Flick.

1. The protagonist must be forced to leave home and enter a hostile environment where they are somehow financially or socially deficient.

2. The protagonist must have a non-conformist attitude that sets them apart from the popular kids.  The protagonist’s reluctance to fit in draws negative attention from those who benefit from the status quo.

3. The protagonist must be talented in something not valued by their new, current environment.

4. The protagonist meets a friend who introduces them to the dancing subculture of their new environment.

5. The protagonist challenges established norms by trying to break into this subculture.

6. The protagonist falls in love with someone within this community who is considered off limits.

7. The relationship threatens all the gains made by the protagonist.

8. The relationship falls apart due to some sort of misunderstanding or racial, class difference.

9. There’s a huge competitive dance climax for which the protagonist must appear, but something has happened and he/she will not be able to perform.

10. The love interest returns and whatever obstacle preventing the protagonist from performing during the climax is overcome.

You can recognize the above plot points in every dance movie from Save the Last Dance to Step Up 2 The Streets to You Got Served to Drumline to Footloose. At their core, they are the same movie. They are Dance Flicks. They are variations on a theme, a theme seemingly so limitless that it would appear that there’s no end to the number of permutations this formula can take on. Except there is. When one movie executes the routine perfectly, incorporating the best of all its predecessors into a cohesive product that makes future itterations redundant, the game is over. On January 12, 2007, the yard was stomped and the Dance Flick was over.

Stomp the Yard

Directed by Sylvain White, Stomp the Yard is essentially the same movie as either Drumline or How She Move. It might even be considered a mash up of the two. There is stepping and it takes place in Atlanta. Done. How She Drum. Except there’s more to Stomp the Yard. There is an understanding of hip-hop culture absent in most if not all previous examples of Dance Flicks. By telling a story that perfectly blends character growth with an exciting, innovative perspective on dance, Stomp the Yard has simply made the need for any future Dance Flick unnecessary. Here’s how.

Film Style

From the get-go Stomp the Yard is visually different than any of its predecessors. Shot with a modified shutter, the opening scene is more Saving Private Ryan than Save the Last Dance. The strobe effect of that scene sets the tone for a film captured with shaky hand-held cameras, quick edits and dynamic lighting schemes. Even the ethereal scoring from music supervisor Tim Boland (not to be confused with Timbaland) evokes what Peter Berg did to the Sports Flick in Friday Night Lights. At other times Stomp the Yard even seems to be channeling that other unorthodox interpretation of the football movie, Oliver Stone’s Any Given Sunday. By immediately referencing movies about war and sports with his visual style, director Sylvain White was telling the audience, “Yo, this ain’t no ordinary Dance Flick.”  Or maybe he was saying it like “Hey, this isn’t any ordinary Dance Flick.”  Either way, you get the gross pointe blank.

Commentary on Dance

At no point in the movie does any character or plot point tell the audience where the action is taking place. When the film opens, the filmmakers leave it to the audience to deduce through the Krump moves of the dancers and the atmosphere of the setting that this is Los Angeles. Ingeniously, Sylvain White even cameos dancers from the movie Rize, the only other Dance Flick that could be argued as the paragon of the genre. The college campus to which the protagonist, DJ, travels to is treated with a similar degree of knowing ambiguity. The audience is expected to understand that the HBC depicted, as indicated through style of dress, film language, and Step culture, is located in Atlanta.

At another point in the movie, when DJ must prove his talents as a dancer, he battles by mocking the styles of dance of each geographic crew in the club. He mocks ATL with his “Laffy Taffy,” he mocks New York and their “B-boy” stunting, he mocks Miami and its Salsa influences. He only does this through a single dance routine. No words. The amount of story, the amount of character alienation, the amount of courage depicted by this single moment told only through action is single-handedly the most interesting use of dance I’ve ever seen in a Dance Flick. This was no montage; this was no physical interlude; this was visual story-telling in its most novel form.

Stomp the Yard also fulfills that necessary criteria of relevance – it advances the argument of dance. Like the best Dance Movies (including Bring it On), something wholly original emerges from the protagonist’s participation in the new environment’s established subculture of dance. In Stomp the Yard, DJ brings an element of hip-hop into stepping that makes the style more dynamic and fluid. As seen in movies like How She Move, stepping’s kind of boring on film. By allowing DJ to appropriate and change the style of step popular at Truth University, the filmmakers of Stomp the Yard showed us not only growth in a character but the growth of his surroundings as a result of his choices. Of course the climax of the movie is the national step championships, but the way the film grounds every dance move in the relationship of the main characters is positively evocative. Never before has a sliding elbow stand been so poetic.  I’m serious.  Never.

Blackness

Stomp the Yard finds emotional roots in two places: the interpersonal relationships between DJ and his fraternity brothers and the personal relationship between DJ and the mission of his historically black university. DJ is a counter-cultural black kid from LA. He arrives in Atlanta with an attitude that conflicts with the stern gravitas of his uncle, played by Harry Lennox. DJ’s anti-authoritarian individuality collides with the institutional rules of higher education as well as the community aspect of black fraternity culture. By placing hip-hop in direct conflict with step, Sylvain White is commenting on the supposed monolithic nature of blackness. In a slightly hokey scene in Heritage Hall, DJ confronts the African American legacy of the Civil Rights movement in the South. The reason the scene works is because the film has taken the time to build DJ as a character and couch all his decisions in a web of several motivations ranging from a death in the family to the love of a woman. Simply put, no dance flick has handled the complex questions tackled by Stomp the Yard and no dance flick will do so again with the deft, entertaining grace of Sylvain White.

Don’t get me wrong. Stomp the Yard is not a great movie. It won’t be on any AFI lists or Criterion Collection DVDs. It is a melodramatic story intended for young audiences who spend their weekends at the mall multiplex. It is a Dance Flick, but it is a great Dance Flick. It’s the best Dance Flick made to date. It is the end-all-be-all of Dance Flicks. Stomp the Yard is the Dark Knight of Dance Flicks, and that, like the university in the film, is the Truth.  Dance Flick?  Consider yourself stomped.

How she move pour fanatiques de films sur le step avec hip hop en trame de fond. L’histoire est assez crédible pour faire tenir l’enchaînement des mouvements de danse. Une jeune fille avec de grandes ambitions revient dans son bled, suite à la mort de sa sœur. Elle voulait sortir du ghetto, la dépendance à la drogue de sa sœur l’y a ramené. Un concours de danse rafistolera sa vie. Le film avance, sans grandes surprises, jusqu’à la magistrale scène finale. J’aurais voulu encore plus de danses et un peu moins de mélo mais les chorégraphies dynamitées valent l’attente !!!

À l’origine, le film se déroulait à Toronto, du début à la fin et j’aurais beaucoup aimé voir la première version ! Ce film canadien, réalisé par Ian Iqbal Rashid et écrit par Annmarie Morais, a tout d’abord été lancé au Sundance Film Festival en 2007. Paramount et MTV, qui ont décroché le contrat de distribution, ont réinjecté un 2 millions de dollars supplémentaires à ce film de 5 millions pour refilmer certaines scènes jusqu’à Détroit et le remixer avec des artistes hip hop canadiens et américains. Ensuite, un 10 millions de plus dans la promotion et la distribution a contribué à faire connaître le film et même en faire un évènement. Le film a été projeté dans 1 500 salles de cinémas aux Etats-Unis et 50 au Canada. Deux actrices talentueuses à ne pas oublier : Rutina Wesley, le personnage principal et Tracey Tre Armstrong (dans un rôle secondaire mais inoubliable).

Une communauté s’est développée autour du film
http://www.myspace.com/howshemove

Following her sister’s death from drug addiction, a high school student is forced to leave her private school to return to her old, crime-filled neighborhood where she re-kindles an unlikely passion for the competitive world of step dancing.

Download Torrent

]]> http://quemovida.wordpress.com/2008/06/11/ritmos-del-barrio-13062008/ Wed, 11 Jun 2008 18:54:28 +0000 Redhill2008 http://quemovida.wordpress.com/2008/06/11/ritmos-del-barrio-13062008/ http://sweatitout.wordpress.com/2008/05/03/how-she-move/ Fri, 02 May 2008 19:09:04 +0000 Megan http://sweatitout.wordpress.com/2008/05/03/how-she-move/

 by megan

I recommend the film How She Move (2007).  Although, the acting isn’t incredible, the premise of the story is full of social issues that are so pertinent to self-esteem and self-worth.  “She” dance crews in step never win the big $50k prize, only the male crews do. She knows she has what it takes and she needs to get on a male crew to continue her education. It is a story full of underlying social issues, and a powerful message of finding yourself.

See our RESOURCES Page for other sources we recommend.

Wail. Today is Justin Timberlake’s 27th birthday—and mine was on Tuesday. Ha! Oui. I take pride in being forty-eight hours older.

I know the following assessment of How She Move (filmed in Canada) is not as thorough as I indicated it would be, but if i waited until my corporeality stopped misbehaving and acquiesced to the will of the mental facilities, it could be three weeks before this entry is posted. Alors, I decided to just go with what is below. Et encore. Ne personne me dit qu’il/elle voudrait les autre choses.

Goal-oriented Raya (Rutina Wesley) has to move back to the projects and attend public school after the death of her sister Pam (who had squandered away Raya’s tuition money on drugs). Raya has one week to prepare for an exam that will determine if she can obtain a scholarship to go back to Seaton Academy. Her schedule becomes significantly busier after she starts hanging out and stepping with her childhood friend Bishop (Dwain Murphy) and his crew. Narrative conflict consists of convincing and proving to Bishop she is good enough and serious about being a part of his crew (to win the big bucks at the annual Step Monster competition) as well as dealing with personality issues with Michelle (Tre Armstrong), another friend from the neighborhood.

I was right. It isn’t fair to compare How She Move with Stomp the Yard. Both films utilize stepping ways to fuel the conflict in the plot and for the protagonists to reclaim an amount of control over their lives, but the details aren’t the same. For Raya, stepping is the means for her to return to the life she’d been living for three years–private school to college to med school to out-of-the-projects. For DJ (Columbus Short), though, it possesses more redemptive powers (forgiving himself for not looking out for his little brother and caring about something other than himself).

I feel like I got to know DJ better as a character and I liked him more–he seemed more sympathetic, which is probably because of his more pronounced slacker, carefree tendencies. Raya, on the other hand, is focused to the point of being self-absorbed, unaware that she can’t have what she wants, she can’t achieve her goals without accommodating the will of others and helping them out from time to time (the film directly articulates this point).

Visually, Stomp the Yard is silken sunshine and How She Move is grainy cyan (actually a nice touch I thought). I prefer the filmed danced aesthetic of the latter. The making-of featurette of Stomp the Yard suggests that capturing the energy and the awe-inspiring movements of the dancers necessitated frenetic cutting and slow-motion. How She Move, though, concentrates on a different aspect of stepping as spectacle and as dance (not quite sure how to explain it right now). The recital aesthetic is incorporated in conjunction with low-angle shots, high-angle shots, and minimal slow-motion. It reminded me of the music video for Busta Rhymes’s song “Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Can See” (directed by Hype Williams)–except much less use of fisheye lens.

How She Move trailer:

Stomp the Yard trailer:

Product Placement in How She Move: Nike, Pepsi, Dunlop, Aquafina

~Q~Q~Q~Q~

I dreamed a yesterday morning that I was talking to Peyton Manning about salsa/nacho chips.
Ah, yes. The Game Plan and The Comebacks are both out on DVD now. Go Netflix, Blockbuster, Amazon, or Best Buy them today! I’m going to pick up both films in the near future; I can finally get that in-depth probe of The Comebacks vis-a-vis Not Another Teen Movie.

     As my first comeback post, I decided to take it easy. No need to rush into anything willy-nilly and possibly pull a mental muscle. Therefore it will be another review.

DISCLAIMER: Paying homage to the Enduring Vision, I have decided to continue one of Josh’s regular features that I loved so much: Posting some Yahoo! Movie’s User Reviews. For some reason, you tend to see the most ridiculous ideas, spelling and punctuation on these forums. Anyway, I hope Josh doesn’t sue me. You see, I’m rebroadcasting with implied oral consent, not express written consent. Enjoy!

Hip-Hop is in the building
by rumphrumph14 (movies profile) Jan 25, 2008
3 of 5 people found this review helpful

No matter what ideas or notions you had going into the movie, u must step inside the main charcter head.

She had few options, but knew what she wanted. She used her talents to get to the next stage in her life. Which happen to be med school. The story line seemed far fectched but most hood/ ghetto beings have real dreams just like the rest of America.

I think this movie gives the same appearence of U got served, but more like u got served 2. It is done from a female point of few.

This movie sheds light on what exactly is HIP HOP? And the movie answers the question by saying, ” HIp Hop is here to stay so get use to it America.” Yet this movie says something even bigger. URBAN life has entered everybody world all across the globe.

Go see this with people you enjoy viewing movies with.

Clint: Definition of HIP HOP: Hip Hop is here to stay so get use to it America. Judges…ruling? Ohhhhh sorry, that’s incorrect.

I’m going to see it just because of these reviews
by ph3management (movies profile) Jan 25, 2008
3 of 8 people found this review helpful

Just from the negative responses here I am definitely going to see this movie. The responses are obviously from people who don’t know the HIP HOP culture. If it sucks, then so be it, but I definitely am going to support it. When HATERS – HATE let ‘em hate just watch ya money pile up!

Clint: Just to be clear, how does letting haters hate get me paid. I only ask because I think that might be the easiest way in the world to get paper. Do I have to sign up for PayPal?

do you know what happens behind the scene
by chocholate_de_light (movies profile) Jan 25, 2008

this is to the ass hole who said black dance stars are racist because there arent that many white people in the movies i know for a fact that isnt true you cant make assumptions like that for every one to see you dont know how many dancers you could have discouraged there arent many white people who try out for a black production films any way (who acually have talent) there arent that many black people either so stop being so damn negative you should encourage them to try out in stead of sayin that they wont be able to do it because black dance stars are racist and wont hire them make a difference instead of adding on to the problem

Clint: So I’m guessing you missed that day in second grade when they taught what punctuation was. Also, what the hell are you talking about?

do these movies ever change
by reviewguy101 (movies profile) Jan 26, 2008

can blacks make any movies that don’t involve dancing or sports???? these movies shouldn’t even be released. straight to DVD for this low budget crap.

Clint: American Gangster…nuff said.

YAY YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
by psychodisturbed (movies profile) Jan 25, 2008

Man this movie was off the chizain!!!! I couldn’t wait to go outside and dance on the hood of my Geo Metro. WORD UP G!!!!!!

Clint: I hope to God you’re being ironic.

“How She Move:” is that even English?
by gaberfeldy (movies profile) Jan 27, 2008
1 of 1 people found this review helpful

I write my review like title of movie. Maybe it easier to read for people who say thing like “how she move.”

Ghetto movie. Unnecessary.

Clint: ‘“How She Move:” is that even English?’ If you really have to ask please leave the planet. You’re not doing anyone any good.

Does this count as a foreign movie?
by leonine26 (movies profile) Jan 27, 2008

After seeing the grammatical nightmare of a title, I wondered if this qualifies as a foreign movie. From what I could tell of the (ridiculous) preview, anyone with more than an eighth grade education will probably need subtitles to understand it. If “how she move” is as bad as “how filmmaker write,” I’ll skip this one. Know wha’ I sayin’?

Clint: leonine26 points out an important fact. Any movie with poor grammar is automatically relegated into the foreign movies categories. Das Boot was actually an American movie about basketball believe it or not.

poor movie!
by target_green_patches (movies profile) Jan 29, 2008

this movie was so dumb and it was the worst movie that I’ve ever seen at the movie theaters,the girl was ugly as *****!

this movie was truthfully a waste of movie…and I don’t recommend anyone to go out to see this movie

Clint: She was as ugly as five asterisks and an exclamation point? Surely not!

DON’T WASTE YOUR MONEY!!
by friend_of_jesus23 (movies profile) Jan 27, 2008

THE PREVIEWS LOOKED GOOD, THE MOVIE WAS HORRIBLE! I ALMOST FELL ASLEEP DURING THE MOVIE! I WOULD RATHER HAVE A ROOT CANAL DONE

Friend_of_jesus23’s dentist: Really? How’s Tuesday?

—

Listen: “Pistola” – Incubus
Quote: “I was watching a television program before, with a kind of roving moderator who spoke to a seated panel of young women who were having some sort of problem with their boyfriends – apparently, because the boyfriends had all slept with the girlfriends’ mothers. And they brought the boyfriends out, and they fought, right there on television. Toby, tell me: these people don’t vote, do they?” – President Josiah Bartlett

http://imdb.com/title/tt0770810/

The title is dumb, but whatever, apparently it’s the Caribbean Canadian culture and the language of Patois. That’s fine, I am not one who would ever not watch a movie based on a silly title. I don’t really have any complaints in the movie. I was twenty minutes late to the movie but I feel like all I missed was plot which is not really the reason people go to see this movie.

SPOILER ALERT!!

So apparently some chick dies of an drug OD. This causes her younger sister to go back to the hood and start stepping so she can make money. She dick’s over some other girls who were her friends. Then she dicks over some guy (who looks like a young Lawrence Fishbourne) and then she dicks over some other pimp looking guy who I think was her sister boyfriend. She goes back to her lover boy, who she dicked over, and they win the champion ship and hugs and kisses.

SPOILER ALERT!!

The movie was not bad by any stretch of the imagination. The stepping was pretty badass and everyone loves the token white boy in the movie. He was, by far, my favorite character in the movie. Heres the catch though. If you have seen; Stomp the Yard, Drumline, Step Up, Save the Last Dance, or even Take the Lead, then you already know what will happen. Its a bit too predictable, but in its credit it had its differences. This was, to the best of my knowledge, the first “black girl goes back to the ghetto to make money” type of movie. So that was pretty refreshing.

If you feel like listening to some good music and being amazed at someone doing what you can never do yourself, this is a great movie.

¤¤¤

When I heard that people like Jennifer Kawaja and Ian Iqbal Rashid were behind the new film How She Move, I just knew I had to go see it.

Check out the film at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0770810/

I liked how this was not another story about a white female teacher ’saving’ the black kids. I loved watching the incredible, athletic, dance moves. The stories were all about poor Toronto black kids and their families. The female characters were complex, strong and their primary struggles were not romantic.  The male characters were not two-dimensional stereotypes. The happy ending was a bit Hollywoodish, but, hey, I love happy endings.

Another thing very cool about the opening night–it was dyke city at the Paramount! In particular, it seemed like nearly all the queer women of colour I know came out to support the film on it’s first weekend in the theatres.

Go see it! 

Enjoy the How She Move Movie Trailer!

…to be prim and proper.

Edit: Click here for my entry on the film.

Or, How She Move. Directed by Ian Iqbal Rashid and written by Annmarie Morais, this dance film can be most conveniently described as a gender-reversal of Stomp the Yard, minus the near exclusive focus on stepping. Mais, je crois que cette pensee est trop…facile? sans l’inspiration.

Sorry. There I go thinking out loud en Francais again.

….I believe this idea is too easy, uninspired. How She Move surely can’t be summed up so neatly as “the female version of Stomp the Yard” not just because the plot details aren’t that similar, but also because I imagine aside from the ideologically significant role that dancing plays in the characters’ lives, other issues are at play. In fact, maybe it’s the film’s visual design and lighting scheme, but something about the trailer makes me think of Girlfight (Karyn Kusama, 2000)—probably on account of the defeminizing of dancing in the one film complements the manipulated masculinity of the other.

I’ll know with more certainty after I watch How She Move later today. The poster makes me think of Blaxploitation promotional pieces in the scent of Pam Grier.

Here’s the trailer for How She Move.

Here’s the trailer for Girlfight.

January continues with what looks like a bunch of shitty releases. There’s no way that you’ve seen all the recent Oscar hopefuls. If haven’t seen There Will Be Blood, I highly recommend that you check that out before any of the below. Or No Country for Old Men. Or Atonement. Or Juno. All the same, here are some new movies coming out this weekend.

Meet the Spartans: This is a truly puzzling concept for a movie. From the title, it would seem that it is a spoof of 300 and Meet the Parents. Meet the Parents, however was just spoofed in the equally stupid looking Date Movie. And 300, if anywhere, should have been spoofed in Epic Movie (also dumb looking). None of this should matter though, because you shouldn’t see these movies anyway, because they look like total shit. The trailer features jokes from movies that came out several years ago (You Got Served) as well as “Britney Spears is crazy” jokes. Basically, if you’re annoying douche of a coworker who makes stale pop culture jokes all day could make a movie, this would probably be it. Oh yeah, and Kevin Sorbo is in it. This is playing at the United Artists on Court Street.

Rambo: I still haven’t made up my mind on whether this is going to be the best bad movie ever made or simply the worst. Either way, I’m sure I’ll end up seeing it at some point, if only to hear Sylvester Stallone try to connect words to form full sentences. Among my favorites from the trailer are “When you’re pushed, killing’s as easy as breathing,” and “live for nothing, or die for something.” Rambo, in addition to fileting people alive, is apparently quite the philospher. What is sure about this film is that it promises to be an insanely violent and painful experience. And who knows? He’s made sequels to Rocky and Rambo. Maybe he’ll finally read the romantic sequel to Tango & Cash (Tango & Cash 2: It Takes Two to Tango) that I’ve sent him so many times. This is playing at the United Artists on Court Street and the Pavilion.

Untraceable: There’s a serial killer who is using the internet. They use the word “cybercrime” a lot. The director, Gregory Hoblit, has made some decent thrillers (Primal Fear, Fracture) but that’s not enough to make me see this in theaters. The movie stars Diane Lane and Colin Hanks. It’s playing at the United Artists on Court Street and the Pavilion.

How She Move: Another in the ever-growing stepdancing genre, this one is about a girl who must move from her private school back to a public school in her old neighborhood after the death of her sister. She joins an all-male dance group and before you can say Step Up 2 the Streets (which I believe comes out this February), she is sliding on the ground and flipping over people in slow motion. This is playing at the United Artists on Court Street.

4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days: This Romanian film won both the Palme D’Or at Cannes, and has won many other awards across the world. It takes place in a 24 hour period, and follows a woman who is trying to negotiate an illegal abortion during the communist Ceaucescu regime. It is my pick of the week (it doesn’t have much competition). It’s playing at the IFC Center in Manhattan.

Otherwise, Persepolis is opening tomorrow at BAM, and there is a midnight screening of Fear And Loathing in Las Vegas at the Landmark Sunshine in Manhattan.

I am loving the change that Keyshia Cole has made fashin wise. This look is very ecclectic. It has many different layers to it. Her makeup is also on point. Different is good and I love it!

There are several things about the 1980s most of us would happily forget. Take, for example, shoulder pads, T-shirt clips and the New Kids on the Block.

However, there was an upside to that decade. After all, it was also the time period that brought the world pop-culture heroes like Ronald Reagan, Molly Ringwald and those adorable, fuzzy little Care Bears.

While I’m all for ’80s nostalgia in the form of Cabbage Patch Dolls and Strawberry Shortcake cartoons, some forms of entertainment should rest in peace where we left them two decades ago. Included in that assessment are recent attempts at ’80s throwbacks like “Miami Vice” and “Alvin and the Chipmunks.”

Sylvester Stallone found critical success recently with the release of his sixth “Rocky” flick, “Rocky Balboa,” which featured the actor as an aging version of the boxer he made famous long ago. But how will the writer-actor-director measure up while presently filling his other iconic role, that of disgruntled Vietnam War veteran John Rambo?

Believe it or not, Stallone is nearing his 62nd birthday, and in spite of the fact that he’s nearing a widely recognized retirement age, Sly is still going strong at the box office. Plus, he’s got the washboard abs to prove he’s no slouch when it comes to being a modern-day action star.

So, hoping that ’80s nostalgia will fuel more box-office success for Stallone, movie execs gave “Rambo,” a fourth film about America’s favorite renegade soldier, the go-ahead.

This film marks the machine gun-wielding macho man’s first appearance on the big screen in 20 years. Audiences were first introduced to Rambo in the 1982 film “First Blood.” The series’ new installment finds the retired soldier lured back into action when some peace-loving aid workers are kidnapped in the midst of war-torn Thailand.

More ’80s nostalgia flicks slated for release in the next few years include “G.I. Joe” and “The A-Team,” with rapper-actor Ice Cube potentially filling the role made famous by Mr. T.

Like Stallone, actress Diane Lane is no spring chicken, yet she leads this week’s other major opener at the box office. “Untraceable” finds Lane as an investigator tracking down a killer who airs his victims’ deaths live on the Internet.

The film comes from “Fracture” director Gregory Hoblit, who appears to have a morbid obsession with murder as of late. This flick seems like a “CSI” for the big screen with the bonus of using the Web as a horror device.

Those idiot spoof-movie creators love to keep Carmen Electra working. This week, audiences will find the talentless beauty in “Meet the Spartans,” a cheap spoof of last summer’s hit action flick “300.”Adding even more cheese factor to this movie is actor Kevin Sorbo, who audiences may recognize from the now-defunct television series “Hercules.”

The same viewers who paid to see “Stomp the Yard” a year ago will probably shell out their cash for another step-dancing movie this week. “How She Move” is surely not the most grammatically correct title the movie world has ever seen. Luckily, music and dance are the focus here, so just watch the moves and ignore everything you learned in English class.