C Me Dance (2009) Reviews

• When will Christian movie makers learn?

  voxhumana2010-03-06

  There seems to be an unwritten rule within the Christian community that any film made with a Christian theme must be "gushed" about as if it is a cinematic masterpiece. A quick scan of Christian-oriented entertainment sites indicate that this film has been consistently rated 4 to 5 stars. This is ridiculous because this film is embarrassingly bad. This misleading bias also means that terrible films like this will continue to get made. The fact that these films get laughed at in the secular world is usually dismissed as "anti-Christian sentiment". The sentiment is not "anti-Christian", it's "anti-terrible films". "Christian-themed" movies can (and should) be as good as any other film genre out there. But just like a building, a film requires good planning and skilled craftsmanship. If a local community built a church and it fell down, they would not be standing around saying "Oh what a wonderful church!". They'd be asking "what went wrong?" and resolving to never do it again. No building is excused from the rules of good construction, and no film genre is excused from the rules of good film-making. As an (incomplete) list of principles: 1 - All characters (and especially the lead characters) must have a journey. In this film Sheri has a minor journey (though an implausible one - her response to contracting leukemia is as tepid as if she'd merely missed a TV show), her father and all the other characters are two dimensional puppets. (Their unsurprised reaction to the physical appearance of Satan is absurd. No matter how devout you are, if Satan really appeared in physical form you'd still be shocked to some extent.) 2 - "Show, don't tell". The film regularly stops for inane preaching and pointless exposition. If meeting Sheri has really changed a character's life - show it. Having the character sit on a couch saying "Oh, you've changed my life" is no more convincing or meaningful than them saying "Oh, I've grown two extra arms". The act of "showing" is simple. Before the "change" show me scenes of the character's behaviour. Then have the transformation. Then show me the character afterwards. 3 - Every moment of a film must either advance the plot or develop a character (ideally both). If you can't demonstrate what a given moment of a film is achieving, cut it. There are some superb Christian-themed movies out there, eg. "The Apostle" with Robert Duvall. There are also dozens of truly superb subjects on Christian themes which could be made. 1 - A son raised in the church leaves so as to have "freedom", only to discover the real cost of this meaningless freedom (ie. a modern "prodigal son"). 2 - A skeptic who believes that Christians are "mindless drones" slowly falls for a Christian girl he works with and gradually discovers the true nature (and the causes) of his hostility. 3 - A Christian "faker" (someone who only claims to have faith so as to exploit the community for personal gain) is exposed and loses everything. Despite this he begins a journey to true redemption. If you are a Christian and you are angered by this comment then I'm sorry. But if Christian films are to have any value at all then there needs to be an objective attitude towards quality.

• Changed my life!

  rob-m-neilson2009-09-29

  There are few milestones left in this modern age. First day of school, first kiss, first car....and now the first time you've seen C Me Dance. With production values straight out of a public access show, and acting that is as wooden and stilted as a tele-novela C ME DANCE is a must see if you enjoy bad movies. I myself was a little disappointed in the final "speech" that beats the powers of evil, but there's a few great laughs throughout the movie. Perhaps my favorite is the reaction shot of Greg Robbins as he wakes up from a "nightmare". My friends and I played it back several times in slow motion. Genius! There's also lots of Ed Wood style day/night continuity problems, as well as some very bad montage editing. The worst part is that the producers believe that this Christian film, will move people towards religion. Wrong! This only preachers to the choir...and even devout Christian's will probably be offended by the gooey, backwards, and Saved By the Bell style sentiment that this film gives off like a bad odor...

• This films' existence is irrefutable proof this is a godless universe

  TheMarwood2014-06-02

  C Me Dance is so god awful, it's either been made by Satan as a joke or all the proof I need that this is a godless universe. After all, what kind of god would empower such a believer like director/actor Greg Robbins just to let him make a fool out of himself in front of and behind the camera? Like so many others who stumbled across the trailer, which transcended 'so bad it's good' into some sort of perfect state of pure awful, I had to seek the full movie out. I won't hold it against the film that I still get junk mail from the Christian company I had to order the movie from to see it, but the film does not live up to the promise of the trailer that this will be one of the best bad movies ever. False advertising. Damn that marketing, I expected the funniest worst thing imaginable, but it's just boring. Don't let my disappointment mislead you, it's still one of the worst films you'll ever see and there are moments of unintentional hilarity for sure, but it gets numbing just how incompetent this excrement is. I am glad the film exists, for without it, there would be no trailer - which has given me repeat viewings of absolute condescending joy.

• Wow...What a Waste

  Leparsdon2010-07-24

  This film started off okay...and the actors started speaking. I was astounded at the sheer level of bad acting, half hearted dialogue and a plot that was strewn together from pieces of other films. In the scene where Sheri is told she is going to die (and subsequent scenes where it is discussed) she acts in none of the ways that a 16 year old would act if they were given the same awful news. Also the way the characters interacted, it was as if they were strangers who were reading conversation off of a cue card or something. Also all their interaction were very wooden and unconvincing. The plot is also incomprehensible. It jumps around from pointless scene to pointless scene, and as another reviewer commented, the thoughts and feeling are told more so than shown and don't really do much to convince you that are watching people who really care about each other

• One of the worst films I have ever subjected myself to

  dbh8502012-05-16

  I cannot express how bad this film is. I feel bad writing this, but it seems I cannot help myself. I'm usually pretty generous in allowing bad writing, stiff acting, and weak directing not bother me too much. But this film was so filled with mindless, fundamentalist proselytizing, treacle that I can only say I'm glad I was doing file hygiene while I watched it on Netflix. Should have listened to their prediction... Netflix predicted I would hate it. I did. 1) Low intellectual level silly devil story. 2) Ghastly writing - bad dialogue, unbelievable personalities, and a story a 3rd grader could write. 3) Acting was just terrible and completely unbelievable. 4) Why not use a real dancer for the role? There are a lot of them around. 5) Doctors never, ever, ever, EVER date family members of patients. EVER. 6) So... even though the girl was a stage 4 patient, there was NO treatment of any kind? Nothing? Not even for symptoms? Oh wait... there were no symptoms. Right... a stage 4 cancer patient with NO symptoms. So stupid and ridiculous. Could the writer have spent TEN MINUTES talking this over with an oncologist? Everything about the illness was SO LUDICROUS. 7) That girl sure was healthy and robust right up until the day she literally dropped dead. I've had a lot of cancer patients. That was just plain stupid. 8) The doctor, upon seeing the girl's body, freaks out and drops her glass of milk? SERIOUSLY?!?!?! She's a DOCTOR. She works with cancer patients. She absolutely WOULD NOT do that. She would quickly go to the patient to assess what's going on - she did not know the girl was deceased. Perhaps I'm being defensive, but even in horrid films such as this one, I hate it when doctors are stupid or when they date people they absolutely CAN NOT date. In summary, if you like those Bible church Sunday night dramas designed to scare you into religious belief, if you are a fundamentalist and thus are blinded to terrible storytelling simply because you are thrilled to see your beliefs represented on film, if the important aspect of your religion is avoiding hell rather than being the kindest, most loving and helpful person you can be... you'll love this. If you have even average intelligence and are NOT a Bible-literalist fundamentalist, you'll hate this thing. Don't waste your time. For the record, I'm Christian - but I find proselytizing highly offensive. I don't accept the concepts of hell and the devil. I don't feel compelled to tell other people they have to become Christian; I respect other people's views. I value kindness towards others and a life of service. And I'm a doctor who is always disgusted to see stupid doctors on TV. I'm pretty sure there is little chance I would like this dreadful offering even if it wasn't so terribly written and acted. And what the heck is up with that title? I'm sorry - it's a stupid title. I watched it because I studied ballet for years and I love it. I thought I would see some good dancing - and I was doing work on my computer, so I wasn't sitting in front of the TV, throwing out over an hour of my life that I never would get back. Now THAT would have been bad. Maybe fundamentalist religious people just shouldn't make films. Perhaps it's just too tempting to come up with something to scare people into believing as they do. This was nothing less than an acted out religious tract - like those silly Chick Publications. The filmmaker tried to cram religious scare-tactics down the viewers' throats and it just left a bad taste in my mouth.