text: Flashdance is one of those awful, stupid movies that you actually kind-of enjoy, just because they're so crap. I just watched it on TV & my friend and I were amazed at how dopey it was. It's true that Don Simpson and the other producers came up with the idea of a fairly cheap, lowbrow flick with lots of sweaty bodies to help sell a soundtrack of (admitedly catchy) pop, so Flashdance is an odd sort of pioneer: the first MTV movie. Adrian Lyne started out in advertising and it shows because Flashdance is almost a commercial for itself. You've already decided to watch it but the movie has this weird, panicky undercurrent, as though it's frightened that you might change your mind at any moment. It keeps selling itself to you over and over, all the way through, using slick commercial-style editing and glossy close-ups of jiggling breasts. The story is wafer thin (I honestly can't think of another film I've seen with less plot) and it never makes much sense, but its a very contrived, calculating movie, so it feels consistent. People say it's dated but Flashdance was always rubbish. Viewers in the early 80's knew it was just cheesy T&A but it does work in its own silly fashion. There's soppy romance for the chick-flick crowd and stacks of oily, writhing female bodies for their dates, all set to a pumping disco beat. How could it fail? It helps that the dialogue is pointless, so you can grab a popcorn without missing anything major and, if this sort of thing isn't your cup of tea, you can always laugh at the 'interpretive dance' on display. The scene where a stand-in for Jennifer Beals convulses/'dances' on stage in front of a TV with a fan in it and a face full of white clown make-up had us in stitches. A genuine guilty pleasure.