LIST: Top 40 Dance Videos (Part Four)

Here we are, at the top of the pyramid. The Top Ten. I hope you like all these as much as I do.

BUT! Before we move on to the business at hand, allow me to remind you up front that this is a list of the best dance videos, NOT the best video dance routines. If that were the case, then you would have seen a lot more from Madonna, Michael Jackson, Lady Gaga, and more. I had to draw the line somewhere, and I decided I couldn't classify something as a Dance Video if the dancing took up less than half the video. Believe me, it was HARD cutting "Beat It" from this list. It was in my top three until I actually went and watched the video again... and found that the dancing doesn't even start until almost two-thirds of the way through. And the more Michael videos I watched, the more I realized that even though what dancing there was is still stellar, there wasn't nearly as much dancing in them as I remembered. In fact, the one that had the most was the edited version of "Bad", which I... <runs for cover>... HATE (I just never bought that persona from Michael).

Anyway.

Rest assured, were this a list of greatest music videos of all time, or of the best dance routines, there would be a LOT more MJ (and Madonna) on this list. But as it is, this is how the list stands. At this point, most of the videos speak for themselves, but I will still try to articulate why I think they're the best of the best.

10. OK Go - Here It Goes Again

I wrestled with myself over whether this actually counted or not, and finally decided it did. This treadmill routine (choreographed by Trish Sie) is a gimmick, sure, but WHAT a gimmick. It's super clever, superbly executed (in ONE TAKE!), and still mind-blowing. I still watch it in a state of "What the... How did they... Oh. My. GOD! AWESOME!" every single time.

LIST: Top 40 Dance Videos (Part One)

Lists are, if you'll pardon my French, fucking DIFFICULT. I hate making them with a flaming passion. But I also LOVE them. They feel so representative, so orderly, so... SATISFYING. But compiling them? They're hard enough to order as it is outside of a few selections near the top usually, but then just when you think you're done you realize you completely forgot something and it screws up everything, or you realize that one thing dominates more than half the list, or you can't find a crucial piece of info or even proof of the existence of one of your entries, causing you to question your sanity... NIGHTMARE.

But sometimes, you just feel the need and come hell or high water or no sleep, you HAVE to make a list. And so here we are.

Because of that one episode of Hit Me With Your Best Shot a few weeks back, music videos have been on my mind recently. Mainly in an "Are they still a thing?" way, but I felt a list coming on, so I decided not to fight it... only there were entirely too many videos to choose from when making a list of the greatest of them all. But then I went back to my roots and decided to do a list of the Best DANCE Videos, and everything fell into place. Kind of.

Granted, you could make a list that consisted entirely of Michael and Janet Jackson videos and it would arguably hold water, so dominant are they at creating dance-centric clips... but a list of dance videos without Madonna? Without Paula Abdul? Inconceivable!

But on the other hand, there are AT LEAST six Janet videos that could be considered definitive for her, compared to one for pretty much everybody else, and they all pretty much trounce the competition. Leave it to Janet to always bring the next level shit - the tilting dance floor in "Doesn't Really Matter", the mixture of Afro-Cuban dance, breakdance, and stepping in "Escapade" - and also to show the young-uns how it's done ("All For You" and "All Nite" are some of the most intricate, stylish dance videos of their respective eras). I mean, yes, "Rhythm Nation" is her best overall video, but can you really put it on a dance-centric list above the incredible solo in "Pleasure Principle" or the killer chair routine in "Miss You Much"?

Anyway, this has been on my brain for long enough. So I finally decided to throw caution to the wind and just publish the damn thing already.

I had only one criteria for this list: The dancing has to be the star. So any clips in which dance plays a supporting role ("Chasing Pavements") or in which the dance routine just doesn't get enough screen time ("Marry The Night" and pretty much anything else by Lady Gaga) had to go, unfortunately. Videos that were one-take wonders got extra consideration due to degree of difficulty. I decided to cap it at 40 because Top 40 is a big deal in music. If there's enough interest or if I feel like it, I'll post ten Honorable Mentions to bring it up to 50. I'll be posting 10 a day until it's done.

Let the countdown begin!

Hit Me With Your Best Shot - Dick Tracy

Written as part of the series hosted by the fabulous Nathaniel at The Film Experience.

It's funny how differently you respond to movies as a kid as to when you're an adult. I have only vague memories of Warren Beatty's Dick Tracy, mostly of how much I wanted that yellow hatted-and-trenchcoated man to take me under his wing and come rescue me from the bad guys. But other than Madonna and the perfectly grotesque makeup jobs on the comic book villains (this is a comic book film that ACTUALLY LOOKS like a goddamn comic book, and thank GOD for that!), there is only one specific thing I remember completely clearly. This shot:

There's nothing particularly remarkable about the shot - it's not the first time we see "No Face", nor is it the first time we hear that terribly constricted voice. But whenever the film is brought up (which admittedly isn't often, but still...), my mind immediately flashes to this shot. And after looking at it for quite a long time I think I know why:

It's understated.

Dick Tracy is a gaudy, almost garish film. It leans into the aesthetics of its comic book roots almost as much as Sin City leans into that of its graphic novel source. It's not a bad thing, either: this is one of the most fun comic book films ever made - enough to make you wish the comic book movies of today would leave the "real world" behind completely - and the design (production, lighting, costume, makeup) is constantly surprising and delightful.

But this shot eschews nearly ALL of that. It's so stark and dimly lit. You still have the film's primary color scheme, but these colors are muted as opposed to the brightness found everywhere else. And that blank face is so perfectly wiped clean of any identifying traits. By rights, your focus should be on the gun, but instead it's all about that face - or rather, that anti-face. It conjures up a sense of mystery perfectly by not just looking completely different from everything surrounding it, but by forcing your focus to that blankness at the center.

*                    *                    *

Of course, it makes sense that - SPOILER - the person under that mask is Madonna, the woman of a thousand faces. This is probably her second-best screen performance (after A League of Their Own, obviously), all deeply carnal sensuality as the femme fatale Breathless Mahoney. She rarely gets the credit she deserves as an actress, and it's true that most of her work here doesn't go deeper than the surface, but it's actually pretty damn good. And slyly smart: Given that she's a completely blank slate for most of the film, the final reveal should come as no surprise to anyone.

LIST: Directors Who Should Have Directed Fifty Shades of Grey

I read Fifty Shades of Grey. I saw Fifty Shades of Grey. It didn't suck. But I can't seem to stop myself from thinking about all the other, potentially better versions of that film we will never get to see, so I decided to entertain myself. Whose version of Fifty Shades would have been, if not better, then at least more interesting, than Sam Taylor-Johnson's? Here are my Top Ten, in alphabetical order:

Pedro Almodovar - Law of Desire is one of the sexiest films ever, and if it's bondage you want, Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! is where you should go. Almodovar has also dealt with the book's major themes of identity and coming of age in various films, most notably All About My Mother and Bad Education.

Lee Daniels - At the very least, his version would have been an entertaining mess. Daniels plays around with form a lot, and I can't help but wonder if he would have found a cool way of visualizing the novel's (admittedly, hilariously awful) conceit of the dialogue of Ana's "inner goddess".

David Fincher - Let's be clear: I don't think this would have happened in a million years, but Fincher's cool formalism would have been a good match for this, and as Fight Club and Gone Girl have shown, he knows his way around a strange sex scene. Plus, he got his start making sexy as hell music videos for the likes of Madonna ("Express Yourself") and Paula Abdul ("Cold Hearted").

Adrian Lyne - The master of the erotic drama, Lyne is the man behind Unfaithful (which boasted an Oscar-nominated performance from Diane Lane), Lolita (with Jeremy Irons), Fatal Attraction (another Oscar nominee), Indecent Proposal, Flashdance, and 9 1/2 Weeks (the big screen's big kahuna for kinky sex). Basically, his name on a project is a guarantee of well-made, steamy sex scenes.

Madonna - Hear me out. This is the woman who recorded "Erotica" and made it a hit Billboard single. The woman who made a coffee-table book called Sex. The woman who, in her fifties, posed in leather dominatrix gear on her album cover. Yes, W.E. was terrible. But if there's one thing Madonna knows, it's sex. And if you think a woman who has exerted this much control over her image throughout her career hasn't learned something about capturing hot, rough sex on film, you're crazy.

Nicolas Roeg - Three words: Don't Look Now. The 70s film was banned for the too-sexy sex scene between Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie. Perhaps the guy's still got it?

Steven Shainberg - Don't recognize the name? I don't blame you. Shainberg is the man behind the 2002 film Secretary, in which Maggie Gyllenhaal gets involved in a BDSM relationship with her boss James Spader. It's sexy and darkly comic, which would be a good tone for a film adaptation of Fifty Shades. Of course, he's also the director of the terrible Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus, so who knows about his taste level... but the fact remains that Secretary is a near-perfect calling card for this gig.

Lars von Trier - DUH. If you wanted a no-holds-barred, NC-17 version of Fifty Shades, this is the man who was most likely to deliver it. Granted, he probably would have had Charlotte Gainsbourg play Ana, and it's is very likely that his version would have also been the misogynistic, anti-feminist version the haters of Fifty Shades want it to be, but of all the directors on this list, he's probably the one whose version of the film I would want to see most.

The Wachowski Siblings - One word: Bound. They're now known for their action spectacles in the wake of The Matrix, but they got their start with this incredibly sexy neo-noir starring Jennifer Tilly and Gina Gershon. And as we've seen from the Matrix films, they know how to make leather fetish gear look good on film. If they bring on their Cloud Atlas collaborator Tom Tykwer, then so much the better!

John Waters - If you wanted the camp disasterpiece version of Fifty Shades, this is the only human being alive who could have possibly delivered a good one. His filmography revels in it, while never ever shortchanging his characters. Unless they deserve it. I actually REALLY wish this had happened.