Company

I'm no dance critic, but. . . I was very disappointed with the choice of "The Blue Snake" as the ultimate and climactic "number" in "The Company". To me, it really stood out as the least interesting and most cliched of all the dances in the film. Those outrageous costumes! That "Ice Capades" choreography! Altman & Co. really ought to have chosen a piece that would have shown the Joffrey's more adventuresome side.

I went into this film knowing that it was a "dance movie" with minimal storyline, and I was still disappointed. It's not a good sign when I start looking at my watch halfway through a film. It doesn't bother me that a "dance film" eschews the Melodrama of "The Turning Point" or "A Chorus Line." But "The Company" also eschews Interest! There was basically nothing to "hang onto" outside the dance sequences. Only Ry (Neve Campbell's character) was given any appreciable screentime, and aside from a few quiet moments, she wasn't given very much to do.

Okay, I admit that I liked one dramatic scene a lot: a flirtatious moment between Ry and Josh - the chef who looks like a male model - which takes place in a dive bar. There should have been more scenes like that.

I rate the film a 6 - dramatically disappointing, while the quality of the dance sequences varies from sublime to ridiculous.

George, what I think you meant to say was that you are actually a thick-headed mocho-man who has NO appreciation for the arts whatsoever. If you did, you'd understand that the ballet dancing in this movie was beautiful, and entitled a lot of hard work on the dancers' part. I've danced since I was three, and have met many male dancers along the way, and, to inform you, NOT ONE OF THEM WAS GAY! I'm a STRAIGHT female who has dated a male dancer before. Assumptions like that are completely childish. THe acting, dancing, setting, and costumes in this movie were wonderful. If you can't even appreciate fine movie-making, then you are surely at a loss. Even if you would rather be watching sports, which I completely understand, most men would, that's fine: however, it doesn't give you the right to judge an a form of art that you abviously don't understand.

Some of the dances are tiny religious experiences. The film doesn't look nearly as good as some of Altman's others, but there are flashes of awesome beauty: a topless male dancer alone in a room with golden beams of light, and Neve Campbell in her bath. The movie looks at the queeny pretensions of the boys (and their fathers), the dancers' sex lives (who are more '60s than their instructor knows), and the company leader, played by Malcolm McDowell, whose occasional flakiness is caught by one black dancer. I couldn't help but think of McDowell as an Altman self-criticism: an elderly director working with small budgets, prone to artiness, who champions art as being organic, who rounds up a large crew of performers and calls them "babies." The day-in-the-life shapelessness of the movie didn't at all bother me, though one character, who asks to stay in a dancer's apartment, is dropped pretty quickly. And James Franco is in it. 9/10

I love movies about dancers, but usually my favorites are a bit more sugarcoated than The Company. This one was a very refreshing change as it portrays dancers in a ballet company so realistically it feels like a documentary. Most of the actors are real dancers, and they don't act like there's a camera following them around. There are long scenes of rehearsals with bickering, silences followed by interrupted dialogue, mumbling, and dead time while we watch men and women stretching or putting on their shoes. If that sounds boring to you, stick with the Step Up franchise.

I really enjoyed The Company because of the realism. I knew Neve Campbell came from a ballet background, and I was very excited to see her showing off her hidden talents. James Franco does not, unfortunately, strap on a pair of flats and join in on the fun; instead he's Neve's boyfriend in the few scenes that show her enjoying her down time. Malcom MacDowell is the company director, and he's very believable as a passionate, demanding choreographer.

There's a scene that has stayed with me through the years: while rehearsing on stage as the performance grows nearer, a dreadful snap is heard, and one of the dancers collapses and cradles her leg. It's not drawn out dramatically or showcased in a closeup, and because of the lack of special attention, it feels so much more real and accidental. If you like ballet documentaries, or you really appreciate realism to the point of boredom, you might want to check out this movie.

I suppose you can call this splendid movie a documentary showing several months in the life of the Joffrey Ballet of Chicago. However, as there are some dramatized elements (albeit to a minimum), you can't technically call it a documentary. And yet, it's more truthful than many "full" documentaries. Completely free from contamination of melodrama, the movie shows us, in a matter-of-fact manner, things behind the stage – dedication and sacrifices, lucky breaks that even the top talents sometimes need, experienced performers arguing anainst new ideas, injury and understudy stepping in at a moment's notice, disappointment from being fired, and much more.

Doing what he does best, master Altman gives you an inconspicuous spot in the rehearsal hall, in the meeting room, back stage, to show you how an idea evolves right from an artist's concept to a successful performance – the road that is sometimes painful, sometimes exhilarating and everything in between, the process that affects the lives of the people who are part of the whole. Overlapping dialogue here is not just Altman's artistic and technical trademark, but the way people REALLY speak. Through his amazing deployment of the camera, he also gives the audience a kaleidoscope of events and emotions that are fleeting and fluid, and yet remain with you long after the movie.

In addition to the insight of the documentary, dance lovers will enjoy the generous helping of dance scenes, particularly the outdoor performance in a thunder storm at the beginning. And although personal story is not the point of this movie, the depiction of the relationship between the characters played by Neve Campbell (the dancer) and James Franco (the chef) is wonderful. The scene of their first meeting is a joy to watch – she is playing pool by herself and really enjoying it while he, a drink in hand, regards her somewhat stoically at a distance. The two of them are depicted in so many angles, sometimes in the same frame, sometimes separately. This scene is so mesmerizing that you'll forget the passage of time. At long last, they make eye contact and smile. Then, a cut to the next morning in her apartment when they are just waking up, as he offers to cook breakfast for them. An absolutely beautiful sequence.

Campbell and Franco are simply wonderful. The icon of the movie, however, is artistic director of the company Alberto Antonelli , generally known as "Mr A", who comes off larger than life with the flare of Malcolm McDowell, who undoubted is remembered best from "A clockwork orange".

To people who have experienced the joy of stage performance, even in a very modest way of an amateur choir or theatre group, there is the bonus of additional empathy – the sometimes not so smooth rehearsals, the panic as the performance approaches and nothing seems to work, the last minute jitters before curtain, the final jubilation when everything miraculously falls into place and the sincere applause of the audience. Such empathy!