Death of a Dance Whore

by Pa Rock
Obituariest

Patrick Swayze referred to himself and his beautiful wife, Lisa Niemi, as a "couple of dance whores," ostensibly because they loved to dance and they were really good at it. The couple met at his mother's dance studio in Houston when he was nineteen and she was fifteen. They married four years later, and remained married for the remaining thirty-four years of his life. That in itself was quite a Hollywood accomplishment!

Swayze, who died earlier this week after a two-year struggle with pancreatic cancer, grew up wanting to be a professional ballet dancer. Injuries put that goal beyond his reach, but even so his athletic prowess and sheer ability to move his body to music made him the most memorable Hollywood hoofer since the likes of Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly. (Sorry, Travolta, you are nowhere near their league!)

Patrick Swayze was able to regroup after the loss of his ballet dream and establish a very successful career in film. He was an acknowledged member of the "brat pack" that included such young Hollywood favorites as Emilio Estevez, Tom Cruise, Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald, and C. Thomas Howell. Swayze had a wide ranging acting ability, playing characters as diverse as a bad boy dance instructor, a ghost, a drag queen, and a pedophile.

There have been polls all over the Internet yesterday and today rating the public's favorite Patrick Swayze films. I have seen polls proclaiming Ghost, Dirty Dancing, Red Dawn, Point Break, and even Road House as the best Swayze films ever.

My own personal favorite Patrick Swayze movies are: #5: To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar; #4: Ghost; #3: The Outsiders; #2: Red Dawn; and, #1: Dirty Dancing. It was in Dirty Dancing where Patrick Swayze uttered one of the most famous lines in filmdom: "Nobody puts Baby in a corner."

Baby is out of the corner, and Patrick is out-of-body, probably much as he was in Ghost. Regardless of his current ectoplasmic makeup, however, Patrick Swayze is out there somewhere - and he is dancing! Once a dance whore...always a dance whore!

Ghost Town

by Pa Rock
Movie Critic

Ghost Town is a wonderful film, funny and touching, a good story brought to life by an outstanding cast. It is a quirky tale about a dentist who dies for seven minutes during a colonoscopy and, when he comes back to life, is suddenly plagued by a host of New York ghosts who all pursue him to complete business that was left unfinished when they died.

This movie, in some respects, is very reminiscent of 1990's film classic, Ghost. Greg Kinnear is a young professional who dies suddenly leaving behind a beautiful and smart wife, Tea Leoni - very similar to the situation encountered by Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore in Ghost. Unfortunately for Kinnear, he was not the husband that Patrick Swayze was, and his widow is wracked with anger instead of grief. And then Ricky Gervais stumbles in as the person who can see and talk to ghosts, and he is being leaned on by the dearly departed to help them resolve their issues so that they can move on. Are we all thinking Whoopi Goldberg?

What distinguishes this ghost movie from the earlier one is the strong focus on the personal growth of the Ricky Gervais character. We watch as he evolves from a self-absorbed jerk into a funny and lovable individual, one with the ability to truly care for others. His metamorphosis is the nut of the movie.

In spite of the similarities to the earlier classic, Ghost Town is a great film in its own right. It is immensely entertaining, and I will undoubtedly enjoy it several more times on cable, just as I have with that other ghost movie!