Breakdance Movies

There was a period there in the mid-80s when everyone wanted to do the worm and become a member of the Rock Steady Crew. However, this time soon passed and Breakdancing was swept under that hideous big carpet called the 80s. However, as we approach the new millennium (sorry I know it sounds real wank) people are turning to the past to get away from the scary era we call the late 90s (or maybe just me!)

I wasn’t lucky enough to experience Breakdancing the first time around so I decided watching old videos would be the next best thing. There the vids tucked away in the corner of your local video store; however, Video Busters Collingwood has its own Breakdance section! (Rad!). So for the past few years as the 80s start to become a more prominent force in my life, I have seen my fair share of such movies and would like to voice my opinions.

Hip Hop originated in New York in the late 70s, with breaking kicking off in about ’77. No other music genre has started off in one single town and engulfed the whole world. As it stands in 1999, Hip Hop is the most popular music in the world. So its pretty amazing to be seeing all the originators of the art, like Kool Herc, Afrika Bambattaa and Grand Master Flash in the same movie.

Speaking to John, a member of the winning 1984 Countdown Breakdance team, breaking hit off in about ’83 with the hive of activity being Melbourne Square, old home of Central Station. The Australian form of Breakdancing is pretty much a carbon copy of what came out of New York. Breakdancing hit our shores through movies and the odd video clip like Malcom McLaren’s ‘Buffalo Girls’. This was a time before the Internet, so what was coming out here was a mainstream version and didn’t necessarily represent the underground hip-hop movement. So such movies as ‘Wildstyle’ played a pivotal role in the birth of Australia’s breaking/hip-hop/graffiti scene.

The first movie to come out was ‘Wildstyle’ was a documentary of the New York Hip Hop scene (it was filmed entirely in South Bronx) in 1982 by Charlie Ahearn. As a documentary it keeps true to the hip-hop core and shows the genre as it was evolving at its epicentre. The film was not produced for a Hollywood money making venture which sets it aside from its later counterparts.

Breakdancing reached its height in 1984, when Mr. T was the best new actor in ‘Rolling Stone’ and all eyes were on L.A for the Olympics. Incidentally the closing ceremony for the ’84 games had Lionel Richie singing with breakdancers in the background, one of them being Cuba Gooding Jr!

‘Beat Street’ would have to be my favourite Breakdance movie. It is a fictional story of some New York kids: a DJ, a breakdancer, a graffiti artist; fitting the hip-hop stereotype very well. The story involves them trying to make a name for themselves in their respective areas of interests. The highlight is the 9-minute Breakdance war between the Rock Steady Crew and New York City Breakers, having rad moves by Crazy Leg’s himself. Kool Herc, the originator of Hip Hop, Afrika Bambattaa, the originator of Electro, Grandmaster Melle Mel and the Furious Five, Jazzy Jay and The Treacherous Three

This was also the time that Breakdancing/hip-hop had landed in the sunshine state of California, and therefore in the hand of money-hungry movie execs. In one year alone (1984) there were about 5 releases related to Breakdancing.

A couple of instructional movies were released, ‘Breakdance USA’ and ‘How to Breakdance’ (Imaginative Title plus!).’Breakdance USA’ is a filming of a kiddie Breakdance comp inside some gym with this dude with a bad lisp commentating about it. The oldest person there looked about 15. It turned out to be repetitive with the same moving and a heavy emphasis on the boogaloo, robot mime type moves and little actual breakin’, spinnig on your back and head. The music is monotonous with two tracks rotated through the whole movie. I actually saw this title shown at the interlude of a Merrick and Rosso show. Everyone in the crowd seemed really amazed, but I guess there was no music to it and lots of people were pissed.

‘How to Breakdance’ turned out to be a real gem. The host, a guy called Odis Medley, kept me entertained with all his wacky clothes. In one scene he is breakin’ in a Spiderman and Abraham Lincoln costume. Although Breakdancing has resurfaced in the past year with the same moves a lot of the old clothes have been kept in the closet. I just hope bandannas on the knee never come pack into fad.

‘How to Breakdance’ looks like to goes hand in hand with ‘Breakdance’ as there a lot of scenes from the movie inbetween lessons. There the type of moves that look like you’ll never ever gonna do and if you did you would break your back trying to do them to the video. Another highlight is the group Breakdance at the end (the film is filmed infront of a gym class) when the fat guy starts doing some mad moves; it gives us all hope.

There seems to be a major difference between the breaking styles of the East and West Coast. The East Coast, a.k.a New York, seems more from the roots homegrowny shit, while the West Coast, a.k.a Los Angeles, looks like Breakdancing was picked up by the ballet dancers in the studios. This was reflected in the instructional video’s shown. Even the styles are different. The West Coast scene has a heavier emphasis on the mime/robot/tocking element with pretty lame backspins and not many head spins. It tends to get rather boring and all those stupid smiley faces start to piss you off. East Coast breakin’ has heaps more crazy moves and seems a lot more genuine in that they have the ability to keep the audience entertained. The people are more into it and they learnt on the mean streets, not lino sheets in the ballet studio.

The most famous set of Breakdance movies was the ‘Breakdance’ series. With ‘Breakdance’, ‘Breakdance 2: Electric Boogaloo’ and the hard to find ‘Rappin’’. These movies were true Hollywood creations and capitalised on the whole craze, the three movies were all released within a year 1984-85. By 1985 the Breakdancing hype had died down and so had the movies.

Comparing to ‘Beat Street’ the movies are really lame. Although the dancers are talented they don’t hit it off in the acting or authentic departments. The first two movies were about three people ‘Shabba-Doo’ ‘Boogaloo Shrimp’, who were the street dancers (these names are the same that appeared on the film credits) and some dancer chick. The third one has some white guy rapping. Its really bad; I didn’t even finish watching it. The movies were boring and got progressively worse throughout the series. In comparison terms ‘Beat Street’ gives you a varied look at the hip-hop/Breakdance scene and not some pretty picture Venice Beach.

Another movie that complemented the series was ‘Breakin & Enterin’, which gave a quasi-documentary of the L.A scene. It features the likes of Ice T and Dr. Dre. Ice T even gets down and dirty doing the worm, highly recommended viewing! The movie has some pretty cool moves, but as I stated earlier the West Coast scene lacked the creativeness and energy of the New York scene, having a heavier emphasis on the mime-style dance. Running for a total of 108 minutes the movie could easily be run under 30. A lot of the material of people Breakdancing is repeated throughout the film and this gets monotonous. The other major problem is that it only has a three song soundtrack, and these aren’t electro classics so its best viewed with the volume down.

‘Breakin’ & Enterin’’ has no apparent flow. It chops and changes from Ice T to the funny French graffitist to the DJ and so on. Material is scarce with the same section of Breakdancing repeated through the narrative. Maybe it’s just me but you can’t keep an audience entertained for nearly two hours with mediocre Breakdancing. The kids in the movie were really young and hadn’t had years to develop their own techniques.

When the film does talk it proves to be interesting, especially with some of Ice T’s philosophies. These were the days before the whole gangster rap ‘bitch’ ‘hoe’ thing and Ice T is surprisingly, for a rap artist, down to earth. The French graffiti artist proves a real wank, with his stupid accent and persona. At the end there is this cool part were they put all the Breakdancing through some fucked up 80s effects. Overall, ‘Breakin & Enterin’ gives an average representation of the whole Breakdance scene.

After the initial Breakdance/Hip Hop style movies of 1984 there came a couple of other rap movies put together by the likes of Run-DMC and the Def Jam guys (Russell Simmons and Rick Rubin). These were set in New York and followed surprisingly similar plots as what actually happened in their own real life. The first to be released was ‘Krush Groove’ in 1985, which looked at the goings on of a record company. Once again a lot of famous people were involved in this film: Run-DMC, The Fat Boys, Beastie Boys, Shelia E and Kurtis Blow. The film’s flyer shows the appearance of New Edition in the movie, however after watching it New Edition only get a slight mention in the movie; dodgy indeed!

‘Krush Groove’ portrays the ups and downs of a Rap label very similar to Def Jam. The main characters are D from Run-DMC, Sheila E, Rick Rubin and Russell Simmons (although not played by himself). The roles of these characters are pretty good considering acting is not their day job. The plot follows the typical ‘trading your friends and family for cash’ rock star thing. At the end Krush Groove Records is bought out by Galaxy Records which is owned by some gigolo looking white guy with loads of cash. It gives the impression out to people that don’t bother making your own label just sell out for money and conform to some businessman’s demands. As if the large record label would look after you any better than one owned by your friends; just look at what happened to a lot of Rap artists getting burnt in 1980s and 90s. This is the same as what happened to rock acts when they hadn’t got such a foothold on the industry in the 1950s and 60s.

This really makes the ending quite lackluster as everyone is happy again. Apart from that the movie is really good. The appearance of the Fat Boys, supplying comic relief throughout the movie, singing ‘All you can Eat’ at an American-style Smorgy’s (James knows all about these places) is hilarious. The Beastie Boys are discovered at a Talent Quest looking rather young and stupid singing, ‘She’s On It’. ‘Krush Groove’ gives a credible account of the pros and cons of the rap industry.

After ‘Krush Groove’ there was a three year break before the release of ‘Run DMC: Tougher than Leather’ in 1988. The tone of Run-DMC had totally changed as had Rap itself. The boys had taken a whole Gangsta approach which had become popular with the release of N.W.A’s ‘Straight Outta Compton’ in the same year.

The plot follows that D has been in prison for six months for assault. This fact already gives Run DMC tough guy status. Upon release Run-DMC reforms to play a couple of gigs and gets signed up to a big label. Once again Rick Rubin makes an appearance this time as Vic, a Jewish crime boss. Russell Simmons plays himself as the promoter of Run-DMC and the Beastie Boys (they are also played by themselves).

The film differs to ‘Krush Groove’ in that the major emphasis is on violence. There is a lot of pointless killing in this movie and Run-DMC uses this to portray their new ‘bad-ass mutherfucka’ approach. The film is demeaning to woman with too many ‘ho’ and ‘bitches’ said for my liking. It tries to loosely employ a message that the rap genre gets an unfair handling by the media. It comes as no surprise why when rap fans idol’s go around and sort out their business by swearing too much and killing people.

The Beastie Boys make a guest appearance, but by now in 1988 they are one of the most popular acts in the US having sold over 5 million albums. They add another dimension to the video for nostalgia purposes. Run-DMC and the Beastie Boys still exist today. The Beastie’s have evolved into many transformations while Run-DMC make money off techno remixes of their 80s rap tunes. (True so did the Beastie Boys but at least they forged a new sound for themselves)

Another observation is the link between media (videos) and hip-hop artists. Most of the popular artists at the time ended up on one of the following movies. Comparing hip-hop to punk, which both started at roughly the same time, we see the huge lack of punk representation in 80s videos. One reason may be that hip-hop originated in New York and the majority of artists shown and movies were from there. Punk was more of an evolving process with such bands as MC5, Television, The New York Dolls and The Ramones showing up throughout America over the period of late 60s and early 70s. The Sex Pistols bought punk to England and the world in 1976. They released a movie of their own with the help of Malcom McLaren in 1979; ‘The Great Rock and Roll Swindle’. Note: Malcom McLaren helped bring hip-hop to the world stage with the release of the popular ‘Buffalo Girls’ in 1983. Apart from this I can’t think of any movies at the time that represented anything towards punk. Hollywood tried to play on the idea in the 80s and failed badly, treating them as the ‘baddies’. One memorable example is in "Joysticks" (1983) where the punk joins up with the businessman to close the video game pallor; go figure? Oh yeah, since when was punk defined as bad 80s porno electro cheese?