IMDb user comments for
Dancer, Texas Pop. 81 (1998) More at IMDbPro »

Filter:

Best Chronological Prolific Authors Loved It Hated It Hide Spoilers:

Page 1 of 7:

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]

Index

61 comments in total

---

6 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
What a great movie!!, 22 February 2005

Author: PrincessSilvrRos (PrincessSilvrRos@aol.com) from United States

OK, for all you people who came from "smalltown, America" who are complaining about this, you should really think about it. This was a really great movie, that shows that you have it all if you just take a look at what you think you are missing. I grew up in Southern Ca, and i moved to a small town when i was 21, but even growing up in a town just shy of a million people, i got an appreciation for it when i left that i would have never had, had i stayed there. This was a great movie, one i would recommend to anyone looking for a good way to spend an evening. not only does it show that a movie can be good without being raunchy and filled with sex, its worth the time that you spend watching it. I would watch it again.

---

6 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
Hey, I didn't give anyone permission to write a movie about me., 30 September 2004
Author: tchick-1 from Studio City, CA

This movie was a like a trip back home for me. I grew up in West Texas, and I always knew in that process that I would one day leave it. By no plan or design, somehow it happened, in many stages. Ultimately, where did I find myself? In California, of course.

Now looking back with the help of this movie, I see the simple good of the life I lived back then, when life was slow, plodding even, but placid and enjoyable.

Dancer, Texas Pop. 81 provides a window back in time to the life we used to be able to live. I especially enjoyed the halting conversation between the two ranchers, a conversation of one and two word sentences. These two were so tuned into one-another that they needed very few words to express their ideas, thoughts, and concerns. People should be more like that today.

---

7 out of 9 people found the following comment useful :-
If you know and don't hate small-town life, you'll enjoy it, 22 January 2000
Author: Dan Phillips (filops@yahoo.com) from California

Before getting the movie, I was puzzled at the sharp disparity in the comments here. Now I think I understand them!

A character in the movie says something like this: "Some people aren't meant to live in a small town. Some can't live anywhere else." There's truth to that, and I think it's reflected in the differing responses to the movie here.

If you have experienced small-town life, and either love it or at least are wryly comfortable with it, you'll like this movie a lot. You'll feel you've met these people, you've been to their church, you've been at their picnics. You'll enjoy the scenery, the decent neighborliness, the conversations, the characters.

If you're more of a big-city type, you'll be very impatient. Nothing "happens"! No heads explode, no alien invasions, abductions, or even flyovers. No sex, virtually no profanity, no fist-fights. Everyone keeps most of his clothes on. Kids love and respect their parents and families, even when they're a little daft. People fight, but basically care about each other. It's boring - to some!

I offer no judgment, just this filter to help you decide whether the movie's for you. If you like movies that make you ache for small-town life, you'll like this. If you need action and adrenalin, you may very well not. I like both, and I liked this movie.

---

4 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :-
Wonderful story, wonderful performances, wonderful movie, 4 July 2002

Author: Cue-ball from Austin, Texas

In 1998, Tim McCanlies had a crazy idea. He made a movie about a tiny town in the middle of nowhere, in which no one gets killed, nothing gets blown up, no one has sex, and there aren't any aliens from outer space. Thank goodness he saw his crazy idea through; the result is a fabulous movie that I saw in the theater in 1998, and I am not sure I have seen a better movie since then.

The setting of the movie is the fictitious town of Dancer, located in Southwest Texas, where the counties are bigger than the states in the northeast and the people are outnumbered by rattlesnakes. The movie begins on Friday, when four boys are graduating from high school. We learn that, while they were in junior high school, they made a "solemn vow" that as soon as they graduated, they were going to get on the next bus to California to make their mark on the world. Easy to say when you're in junior high, and graduation is years away. But now it's here, and the bus is pulling out on Monday morning. The question is whether any of the boys will follow through.

That's pretty much the plot. What's so special? Simple: the relationships between the boys, between each of them and their family members, and between the folks in the town. This movie, like all great movies, is about the characters' reactions to the circumstances they are in. The characters are real, fleshed out not in bold strokes but in nuances, and their actions, not always predictable, are always believable. Most of us have faced the decision whether to leave the town that we grew up in. It is fascinating to watch these teenagers begin to grow into men -- at an accelerated pace, because of their childhood pledge.

Someday, when you are at the video store and you don't know what to get, you will see this on the shelf. Get it. You will be very, very happy.

---

4 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :-
Big City Dreams, Small Town Hearts, 28 July 1999

Author: PiKapp23 from Cincinnati, OH

Coming from a small town in West Virginia I was able to understand the plight of the 4 boys. My friends and I also made a similar pact, although ours started with going to college together and then moving to some big city and living a glamorous life. That's why this movie really struck me.

This movie is for anyone who has ever felt like there has to be more out there. It captures both the charms and pitfalls of small town life. In "Dancer" Squirrel and John both find a situation that suits them, giving them a glimmer of hope for the future, while Keller and Terrell Lee both realize that they will never be able to find the happiness they wish for in Dancer, Texas. At one point, though, both almost hit a point of acceptance that this is what their lives are to be and resolve to themselves that they must stay and make the best of it.

The theme through for this movie is that each of us must find what makes us happy, assessing what we have, what we need, what we want and how we're going to balance these. We can't always have everything we want, and sometimes to get something we have to give up something. And furthermore, we have to remember that what is right for one person may not be right for someone else, no matter how much you might wish it is.

---

2 out of 2 people found the following comment useful :-
A movie that will put you to sleep about a town that will put you to sleep, 16 November 2005

Author: Robbie_The_Bird_Watcher from United States

There are some good parts to this movie but overall it is very boring and slow. It's a somewhat interesting story about life in a very small west Texas town. 4 graduating Seniors, over half the senior class, are coming to terms of whether or not they want to keep their boyhood pledge of leaving once they graduate. It's main quality is the "Human Element". Some of the writing acting and directing is done quite well but overall the movie just lacks something. If you like movies about people you will like it but it's a bit slow for the Rambo and/or Chris Tucker crowd.

The scenery is quite nice, horses, mountains, desert vistas and Oak Trees. The background characters and props are done well and not overdrawn. The cinematography is excellent and the direction is quite good if you like a minimalist approach.

---

3 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
Totally enjoyable, 21 August 2000

Author: Mike-DD from Singapore

Though a bit slow at times, it is quite refreshing to watch a movie that doesn't have any box-office ambitions and yet exceed the expectations one would associate with a blockbuster. 4 teenage boys are faced with life-changing choices when they graduate from high school, whether to follow their parents' wishes and stay in small town Texas (as the name implies), or to strike it big in one of the big cities.

There are some commendable performances in here, notable that of Breckin Meyer as Keller Coleman, as he tries to come to terms with leaving his only kin, his grandfather, behind alone while he leaves the town with Lusk (Facinelli). Facinelli also puts in a performance better than I expected from his previous films as the son who does not want in on the family business but wishes to strike it out on his own. I wished that there could be plot involvement for Eddie Mills and Ethan Embry though, the other 2 main actors - they did not have much to act on and I for one would have liked them to have a larger role in the story. But I guess there is only so much you can show in 2 hours. Irregardless of any 'faults' this movie might have, it is still a refreshing look at small town life and the choices some of the teens have to take when they come of age.

---

2 out of 3 people found the following comment useful :-
Guaranteed to put a smile on your face!, 16 March 2006

Author: mountain91 from Sandy, UT

I was bored one Sunday morning in August 2004 and I was surfing through the channels and I stumbled on this movie that was on one of the premium channels. I was getting more and more into it as the plot was going. My favorite character is Squirrel played by Ethan Embry. After seeing it on TV, I just had to buy it on DVD and I have showed this movie to many of my friends and they love it! It was amazing to see that the director of this movie Tim McCanlies directed Secondhand Lions. This movie shows what true friendship really is and what small town life is about. I recommend this movie to everyone and it is great for the whole family to watch.

---

2 out of 3 people found the following comment useful :-
Sensitive Males, 6 April 2004

Author: grrrlygirl from Austin, TX

As someone who grew up in the area where this film is set, I can tell you that the four male protagonists are waaaay too sensitive.

Four real-life small-town Texas buddies would NOT spend all that time hugging one another and telling each other how glad they are to be friends, even if they were about feeling emotional as they approached high school graduation. Real West Texas boys are far more crude than that.

Small West Texas towns are seething pits of sex, drugs and alcohol (or at least they were in the 1980s and 1990s, and 1970s, and 1960s, and 1950s...) and these kids were rated PG. They hardly even cuss. For a more realistic take on Texas life, rent The Last Picture Show instead.

The other thing that bugged me was that the rich-kid character came from an oil family. That the family oil business was going belly-up was plausible, but there is NO OIL in the mountainous part of the state. It's cattle country.

---

2 out of 3 people found the following comment useful :-
Simply Warm, Charming, and Real, 7 September 2000

Author: lasherxl from Slightly North of Hell

This starts out so simply, but cuts to the heart of the American midwest, having spent my summers there as I child, I understand that mentality very well. My mother was born in a small town in New Mexico, and the people there have a wonderful, if simple charm to themselves. They are caring, yet ultimately unchanging, they can't possibly understand why anyone would want to leave a small town, very much as the townspeople in the movie were.

The four main characters in this film were portrayed wonderfully, by Breckin Meyer(Keller), Peter Facinelli(Terrel Lee), Eddie Mills (John), and the ever charming Ethan Embry(Squirrel). The friendship they had felt real, as if they had really known each other their whole lives. When their oath to leave town after their High School Graduation begins to fall apart when Terrel Lee Announces he cannot leave his family behind, each member examines his reasons for leaving the small town of Dancer. Of course, the truly bright spot in the film is the incredible performance of Ashley Johnson who you might remember from Growing Pains as the youngest member Chrissy. She plays John's little sister, she is simply heart-felt and charming in this role, amazing you with her ability to speak about difficult subjects better than some adults I know. Of course, you can't leave out Patricia Wettig as Terrel Lee's tyrannical mother, even though she only makes about three appearances in the film, she fills the screen with her presence each time.

All in all, this film is a well done venture. I recommend this film to anyone who comes from a small town, or would like to know what one is like, this is your best bet. With so many brilliant performances, and a breathtaking backdrop of Texas behind it, it is simply magnificent.

---

---

Page 1 of 7:

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]

Add another comment

---

Related Links

Plot summary	Ratings	Awards
Newsgroup reviews	External reviews	Plot keywords
Main details	Your user comments	Your vote history