Footloose (1984)

IMDB rating: 5.90

Plot: Classic tale of teen rebellion and repression features a delightful combination of dance choreography and realistic and touching performances. When teenager Ren and his family move from big-city Chicago to a small town in the West, he’s in for a real case of culture shock. Though he tries hard to fit in, the streetwise Ren can’t quite believe he’s living in a place where rock music and dancing are illegal. There is one small pleasure, however: Ariel, a troubled but lovely blonde with a jealous boyfriend. and a Bible-thumping minister, who is responsible for keeping the town dance-free. Ren and his classmates want to do away with this ordinance, especially since the senior prom is around the corner, but only Ren has the courage to initiate a battle to abolish the outmoded ban and revitalize the spirit of the repressed townspeople. Fast-paced drama is filled with such now-famous hit songs as the title track and “Let’s Hear It for the Boy.”

Dirty Dancing (1987)

IMDB rating: 6.00

Plot: Set in the 1960s, Frances ‘Baby’ Houseman, a sweet daddy’s girl, goes to a very respectable summer camp in the Catskills. Baby has grown up in privileged surrounds with her doctor father and all expect her to go on to college, join the Peace Corps and save the world before marrying a doctor, just like her father. Unexpectedly, Baby becomes infatuated with the camp’s dance instructor, Johnny, a man whose background is vastly different to her own. Attempting to impress him, Baby borrows money from her father to pay for an illegal abortion for Johnny’s dance partner. She then fills in as Johnny’s dance partner and it is during the rigorous training that they fall in love. It all comes apart when Johnny’s friend falls seriously ill after her abortion and Baby is forced to seek her father’s medical assistance. Her father then learns what Baby has been up to, who with and worse – that he funded the illegal abortion. He bans his daughter from any further association with “those people”. In the first deliberately willful action of her life, Baby later sneaks out to see Johnny – ostensibly to apologize for her father’s rudeness – and ends up consummating her relationship with Johnny. A jealous fellow vacationer sees Baby sneaking out of Johnny’s bungalow the next morning and in an act of retribution, tells management that he is responsible for a theft that last evening, knowing he would not furnish his real whereabouts. Attempting to defend her lover, Baby confesses that they were together that night – all night. This revelation causes a huge rift in the family and Baby makes an impassioned speech to her angry and bereft father. At the closing night performances, and although he has been fired and banned from attending – Johnny returns and takes the stage to tell everyone about the woman who stole his heart and changed his life before they have one, final dance together.

What We Do Is Secret (2007)

IMDB rating: 6.30

Plot: A biopic of punk legend Darby Crash and his band, the Germs.

Wayne’s World (1992)

IMDB rating: 6.90

Plot: Wayne Campbell is a heavy metal fanatic living in a suburban Chicago neighborhood. On a Friday Night, Wayne and his eccentric best friend, Garth Algar hosts “Wayne’s World”, a public cable network TV show in Wayne’s basement and is very popular. “Wayne’s World” catches the attention of handsome TV network executive Ben Oliver who wants “Wayne’s World” on his television network in downtown Chicago and sponsored by billionaire Noah Vandahoff, one of the largest owners in the arcade business. With “Wayne’s World” now on a Prime Time TV network, Wayne and Garth find themselves moving up big time and Wayne finds himself falling in love with Cassandra Wong, a Chinese-American lead singer of a heavy metal band. But Ben has a hidden agenda and plans on ruining their show and he bids to steal Cassandra from Wayne if Wayne and Garth do not make a success in making “Wayne’s World” #1 in the TV ratings. Wayne and Garth finds the show isn’t the same and Wayne plans to help Cassandra make it big time with her career.

The Caveman’s Valentine (2001)

IMDB rating: 5.90

Plot: Romulus is mentally ill, a troglodyte in a New York City park. He’s also a gifted composer and the father of a city cop. On Valentine’s Day, a young man freezes in a tree near his cave. The police determine it’s the accidental death of someone behaving bizarrely, but Romulus believes a friend of the dead youth who says that noted avant-garde photographer, David Leppenraub, murdered him. Romulus, urged on by hallucinations of his wife as a young woman, resolves to catch the killer and manages to be invited to Leppenraub’s farm to play a new composition. Can Romulus hold it together long enough to get to the bottom of the death and also to make a breakthrough with his daughter?