Hmm. I prefer the instructional videos myself.
Warning: May contain strong language and male pantyline.
The thing that was so stupid about the movie was that it theoretically was set in the way back years, but in those years, no one was dancing that way. I laughed through the whole thing. And Jennifer Grey wasn’t worth getting excited about, and the dirtiness wasn’t really so dirty.
Good music, though. 
It introduced me to the good actor that was Jerry Orbach. That’s enough.
I think it’s a “slice of time” sort of thing. I was 18 the year it came out and it was the mushy-happy-feel-good-fall-in-love movie of the year – at least for us girls. It’s one of those feel-good movies that takes us back.
“Nobody puts Baby in a corner!”
It’s not on as often as this movie is.
Interestingly, though, “Dirty Dancing” was cited in post #6 of that thread.
It’s a girl thing. I say this as a woman who was in high school when that movie came out, and spent most of junior year listening to her classmates fantasize about Patrick Swayze. Oh yeah, and there was no escaping the radio play of most of the songs on the soundtrack. It was always fun to sing along with “Love is Strange.” BTW, Sylvia of Mickey and Sylvia is the mother of a member of the Sugar Hill Gang, of “Rapper’s Delight” fame (she produced it.)
Didn’t Conan O’Brien start a campaign back in the nineties to get Dirty Dancing re-released, and then when the studios did he admitted that he though it was a horrible movie?
Heh, my mom freakin’ loves Dirty Dancing, just because she used to work in a luxurious mountain retreat hotel EXACTLY like the one in the movie (and in the same place where the movie was actually filmed, in western North Carolina). So she gets all nostalgic about how she and her Mayview Manor gal pals would all go have fun around town once they got off of work (I’m pretty sure they didn’t bump-and-grind or listen to Eric Carmen records, though…). By the time I was in high school (late '90s), it was more of a “hey, this is good, for a movie that came out in the '80s” thing, since for the most part Patrick Swayze wasn’t exactly considered the paragon of manliness by my generation.
Now, I think, it’s more of a “hey, holy crap, this movie is 20 years old?!” thing. It’s interesting, actually, because a number of major filmatic events of the past are having big anniversaries this year. Both Roots and Star Wars are turning 30, for example, and are correspondingly having nostalgia-fests.
Hey! NOBODY puts Dirty Dancing in a corner!
Sorry… had to do it.
The funny unknown fact about this movie is that it is a remake of Marjorie Morningstar in which young Jewess Natalie Wood (aka: “Morningstern”) falls for goy dancer Gene Kelly at the Catskills vacation resort, and that version received a couple of Oscar nominations.
I mentioned this once before, but it bears repeating: It’s not particularly Patrick Swayze’s good looks, it’s his ASS that draws the gals of this family to the screen whenever Dirty Dancing is on. Lord have mercy!
why yes, I realize that’s a completely sexist comment! Who gives a rats ASS
(ok, token female, mid-30s, coming in to report that I always from instant #1 despised this film and Pat Swayze, for what it’s worth, for whomever needs to keep faith in mankind. Instead I was, you’ll be sadistically overjoyed to know, one of those Buckaroo Banzai, Adam Ant types. . .)
Soooo, how YOU doin’ 
Heh, actually, capybara, I despised the movie and Patrick Swayze at the time, too, I was busy pinning up Harrison Ford posters. But I’ve come around. To the trashy qualities of the movie, at least, not necessarily Patrick Swayze (nor his ass for some reason). Though I liked him in Donnie Darko.
phungi: I’ll have to check out Majorie Morningstar (sounds like a character from a Tolkien novel) - Gene Kelly and Natalie Wood, what’s not to like!
I had the time of my life.
Nobody puts baby in the corner!
Adam Ant is perfectly compatible with Patrick Swayze’s ass (helluva nice back, too). The tape that’s in my car’s player right now is by Adam and the Ants.
Dirty Dancing is as mindless as Grease; that is, completely. I don’t think I’ve ever watched a Swayze movie that would have been worth watching if he hadn’t been in it (although the soundtracks tend to be good, at least in my “I don’t assume I have good taste” book). But I don’t watch them for the story, I watch them for the views. Pass that popcorn!
The one, and only, Patrick Swayze movie worth watching was Ghost. It was nice to see he could rise to the challenge of that one.
Yeah, but I don’t really care about the story…I like the music…heck, I watched The Phantom of the Opera last night again, and basically skipped to the musical numbers. Besides, this way I can keep up when my kids go through this angsty stage…I can just pull out these movies and commiserate with them…
I can see the appeal of it, though I, personally, never thought that Swayze was all that handsome. And he dances with that over-exaggerated movement that professional dancers have and it turns me off. I’ll take Kevin Bacon’s untrained dancing anytime.
I thought the music was fun, and the storyline was kind of sweet, but the dancing left me cold. A good tango is much, much sexier than dry humping someone. Let’s go for subtlety here, people!
But, like I said, I can see the appeal. I can also see the appeal of “Grease” which also has its flaws.
No, it’s always on TBS: The Beastmaster Station.
I didn’t get this movie’s appeal (aside from Swayze’s butt). I loved Flashdance. Better dancing, better story.