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Lambada

By day he's a schoolteacher; by night he's a dancing visual example of male sexual prowess. If any segment of that opening line sound remotely corny to you, then it's best you skip over Joel Silberg's "Lambada," and head for the real "Dirty Dancing." Coming too late for the 80's and too early for the 90's, the film has since vanished into obscurity; unwitting visitors will quickly understand the reason why. ***

The story is your basic thread-bare piece of hash that gives itself over to a display of exposed, sweaty flesh, gyrating pelvises, dizzying camera movements, ultra-cheesy music, and laughably bad acting on the part of J. Eddie Peck, who plays Kevin Laird, the aforementioned teacher/dance god, whose double life is threatened when one of his students (Melora Hardin, in an equally horrid performance) exposes his nightly charade. The way in which their strained student/teacher relationship is handled is completely oblivious to any outside forces: anyone with an ounce of common sense could tell something is going on, but that wouldn't allow for the ensuing pile of crap that makes up the film's ending. Unfortunately, "Lambada" misses the so-bad-its-good category, and fails to live up to camp standards. Thus, we have a movie that died as quickly as the dance on which it is based. Enjoy.

Rather than release "Lambada" in its original aspect ratio of 2.35:1, MGM has opted to present the film in a fullframe transfer; as expected, the results aren't spectacular. Overall, the source material looks good, with few instances of dirt or speckle to mar the presentation; film grain is apparent, however, and some of the textures tend to take on a pixelized appearance. Colors look surprisingly well-preserved for a movie this old, are are nicely saturated here. Contrast is adequate, with some shadow delineation that needs improvement. Edges are sharp, with some instances of enhancement halos visible. Since I doubt we'll be seeing this one released in a special edition soon, I guess this picture will have to do. ***

The sound is mastered in Dolby 2.0 Surround, and like the image, it's nothing to shout about. The music is presented with just enough spatial expansion into the rear channels to keep it from being a front-only track, but it lacks good, clean oomph in the low end, and tends to drown out the dialogue on occasion. Front end separation is acceptably mediocre, and dialogue sounds fairly natural throughout. Good, but not great.