Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6305 in DVD
• Released on: 2005-10-18
• Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 1.66:1
• Formats: Color, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 105 minutes

Amazon.com
If the delightful spectacle of preteen kids dancing the foxtrot and the merengue isn't enough to lure you in, add the pressure of a dance competition and the triumph of troubled kids finding self-respect through discipline--if Mad Hot Ballroom were a Hollywood movie, it would be too corny for words. Instead, it's an engrossing documentary about a wildly successful after-school program in New York City. Mad Hot Ballroom follows a handful of kids in three different schools from the beginning of their dance classes to the night of the inter-school dance finals. Regrettably, the movie fails to pursue the dancers themselves; a few scenes provide glimpses of some smart, articulate kids with vivid personalities and compelling emotions, but the filmmakers make a minimal effort to draw the kids out or explore their lives outside of the classes. Watching the kids develop as dancers is still gripping and the final competition will have you on the edge of your seat, but it could have been all the more so. Though certainly worthy and genuinely heartwarming, you can't help but feel that Mad Hot Ballroom lost an opportunity for something truly dazzling. --Bret Fetzer

From The New Yorker
Marilyn Agrelo's documentary follows three competing groups of fifth graders as they learn the music and the steps of swing, the rumba, the tango, and other ballroom dances. A picture of New York kid culture (Dominican students from Washington Heights, upscale kids from Tribeca, Italians and Asians from Bensonhurst), the film focusses not only on the buoyant work of the contestants but also on their dedicated teachers. Agrelo's filmmaking provides telling glimpses of the students' home lives, and she avoids any cloying sentiment. What she captures is a moving, joyous childhood escapade. -Bruce Diones
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

A documentary way better than any film out that year!

This was much better than the average mainstream movie put out that year. I was really amazed by this little flick. Yes a documentary.

The innocence, naivete and energy of the kids in it is really captured well here. To the point that they are so relaxed I had to keep reminding myself that there is even a camera pointed at them.

It is about grammar school kids from NYC competing in a Ball Room dance contest (it is "mad hot", as the kids put it)

It focuses on 4 teams. Two from Bklyn, one from lower Manhattan and one from Washington Hts. Three of the schools are very diverse and the Washington Hts team is homogeneously Dominican.

Its a doc but by sheer accident, I guess, it takes on the characteristics of a regular film. You get weepy for the kids/teams who are eliminated. You cheer on the lil Dominican girls when they get into a zone during the semi finals. (it helps that "meringue" is one of the required dance #s), there is a plot twist and you almost boo last year's champs, the almost snobbish team from ritzy Forrest Hills who seem as strong as a Roger Stauback led Dallas Cowboys team, when they enter the picture.

At first I thought I might b a lil biased as Im raising my 3rd "12 yr old" at this time, but my friend who is 30 something, childless and the consummate bachelor loved it as well.

One, two, cha cha cha
I had checked this movie out from the library, loved it, and had to buy my own copy. What an excellent idea to teach children ballroom dancing! So many school districts have eliminated music lessons and even recess so to see a program like this one was most refreshing.

Great!!!
This is a great documentary for children who are interested in dance. It is also a good way to introduce competition.