Movies

BDC Now: 8-Year-Old Does His Best Swayze Impression from ‘Dirty Dancing’

By Doug Saffir

October 15, 2014

4 minutes to read

There’s a reason that they didn’t cast a 3rd grader in Patrick Swayze’s place for this movie, and this kid is that reason. See his routine on today’s BDC Now, and read more about John Cleese incurring the wrath of Taylor Swift fans, Bono’s apology, the turducken of trick plays in football, and the world’s worst way to land a drone.

Close But No Cigar, Tiny Dancer

We understand that it takes a good degree of bravery for an 8-year-old boy to let his mom record a video of him attempting the final dance number from “Dirty Dancing.’’ We understand that it takes even more bravery to let her post it to YouTube. But with all that said, this video is not good. We’re sorry Charlie, but someone had to say it. This is just a kid wiggling around with “Dirty Dancing’’ playing in the background. Sure, his moves might show some potential, but if the movie weren’t playing in your immediate line of sight, you’d have no idea what he was doing. The good news is, it’s not the kid’s fault. This routine is meant for two people. Doing it alone is an impossible task for a lot of people, let alone an 8-year-old in his parents’ living room. And it only hurts him that his mom couldn’t bother to turn her phone sideways. Never film in portrait, unless you think two enormous black bars are just as important as the subject of your video.

John Cleese Has Made a Huge Mistake

British comedian and actor John Cleese is brilliant. In a storied career lasting more than 40 years, he’s been in everything from hilarious comedy troupe Monty Python to more modern hits like Shrek and some of the James Bonds films. Sadly, none of that matters now. Cleese is doomed to spend the rest of his days fending off attacks from pre-teen girls after he dared to insult Taylor Swift’s cat. On The Graham Norton Show, Cleese asked Swift how her cat had its accident and called the animal “the weirdest cat I’ve ever seen in my life.’’ Knowing Cleese’s reputation for dry wit, he was probably just teasing the pop star and her pet. But the key here is that Swift’s fan base probably has no idea who John Cleese is, and will not have any clue that he was joking around. And it probably won’t help that he said cats are “unpredictable and cussed – like women.’’ Good luck with that, Mr. Cleese.

Bono is Sorry, Everybody

Free is almost always good. Free food is good, free time is good, and even free T-shirts are good, albeit slightly annoying sometimes. The only thing that seems to be both free and not good recently is U2’s newest album. The Irish rock group literally gave away digital copies of “Songs of Innocence’’ and, in the process, alienated just about everyone who got one. So now, a month after the album incepted the iTunes libraries of hundreds of millions of people, Bono has apologized. In a Facebook video where the band answered fans’ questions, one fan asked them to never release an album in that fashion again. Bono, a man reportedly worth more than half a billion dollars who really doesn’t have to apologize to anyone, sounds truly remorseful in his response, saying “I’m sorry about that… [we] might have gotten carried away with ourselves.’’ There you have it: Maybe the first time in recorded history that someone actually had to apologize for giving hundreds of millions of people some free stuff.

The Kitchen Sink Play

It’s a well-known fact at this point that football games involve very little actual gameplay. And when you’re doing something for three hours and there’s only 11 minutes of action, it’s easy to get bored. That’s why football coaches try and spice things up once in a while using a trick play. We can debate the risks and rewards of these crazy schemes, but in the end, the real purpose of the trick play is in its entertainment value. And that’s why this play from a Division 3 high school game in Alabama is so perfect. It’s not just a reverse, it’s not just a flea flicker, and it’s not just a spin-o-rama – it’s all three! It’s like the turducken of trick plays. It’s so good, we can’t even decide whether the best part is that the play worked or that the team probably didn’t even need it since they won by 20 points anyway.

Drones Are Just Like Us

Drones get a lot of credit for being stealthy. They glide seamlessly through the air, can provide ground surveillance or missile strikes, and all the while they go largely undetected. But have you ever seen one land? Because if you have, then you know that some drones are not as smooth as most people think they are. They can actually be pretty derpy. Take this video of a “million dollar drone’’ landing, for example. The drone zips along, just as cool as you would expect it to be, when it comes in for its landing. Does it softly touch down on a runway? Does it hover and slowly lower itself to the ground? No and no. It rams full speed into some sort of catching device, then just hangs there like a seagull with an injured wing. And this is the height of modern aviation? When it apparently took a million dollars to build the thing, you might think they’d invest in a more reasonable way to get it back on the ground.