Flashdance (1983) review

Early 80's silliness courtesy of producers Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer: teenage welder Alex (Jennifer Beals) - who spends her nights dancing - gets seduced by her much older boss Nick (Michael Nouri) and dreams of attending the Pittsburgh Conservatory of Dance and Repertory so she can become a ballerina.  It's aggressively frivolous and roughly 90% of it is basically a softcore music video (Lyne loves toned glutes and thighs) - screenwriters Tom Hedley and Joe Eszterhas (who was a "big name" way back when) put down the barest minimum as far as any kind of a "story" is concerned.  Still, audiences rushed to go see it (it raked in over 200 million at the box office), which only reinforces the point I made about 1984's Footloose: Americans will shell out money to watch young people gyrate.  Say, does anyone want to hear my favorite Polish joke?  Okay, you got it:  Why wasn't Christ born in Poland?  Because they couldn't find Three Wise Men and a Virgin.