Breakin Collection (1984)

Editor's Note Take a trip back to the 1980s with this collection of breakdance films. BREAKIN': Kelly's a dedicated dance student. When she hooks up with celebrated breakdancers Ozone and Turbo, there's no telling how far the three of them can go. Today it's the L.A. club scene, tomorrow it may be Broadway. The music score features the hits, "Breakin'...There's No Stoppin Us," and "Freakshow on the Dance Floor." BREAKIN' 2: All the gang from the original "Breakin'" movie is back, and this time they're up against a greedy developer who wants to turn their community center into a shopping mall. BEAT STREET: The troubles of ghetto life are accurately captured in this cinematic time capsule, one of the first films to contain rap music. At the time, the rapping took a back seat to the break dancing and one of the many attributes of BEAT STREET is the authentic street moves on display. The locations also retain their street cred, with graffiti covering subway cars and abandoned buildings populating the mean streets. The story concerns a group of Bronx teens using their dancing, rapping, and artistic skills to lift themselves out of the ghetto. Musician Harry Belafonte teamed with David Picker to produce.

	Adolfo Quinines
	Guy Davis
	Ice-T
	Jon Chardiet
	Leon W. Grant
	Lucinda Dickey
	Michael Chambers
	Rae Dawn Chong
	Joel Silberg - [Breakin'] Director
	Sam Firstenberg - [Breakin' 2] Director
	Stan Lathan - [Street] Director

Entertainment Weekly
"Harken back to a kinder, simpler time, when scores were settled not with a gun or a knife, but a viscously executed head-spin." 08/19/2005 p.127

Autsin Chronicle 9 of 10
[Street] ...Beat Street ...is kind of the hip-hop answer to the movie Fame. Co-produced by Harry Belafonte, the movie strives to deal honestly and entertainingly with hip-hop culture and present the breakdancing, the music, and the graffiti art as a positive and viable alternative to gang warfare and violence. The movie is populated with a lot of young newcomers, is thoughtfully choreographed, and featues some of the top New York breaker crews around at the time... - Marjorie Baumgarten

Chicago Sun-Times 8 of 10
[Breakin' 2] ...a modest, cheerful little movie like Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo is so refreshing. Here is a movie that wants nothing more than to allow some high-spirited kids to sing and dance their way through a silly plot just long enough to make us grin...not a great movie, but it's inexhaustible, entertaining, and may turn out to be influential. - Roger Ebert

The New York Times 7 of 10
[Breakin'] ...mostly small-scale demonstrations of break-dancing, the energetic street choreography... The principal performers ...are exhaustingly good, given a little room in which to leap, shake and, from time to time, stand on their heads and turn their legs into propellers. The film, directed by Joel Silberg in and around Los Angeles, employs a very small story that is meant to be functional but still interrupts the dancing far too often. - Vincent Canby