Coyote Ugly (PG-13, 2000)

Coyote Ugly is owned by Lil (Mario Bello), who has a tough exterior but a heart of gold. She tells Violet (Piper Perabo) that the bar is successful because men have two-year-olds in their pants, and she knows how to keep the two-year-olds happy. The girls are supposed to appear available but not be available and make the customers crazy but not too crazy. Violet must, of course, conquer her stage fright and get a darling boyfriend with a dark secret (Adam Garcia). She has to try to make up with her adored father (John Goodman). He is disappointed in her and embarrassed about what she is doing. And Violet has to try to make it as a songwriter when no one wants to listen to the songs she composes on the roof of her picturesque but working-class apartment building.

The people behind Flashdance have delivered another movie with about the same level of believabilty, but with little less flash and a lot less dance. You won't see much more dance on screen than you do in the commericals. There are no full-fledged dance numbers, just snippets of glorious long legs stomping on the bar and glimpses of glorious upper bodies as the girls hose down the paying customers. And fair warning up front -- the delectable Tyra Banks appears as a Coyote bartender very briefly before going off to finish law school(!).

Flashdance gave us, unforgettably, the steel welder who wanted to be a ballerina and made extra money doing elaborate postmodern erotic dances in a working class bar in Pittsburgh. COYOTE UGLY gives us a pizza waitress from New Jersey who wants to make it as a songwriter in the big city. She is too shy to sing her songs in public, so of course she gets a job that requires her to be an exhibitionist, in the working class bar of the title, famous for its glorious bartenders and the way they display their glory. Think "Cocktail" starring the Spice Girls.