![]() ![]() Soon enough, Mike is indoctrinating Adam into the ways of the male stripper - with an assist by Dallas, who provides dance lessons - and Adam proves himself to be a natural. Adam is an unexpected hit with the ladies, which impresses Dallas (Matthew McConaughey), the owner and manager (and occasional featured dancer) of the strip club. The two bump into each other later that night sharp-dressed Mike takes pity on the bedraggled-looking Adam (who he takes to calling The Kid), and invites him along to his night job so he can earn a few extra bucks. By day, he’s a budding custom furniture maker and construction worker, and it’s on the latter gig that he meets 19-year-old Adam (Alex Pettyfer). Tatum plays the titular character, a self-described “stripper/entrepreneur.” By night, he’s the star attraction of a male dance revue that does big business with the ladies of Tampa Bay, Florida. As he did with Gina Carano in Haywire, he manages a similar trick with Cody Horn, a new actress with little to no acting experience. Soderbergh once again coaxs career-best performances out of actors (Channing Tatum, Matthew McConaughey) who previously appeared to have hit the ceiling of their limited range. Soderbergh is the not-so-secret ingredient that makes the movie eminently palatable, a tasty treat elevated far beyond its ordinary narrative structure and stereotypical character arcs. Magic Mike is not above pandering to straight women and gay men, but neither does it avoid trafficking in male-fantasy fulfillment it provides a little something something for nearly everyone, as long as you’re cool with partial nudity and physical objectification. ![]() Ah, but add Steven Soderbergh to the mix, and what pours out is a seemingly complex work of art. It was a pretty steep learning curve, but we got it because like I said, there's nothing that guarantees a squeal out of a crowd more than Channing Tatum tearing away his cop pants.Take away the breakaway pants, substitute robots for strippers, and Magic Mike is a perfectly ordinary summer movie, story-wise. Of course, that is the moment when the producer and the director walk into the fitting room for a quick check in, like, 'Hey, how's it going?' and I'm standing there in my underwear in front of my staff. "Finally, I figured out the right combination of velcro and snaps and how to grab them and got it. They weren't tearing away," says Peterson, who tested them on himself. "I thought, okay, so you attach a bit of velcro to some pants and yank 'em and that's it. ![]() What took him awhile to figure out: How exactly to make that happen. It's pretty much full-proof if you do it right," he says. What he learned immediately: "A guy walks out onstage, tears his pants off, it's guaranteed to get a reaction every single time. An Emmy nominee last year for his work on HBO's Boardwalk Empire, Peterson did some quick research for the film by visiting several male revues on both coasts. ![]() You've got to have something to take off,'" says Magic Mike costume designer Christopher Peterson. "Someone asked me recently, 'How important are clothes to a movie about stripping?' And all I could say was, 'Without the clothes, you really don't have an act as a stripper. ![]()
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