kellaroot

In the second High School Musical—the one where, through various creakily miraculous plot contrivances, all the leads from the first movie end up with summer jobs at the same country club—there’s a scene where Efron, as high school basketball star and musical-theater prodigy Troy Bolton, sings and dances alone on a well-groomed golf course the color of lime Jell-O. The song is called “Bet on It”; it’s the moment in the film when Troy realizes he’s lost the trust of his friends and has to stand up to the country club’s big jerk of a manager and force him to let the guys from the basketball team perform in the country club’s annual talent show. But first he has to dance. He has to dance angrily. And the number that follows is easily the greatest Angry Dancing moment in recent film history. Efron clutches his head in frustration, falls on his knees as if cursing capricious gods, hits a golf ball right into a water trap.