Whip It

Posted on January 26, 2010 at 8:00 am

Drew Barrymore has devoted more time than most people to growing up and has done it more publicly than most people, too. At age 34, she has been acting for nearly three decades. Here she makes her directing debut with a coming of age story that may be conventional in structure but has some unexpected warmth and wisdom.

Ellen Page of “Juno” plays Bliss, a small-town girl whose undefined sense of displacement and dissatisfaction never got more specific than feeling inauthentic in the beauty pageants her mother insists on or working as a waitress at a barbecue place called the Oink Joint. She feels fully herself only with her best friend Pash (the bountifully freckled Alia Shawkat), until she gets a flier for a roller derby. She convinces Pash to go with her. The roller derby girls are full-on smash and bash and brash and completely unabashed in a way that makes Bliss feel fully alive. Even though her “last pair of roller skates had Barbies on them” and she is tiny and not especially athletic — not to mention that her parents would never approve — she decides to try out.

Even in movieland, girl squab Ellen Page seems like someone you skate over. But they do the Harry Potter thing and give her the one attribute that makes it possible for her to compete with women three times her size and five times her weight class. She is very fast. And that is how she is taken on by the “Hurl Scouts,” including Maggie Mayhem (Saturday Night Live’s Kristin Wiig), Bloody Holly (stuntwoman Zoe Bell), Rosa Sparks (rapper Eve), and Smashley Simpson (director Barrymore). Their Girl Scout-inspired uniforms and cheerfully bad attitude make her feel at home. Bliss becomes Babe Ruthless and she is on the team. And before long, she has a fan, a handsome young musician (Landon Pigg), who likes her very much.

Do you think that Bliss is about to embark on a journey far more fraught with peril than the roller rink? Well, then, you’ve seen a movie before. Yes, there will be complications and painful disappointments involving her friend, her parents, the musician, and the friend.

What is best about this is the way Barrymore gently sells the niceness of it all. It turns out that roller girls just wanna have fun and that the sisterhood of the traveling skates is one big happy family. Barrymore has spoken frankly of her essentially parent-less childhood and here, as she often does in movies, she conveys a young girl’s feelings of isolation and the longing for motherly guidance. Bliss finds that guidance from an unexpected place in one of the movie’s most affecting scenes. The overt message about girl empowerment may focus on hip checks and punches, but what lingers are the lessons that nothing is more powerful than forgiveness, that loyalty to others enhances your ability to define your own space, and that at every level within and outside the film sistas are doing it for themselves.

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Ice Princess

Posted on January 25, 2010 at 8:19 am

A-

Lowest Recommended Age:	Kindergarten - 3rd Grade
MPAA Rating:	G
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Some tense scenes
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters, strong women
Date Released to Theaters:	2005

Getting ready for the Winter Olympics? Here’s a good place to start.
When I tell you that this is the story of a brainy but shy girl who dreams of being a champion figure skater and that she meets up with a demanding anything-to-win coach and a cute guy who drives the Zamboni machine, you may think that there won’t be any surprises. But there are, and they’re all nice ones.

First is the characters, who rise above the level of the usual bland interchangeable stick figures for movies of this kind. Michelle Trachtenberg brings a nice shy spirit to Casey, the aspiring scientist/skater, and she has able support from the always-engaging Joan Cusack as her mother and the nicely flinty Kim Cattrall as the coach. Second is that this is not a classic “makeover movie.” Casey gets a bit of a touch-up with some eye-liner and an outfit with some sequins but she is no Cinderella who is transformed with a wand. She studies hard, takes a part-time job to play for her expenses, and spends hours practicing. And the boy who likes her admires her intelligence and dedication, before the eye-liner and sparkles. But the nicest surprise is that after a spate of “mean girl” movies, this one gives us a character who competes with Casey but is honest, loyal, and supportive.

This is a story of a girl with a dream, but it is also the story of two mothers with dreams for their daughters, both based on dreams of their own that did not come true.

Casey’s mother wants her daughter to become a brilliant scholar. She also wants Casey to dress in sensible (dowdy and middle-aged) clothes. She does not like the “twinkie little outfits” that figure skaters wear and admits that “no matter how old the rest of us get, we will still always hate the prom queen.”

Tina (Cattrall) was once a figure skating champion who made a mistake that cost her a chance at an Olympic gold medal. She wants her daughter Gen (Hayden Panettiere) to get the gold medal she could not have. She thinks she knows what it takes to survive in competitive skating. “When the CIA wants to learn new dirty tricks, they study figure skaters and their moms.”

When Gen tells her that she wants more than skating in her life, she does not listen. Casey thinks she cannot tell her mother that she does not want the career her mother has set her heart on. Both mothers have to learn that their daughters are entitled to their own dreams. The daughters have to learn that, too.

The story had an assist from “The Princess Diaries” author Meg Cabot, which may be why it feels like it should be called “Ice Princess Diaries.” (Maybe someday they will find a way to include a father in one of these movies, as Cabot does in her books.*) But the formula is nicely played out, with sincerity and sweetness enough to inspire the young viewers to come up with some dreams of their own.

Parents should know that the movie has some tense confrontations, some mild language (“that pretty much blew”) and a few kisses. There is a skating costume that appears to show more chest than some in the audience will think appropriate for a teenager and a brief shot of a painful-looking wound.

Families who see this movie should talk about the most important advice that Casey gets from Gen. Why does Casey decide to trust Tina? How does Casey decide what is most important to her? What does she learn from her mother and what does she learn from Tina?

Families who see this movie should talk about the mothering styles of Joan and Tina. How are they alike, how are they different, and what do they have in common with your family?

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy The Princess Diaries, like this film, based on a book by Meg Cabot. Older viewers will enjoy some other ice skating movies like The Cutting Edge, Ice Castles and the movies starring real-life Olympic gold medalist Sonja Henie. This story has a lot in common with the classic children’s book, Skating Shoes, part of the “Shoes” series by Noel Streatfeild, well worth reading aloud at bedtime. Families will also enjoy seeing Trachtenberg in Harriet the Spy, Cusack in School of Rock, and Panettiere in Remember the Titans and in Pixar’s A Bug’s Life, as the voice of an ant princess named Dot.

*Many thanks to the Meg Cabot fans who wrote in to tell me that there is a loving father in the Princess Diaries books.

The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg

Posted on November 2, 2009 at 8:00 am

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	PG
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Some sad moments
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie, including anti-semitism and racism
Date Released to Theaters:	1998
Date Released to DVD:	1998
Amazon.com ASIN:	B00005NTOI

In honor of the World Series, take a look at this documentary about baseball star Hank Greenberg.
Brilliant documentary-maker Aviva Kempner has created a gem of a movie to lift the spirit of anyone who cares about baseball — or heroes.

Hank Greenberg was that rarest of sports stars, someone who was as good as his fans hoped he was — in fact, he was even better. Over and over, in this movie, we see accomplished, distinguished men get teary-eyed as they talk about how much Hank Greenberg meant to them when they were growing up. Senator Carl Levin said, “Because he was a hero, I was a little bit of a hero, too.” Lawyer-to-the-stars Alan Dershowitz says, “Baseball was our way of showing that we were as American as anyone else.”

“We” meant Jews. Hank Greenberg was not the first Jewish baseball player, but he was the first one to be proudly Jewish. He did not change his name and he did not hide his religion. He missed a day of the World Series to observe Yom Kippur (though he did play on Rosh Hashanah, thanks to a clearance from a rabbi who was a baseball fan). And he was a star. Dershowitz said, “He was what they said Jews could never be.”

Kempner combines stock footage and contemporary interviews with fans, friends, family, and teammates to give a glowing portrait of Greenberg, who died in 1986, and, as the title promises, of his era.

Greenberg faced a lot of prejudice. He played for the Detroit Tigers in a city whose leading citizen, Henry Ford, was a virulent anti-Semite. One of his teammates was a country boy who had never met a Jew before and literally expected Greenberg to have horns. But Greenberg never took it personally and never became bitter. He said that it made him work harder because if he failed, “I wasn’t a bum; I was a Jewish bum.” Not a religious or observant man, he was very aware of his role as a symbol, and, as a fan notes, “he wore his Jewishness on his sleeve and in his heart.” At the end of his career, he helped support another baseball player he perhaps understood better than anyone — Jackie Robinson.

Greenberg missed four seasons at the top of his career because he was serving in WWII. And at the end of his career he was impulsively traded by an owner who mistakenly thought he was thinking of leaving. He spoke of those incidents with regret, but without anger. One of the great treats of this movie is see not just how well Greenberg handled adversity, but how well he handled fame and success, remaining humble, honest, and dedicated through it all.

Perhaps most revealing of Greenberg’s character was the one statistic that he cared about, in this most statistic-ridden of sports — RBIs. He loved being the one who batted clean-up, “the guy that comes up at the clutch, changes the ball game, makes all the difference.” He could have gone for the home run record, but he was the ultimate team player.

His teammates and friends talk, also, about his dedication. He was the hardest-working of ball-players, paying anyone he could find to pitch to him for extra batting practice and even stripping down in a friend’s dress-making studio so he could examine his batting stance in a three-way mirror.

Parents should know that while younger kids might not understand the movie, there is nothing objectionable in it — and how many of today’s sports figures could inspire a documentary about which that statement could be made?

Families who see this movie should talk about America’s history of prejudice and about the different ways that people handle adversity — and success. Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy Ken Burns’ “Baseball” documentary, broadcast on PBS and available on video.

List: Great Movie Coaches

Posted on October 28, 2009 at 8:38 am

The athletes have worked harder than they ever imagined, pushing themselves to the limits of their endurance. They’ve learned how to run faster and hit, kick, or shoot harder. They’ve watched tape of the other team, the champions, the ones who seem unbeatable. They’ve learned that there is no “I” in “team,” and then they learned it again. And then comes that moment when they feel that they have nothing left. It is time for some encouragement and motivation. They need some words that can remind the players that what they are doing matters, that it is worth stretching their souls and bodies to the limit, that this is a defining moment that will tell them and everyone who knows them and everyone who will ever know them who they are. They need to know that it is not about scoring or medals or applause; it is about courage, determination, loyalty, and knowing you have given your entire heart to something. That is when they need a great coach.

Movie coaches, most of them real-life characters, have provided some of the most memorable moments in film history, inspiring us in the audience as they inspire the athletes on screen. And, in our own private, faint-hearted moments, we often think back on those “Win one for the Gipper” speeches for our own sense of meaning, purpose, and confidence. When you feel as though you can use a pep talk, these coaches are always available on DVD.

12. A League of Their Own Sometimes the coach is the one who needs some inspiration. In this movie, Tom Hanks is a former baseball player who is bitter following an injury. He has a drinking problem, but his former fame gets him a position as the coach in an all-female league, created to keep the fans happy while the male players were fighting in World War II. It is the heart, dedication, and ability of the players that inspires him to become the coach they need. Quote: “There’s no crying in baseball!”

11. Personal Best Scott Glenn plays the coach of women training for the Olympics. In one memorable scene, he has a monologue as he watches one of his athletes run around a track, and shows his frustration on both of their behalfs at the second-class treatment of women athletes and and his fierce pride in watching her beat a man. Quote: “The high jump is a masochist’s event–it always ends on failure.”

10. Knute Rockne All American The legendary Notre Dame coach was an innovator who changed the game of football by popularizing the forward pass and set many records including five undefeated seasons. Pat O’Brien plays Rockne in this film, and Ronald Reagan plans the player whose death inspired the most famous locker room speech in history. Quote: ” I’m going to tell you something I’ve kept to myself for years — None of you ever knew George Gipp. It was long before your time. But you know what a tradition he is at Notre Dame…And the last thing he said to me — “Rock,” he said — “sometime, when the team is up against it — and the breaks are beating the boys — tell them to go out there with all they got and win just one for the Gipper.”

9. Remember the Titans When an Alexandria, Virginia school was integrated for the first time, it wasn’t just the teammates who had to learn to work together. Coach Boone (Denzel Washington) and Coach Yoast (Will Patton) had to become a team as well. This true story of their first team and its undefeated season, and if you plan to watch, bring a handkerchief. Maybe two. Quote: “In Greek mythology, the Titans were greater even than the gods. They ruled their universe with absolute power. Well that football field out there, that’s our universe. Let’s rule it like Titans.”

8. Coach Carter The great thing about Coach Carter is that after he turns his rag-tag players into a disciplined, winning team, he benches them. Samuel L. Jackson plays real-life coach Ken Carter, who benched the team and locked the gym to insist that his team members could not play unless they did their schoolwork and got good grades. Quote: “You really need to consider the message you’re sending this boys by ending the lockout. It’s the same message that we as a culture send to our professional athletes; and that is that they are above the law. If these boys cannot honor the simple rules of a basketball contract, how long do you think it will be before they’re out there breaking the law?”

7. Glory Road Josh Lucas plays real-life coach Texas Western Don Haskins, who coached the first NCAA basketball team with an all-black starting line-up in 1966. Haskins did not intend to be a civil rights pioneer. He just wanted the best players he could find. And in that era, there were plenty of black basketball players who were not getting offers from anyone else. So Haskins put together a team with a lot of talent and a lot of passion for the game, and then he showed them how to be better players and an even better team than they had ever imagined. Quote: “Your dignity’s inside you. Nobody can take something away from you you don’t give them.”

6. Miracle And don’t miss the documentary: Do You Believe in Miracles? The Story of the 1980 U.S. Hockey Team. It’s still referred to as the “Miracle on Ice.” No one thought the American hockey players had a chance against the Soviet team in the 1980 Olympics. The Americans were amateurs from different teams. The Soviets were the world champions. The David and Goliath game that resulted was voted the number one international game in hockey history on the 100th anniversary of the game. The American team beat the Soviets because they had coach Herb Brooks, played here by Kurt Russell. Brooks said he won because he picked “not the best players but the right players.” Quote: “Great moments… are born from great opportunity. And that’s what you have here, tonight, boys. That’s what you’ve earned here tonight. One game. If we played ’em ten times, they might win nine. But not this game. Not tonight.”

5. Friday Night Lights Before the television show, there was a book and there was this movie, with Billy Bob Thornton as coach Gary Gaines. In small-town Texas, everyone in town goes to the high school football games, everyone thinks they know what the coach should be doing, and every player knows that he may never do anything again that matters to as many people as winning the season. Quote: “Being perfect means going onto the field knowing that you did everything you could have done, with clear eyes, love in your heart, joy in your heart.”

4. Hoosiers Gene Hackman plays Norman Dale, who must battle his own demons to be the coach his high school basketball team deserves in this quietly powerful film inspired by the real-life story of the small-town team that took the Indiana state championship in 1951. Quote: “These six individuals have made a choice to work, a choice to sacrifice, to put themselves on the line 23 nights for the next 4 months, to represent you, this high school. That kind of commitment and effort deserves and demands your respect. This is your team.”

3. Chariots of Fire A competitor in the 1924 Olympics took the unusual step of seeking a coach, considered vaguely unsporting in those days of the gentleman athlete. And the coach, Sam Mussabini (Ian Holm) was an unconventional choice. So overcome he cannot bear to watch the race, Mussabini sits in his hotel room. When the word comes in that his runner has won, he quietly punches out the crown of his straw hat. Quote: “A short sprint is run on nerves.”

2. Stick It (and also see Bridges as a coach in Surf’s Up) Jeff Bridges is so natural as the coach of girl gymnasts in “Stick It” and a surfing penguin in “Surf’s Up” that if feels like he was born to play the perfect disciplinarian/mentor/source of inspiration. In the underrated “Stick It,” his toughest challenge is a gifted athlete who quit gymnastics and is then sentenced to compete again to stay out of juvenile detention. He has to teach her to trust him before he can begin to coach her. Quote: “This isn’t the real world. This is my world. You don’t have to like me or like it here, but you do have to respect it.”

1. The Heart of the Game Bill Resler is a tax law professor who agrees to coach a girls’ high school basketball team in this spellbinding and documentary about the quintessentially American themes: race, gender, class, lawsuits, heart, skill, optimism, despair, setbacks, and triumph. Unforgettable. Quote: “Devour the moose!”

X Games 3D: The Movie

Posted on August 20, 2009 at 5:58 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	4th - 6th Grades
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for extreme sports action and accidents
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Intense sports action and accidents, reference to serious injuries
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	August 21, 2009

Kids, don’t try this at home.

3D is X-treme film-making and thus well suited to the X Games, hyper-intense, hyper-dangerous, hyper-what are they thinking? sports that are closer to stunts. Young men compete on skateboard, snowboard, and on dirt bikes and motocross to defy the laws of physics. One of them says he feels about gravity the way some people feel about evolution: “It’s just a theory.”

Adolescent testosterone-friendly sponsors like Play Station, Taco Bell, Red Bull, and the Navy have helped make the X Games into an enormous and high-stakes event. Some of its most stunning images are of the homes these young men have purchased with the money they make breaking their bones to do these tricks.

And X can also stand for something else. At one point, a selection of one competitor’s past x-rays of injuries flash on the screen.

The stunts are astonishing and the 3D effects are so intense that you will feel like wiping the dirt kicked up by the motocross bike off your face. But there is more to the film. It has some important lessons about passion, commitment, being willing to ask “what if it is possible?” and being willing to fail in order to achieve ultimate success. The climax of the film comes in a three-way competition that includes one man coming back from a wipe-out the year before and one who is badly injured early on and insists on continuing to compete. The respect and affection between the competitors is genuinely touching and the way they ride their boards back and forth to the medical facility to check on the injured athlete is affecting. They are barely aware of how organic their attachment to the boards has become.