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Posts Tagged ‘Drew Barrymore’
Thursday, February 4th, 2010
There’s a scene early on in WHIP IT when Bliss Cavendar (Ellen Page) is on a shopping trip to the big city with her mother and a group of girls come skating into the store they’re at. Director Drew Barrymore filmed that scene with a mastering that many seasoned directors couldn’t pull off. In that simple sequence, we understood everything we needed to know about Bliss; she was living a life she didn’t want and in that moment, she found a calling that could lead to life she did want. I don’t want to be overly sentimental in regards to a film about roller derby, but this was one heck of a movie and was an absolute joy to watch. Great characters, great scrip, great performances and an outstanding effort from first time director Barrymore.
Bliss is trapped in a small, Texas town, completely held by her 1950’s-esque mother and forced to participate in beauty pageants, which we can tell she hates. When she discovers the roller derby league in a nearby city, she concocts a lie that will allow her to participate. During this time, Bliss meets people she’s never encountered, joins the team and even meets a boy. Elements of this story are familiar in many sports movies and coming-of-age films about high school students, but WHIP IT manages to combine some elements in a fresh setting that makes you feel like you’re seeing it for the first time.
The greatest element to this film is Barrymore’s ability to capture the essence of a young adult that’s desperate to escape her current life. Many of us have been her exact situation in which we feel trapped and helpless by our environment, friends, family, job, etc., and some of us were lucky enough to find something that allowed us to break free of those trappings. That’s why Bliss is such a likeable character; everyone (men and women) can relate to her.
The trick to breaking free is to get away without completely alienating your family and that’s what Bliss learns towards the end. It’s spelled out to her by Maggie Mayhem (Kristen Wiig) perfectly in a speech that could have been horrible but ended up fitting in perfectly. That credit goes to Shauna Cross, who wrote the screenplay and the novel the film is based on. I’m of the belief that original authors should always write the screenplays, most notably because they truly understand the characters they’ve created. Ms. Cross lends a lot of credit to my theory and her screenplay could have been embarrassingly cheesy in the hands of a lesser author. As it is, I’m truly disappointed she hasn’t received more credit for her work.
I was truly impressed by this film and I feel safe in saying that it’s one of the better sports movies we’ve seen in many years. It sounds crazy, but this little film about women’s roller derby touched on more thematic elements than 95% of the films out there about football, baseball or basketball. WHIP IT is a treat and has even inspired me to break out my old skates. And no, they don’t have Barbies on them.
BLU-RAY REVIEW
I have to vent for a second and say how disappointed I am that we didn’t get a commentary from any of the actresses or even Drew Barrymore. This is one of those times where I know Barrymore would have had a lot to say about her first directorial effort. But even a commentary from Shauna Cross would have been nice.
Video: Widescreen 2.40:1. Fox continues to impress me with the quality of their new releases. WHIP IT has a dark, sometimes smokey setting and I was concerned the black levels would lose definition. Thankfully, the video presentation was top notch and the film looked wonderful.
Audio: The DTS-HD audio track was also nice and those with a nice surround setup will enjoy the crowd noises during the derby scenes.
Deleted Scenes (16:14): You have to feel for Alia Shawkat after watching these scenes since most of them served to develop her character. It turned out to be a good thing because a lot of these would’ve just slowed down the film. However, unless your a big fan of Shawkat (I loved her on ‘Arrested Development’), I don’t think you’ll get anything out of these.
Fox Movie Channel Presents Writer’s Draft: Shauna Cross of Whip It (3:04): Note to Blu-ray producers; you can’t have a three minute featurette and have nothing but movie clips in it. I saw this on the back cover and was pretty excited to hear something from Shauna Cross. What little I heard was really great, but I wanted more. Cross was very passionate about her film and she had a lot of enthusiasm with in only 3 minutes.
Tags: Drew Barrymore, Ellen Page, Marcia Gay Harden
Posted in Reviews |
Friday, December 11th, 2009
I was in a McDonald’s the other day, because I’m into health food, and I saw one of their $1 dollar rental DVD stands while I was in line. And standing there, I saw a DVD with Morgan Freeman, Christopher Walken and William H. Macy that went straight to DVD, THE MAIDEN HEIST. I was dumbfounded. So much so, in fact, that three people jumped in line in front of me (bunch of savages in this town). I thought if any big three leading up a movie could avoid a straight to DVD release it’d be those three. But no, apparently the big three names to line up to avoid Straight-to-DVD hell is DeNiro, Barrymore and Sam Rockwell/Kate Beckinsale, as the new release EVERYBODY’S FINE is a Lifetime movie disguised as a theatrical release. I think it avoided that hell due to Barrymore’s Hollywood name. And yet the film still gets a 5. Wha?
Robert DeNiro plays Frank Goode, a widowed father of four who, upon being stood up mysteriously by his children for a family get together at the house, decides to travel to see his kids all around the country. Frank suffers from a lung disease which discourages him from flying/traveling at all, but he is a stubborn old man on a mission, so he boards trains and buses to get to his children, all of whom are guarding some family secret. His artistic son David (Austin Lysy) is nowhere to be found at his apartment in New York. His daughters Amy and Rosie (Beckinsale and Barrymore, respectively) live with hidden relationship problems, Amy also with a problem with her son, Jack. While Frank’s other son, Robert (Sam Rockwell) isn’t exactly setting the world on fire with his career in an orchestra, not as the conductor as his father thinks, but as the “percussionist,” who just bangs a big drum. Frank has pills which make his trip possible which are destroyed by a mugger, though in the altercation DeNiro still displays that amazing reservoir that is “Old Man Strength.” And on his trip back home, he takes a flight and, without his pills, has a heart attack. He then has a dream sequence realizing his kids have been lying to him all this time, opening his eyes to their fear of disappointing him they’ve experienced all these years.
It is in these dream sequences that the movie has its biggest flaws and also most heartfelt moments. The dream sequence during his heart attack takes place at a picnic table with Frank’s four children as they are children talking about their adult problems. This could be a serious scene, but with the children it is simply off-putting as we just remember the classroom scene from ANNIE HALL (“I’m into leather.”). However, as DeNiro meets his kids at their different spots along his journey, he flashes back to seeing them as children in his mind’s eye. These are tender moments that DeNiro sells with his big smile, and they remind each of us of a proud father/grandpa. His travels also add an ambiguous reaction to the film, as it’s easy to fall for the draw of the road and traveling our great country, but he has no cell phone and he doesn’t grasp the simple concept of time zones…it just isn’t something DeNiro would do.
There’s also a touch of generational guilt added into the film that works for and against it, as Frank’s blue collar work at coating telephone wire (a job of which he is immensely proud) caused his lung problems that are killing him, but also put his kids through school to learn business, art, music and dance. The older generation suffered to allow the younger to “find itself.” And most of us find ourselves judging the older generation’s lack of self-awareness. It’s a point made in after school specials to teach us to respect our elders, but somehow it also works, mainly because we can’t help but like DeNiro.
The film ends with the family around a dinner table celebrating Christmas, and DeNiro reciting the film’s title in a cheesy voice over… and I found it fitting that this happens to be while the Network for Women is celebrating “FalalalaLifetime” for the holidays. This film has its moments, as any such film would have to anyone with a heart, but hey, even Meredith Baxter Birney can elicit tears on some of her made-for-TV movies. Doesn’t mean we should watch them in theaters.
Tags: Drew Barrymore, Kate Beckinsale, Kirk Jones, robert deniro
Posted in Reviews |
Monday, November 2nd, 2009
by: Sturdy and Kristy
He Said/She Said is a bi-weekly column where a male and female reviewer from the site team up to debate the merits of a particular film.
He Said:
There are few things more annoying in life than a single woman that spends her time in a bar and dating every guy with a pulse, but complains that she can’t find anyone and doesn’t understand why. So the prospect of watching a two hour movie about a woman that does just that was not an appealing one, to say the least.
The structure of the film is a little odd in that half the film revolves around Ginnefer Goodwin (the aforementioned annoying woman) and her struggle to find love, while the second half revolves around several other characters and their struggles. The other actors include; Jennifer Connoly, Jennifer Aniston, Ben Affleck, Bradley Cooper, Drew Barrymore and Scarlett Johansson. You might have already picked up on the fact that all of the other, lesser used actors are actually A-list, Hollywood stars and the “main” actress is someone you haven’t heard of. Make no mistake about it; this is an epic fail on the part of the filmmakers. Goodwin isn’t cut out to star in a Toyota commercial, let alone carry a film with six A-list stars in supporting roles.
The worst part about the film is that I really enjoyed every other story but Goodwin’s. I was genuinely interested in whether or not the other couples were going to make it or not and while we were following them, I was pleasantly surprised with the stories. But unfortunately, that’s only half the film. In the end, the good didn’t outweigh the bad and the result is a frustratingly annoying movie that was very close to being enjoyable.
She Said:
For the first thirty to forty-five minutes, I found myself disgusted with this film. All Hollywood needed was another movie to make women seem desperate, pathetic and downright crazy when it comes to men. I couldn’t stand the thought of watching it until about three quarters through I found myself liking the characters and feeling for them and their predicaments. It started out as a typical story about single women trying to find the right guy but evolved into a story about the more complicated aspects of relationships. Some of the storylines were dull and ended as expected but it was done well enough to change my attitude about the entire film.
As for Ginnefer Goodwin, I thought she was cute and has potential A-list status. Her character was annoying and came off as desperate, but I think anyone in that role would have the same problem; it was strictly a character issue, not an actress issue. In my opinion, Jennifer Connolly’s character was the most obnoxious; the way they had her character react to the situation she was in was a little frustrating, as it encourages the stereotype that married women turn a little crazy – not a fan of that received idea. The rest of the characters were alright, and of course I would have liked to see some storylines more than others but overall I found myself enjoying the ride, eventually.
Tags: Ben Affleck, bradley cooper, Drew Barrymore, ginnefer goodwin, Jennifer Aniston, justin long
Posted in He Said/She Said |
Tuesday, October 6th, 2009
This will seem an awkward beginning for this review, but I imagine Steven Spielberg had a blast making his early movies. He was 36 when he directed ET: THE EXTRA TERRESTRIAL, a pet project for him, and I imagine young Drew Barrymore (who played the role of Gertie at age 6) watching him work on this film he was so passionate about and seeing directing as one hell of a fun ride. This makes me glad that Barrymore chose a fun project for her directorial debut, WHIP IT, starring Ellen Page as a small town Texas girl who finds her niche in the world of Roller Derby. Start off with a lighthearted passion project and work your way up to a SCHINDLER’S LIST. WHIP IT is one such film, with an empowering message for young girls and the capacity to enhance interest in women’s roller derby just as DODGEBALL: A TRUE UNDERDOG STORY did for its respective sport…though I can’t remember what sport that was.
Page is Bliss Cavender, seen as an outcast in her little town of Bodeen, and not all too enthusiastic about the pastime her mother (played by Marcia Gay Harden) has planned for her and her younger sister; competing in beauty pageants. She has a best friend in Pash (Alia Shawkat, who you’ll remember from “Arrested Development”), as her only confidant, as she toils at the local barbecue joint, mocking the locals and dreaming of a way out. She finds it in a flyer for a Roller Derby league in Austin, makes up an excuse for her parents to sneak away, and falls in love with the sport on first viewing. The names of the women in the league are enough to hook anyone. Maggie Mayhem (Kristen Wiig) first invites Bliss to try out for the team, Juliette Lewis plays the evil Iron Maven, Zoe Bell (last scene on the hood of a car in DEATHPROOF) is Bloody Holly, and even the director herself takes a dig at pop culture with her character’s name, Smashley Simpson.
Ellen Page is great. I’ve thought so since JUNO, then even liked her in SMART PEOPLE, though she played basically the same character – though not pregnant. In this she breaks away a little, in that she is more awkward and shy toward the beginning, then derives confidence through the sport and works up that Juno-like attitude. There are elements of mother/daughter conflict, Daniel Stern plays the father afraid of his wife and jealous of his neighbor’s football-playing sons, the relationship between Pash and Bliss becomes strained as Bliss joins the team, and Bliss falls for a boy as well, but all of these storylines are pulled together nicely and resolves well in the films 111 minutes. There is a pretty cool, if not difficult, romantic scene in a pool; Kristen Wiig shows she can do more than just comedy; and the scenes of actual roller derby are done well, accentuated by the color commentary of Johnny Rocket, played by Jimmy Fallon (notably funnier here than he is in late night).
This is a sports movie geared toward women, so of course there’s the climactic big game against the evil adversary, but the camaraderie of the league is such that even the “bad” team has a good relationship with all the others, and the conflict between the evil Iron Maven and Bliss’ roller derby alter ego Babe Ruthless is accentuated with a food fight, not an actual fight. The film has fun with roller derby, and the other stories of a young girl’s coming of age and relationships are furthered through the happiness she derives from the sport. This should be the film shown to all young girls, though it may cause a desire to get a myriad of tattoos. Opt for this flick instead of anything in the BRING IT ON franchise if you have a daughter in search of athletic inspiration. And kudos to Ms. Barrymore for a job well done. Spielberg would be proud.
(As a purely aesthetic post script, Ari Graynor looks gorgeous as Eva Destruction, and what a name.)
Tags: Drew Barrymore, Ellen Page, Marcia Gay Harden
Posted in Reviews |
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