Corrie and I rarely end up at the movies, mainly because of our schedules and the costs, and the lack of awesome looking films coming out...Well, I did want to see Inglorious Basterds, Up, and Ponyo among other flicks, but still, there are other adventurous things to do around here that cost far less than the movies and are far more visceral.
But last weekend we went to see Drew Barrymore's directorial debut Whip It, a coming-of-age film starring Ellen Page and Juliette Lewis and the sport of Roller Derby. The reasons for seeing the movie come in a few styles; we hadn't been to a movie in a while, Ellen Page is fun to watch doing the acting thing, there's a dearth of girlie-kick-ass movies being made, and we've been outspoken proponents of getting to Roller Derby matches since we first went to a bout two years ago.
The first match we made it to, here in New York, was a tilt between the Queens of Pain and the Brooklyn Bombshells, and we didn't know the rules or really just what the hell was going on. The girls would skate in a circle, around and around, and at some unknown (to us) point the crowd would erupt in cheers, yelling and screaming the girls on, like the wild ravenous sports-fans New Yorkers are. This would make sense at Yankee Stadium, or the Garden, but this was far uptown, at CCNY at 140th St, and these fans were of the hipster and lesbian breed...maybe being a fanatical wacko about your team, some team, is part of the New Yorker stereotype.
Eventually we figured out the rules, and began to cheer on the Brooklyn team with our fellow Brooklynites, and eventually we won. Or, the girls won, and we, as fans the world over have since spectator team sports originated, shared in the victory.
The next bout we saw that season was the championships, between the Queens team and the Bronx Gridlock. When we arrived at the venue, a line stretched far and wide, a few hundred deep down the street. This was very exciting for us, because we wouldn't shut-up about it, trying to tell the people we knew that they should check out the meets. Now, we wouldv'e preferred to have the Bombshells in the game, and we couldn't really root for the Queens girls, so we rooted hard for the Bronx delegate, who eventually won the championship. The halftime act during this match was the Hungry Marching Band, which I posted about a while back.
So, however we felt about Drew Barrymore, we were excited to see this film, just for bringing to the mainstream a joy we've been enjoying for a while now.
In the film, the girls race on a banked-track, like they use for NASCAR and Indy-Car racing, while out here it's a flat-track organization. Corrie and I believe that's probably because of the space limitations in the City...a flat-track is easy enough to set up in different college auditoriums. Upon doing some research, it appears that Austin, Texas was the home of the re-emerging popularity of Roller Derby, after the television shows in the early '80s were cancelled. In Austin, both the banked-track and a flat-track shoot-offs were spawned and spread, each going to various cities where it could be cultivated by the desires and restraints afforded to it.
The film is satisfying, enjoyable, conventional but not too cliche, with pretty good performances all around. I would say it's definitely a successful directorial debut for Barrymore, but given the topic and the actors, it would have to really suck to not be considered a success for a new director.
No comments:
Post a Comment