Here I will be posting my movie reviews. Although I do not have the time to review right now, I will have time in a few weeks when everything settles down. If you want me to review a movie for you, let me know and I will post a comment on your website, or email you (whichever you prefer), when the review is up.

1. Whip It

Coming Soon:

• Across the Universe
• Hounddog
• I Know Who Killed Me
• Jennifer’s Body
• True Crime

Bliss Cavendar (Ellen Page) has grown unhappy with the apparent small-town Texas life of Friday night football and beauty pageant competition, the football championed by her father Earl (Daniel Stern) and the pageants by her mother Brooke (Marcia Gay Harden). She commiserates with her best friend Pash (Alia Shawkat) at their waitressing jobs. Pash has a plan to get out: she is applying to Ivy League schools. Bliss just wants to get out and needs a plan and a calling. She finds it during a shopping trip to Austin, Texas where she picks up a flyer for a Roller Derby event, schemes to attend, gets invited to try out and becomes Babe Ruthless, her alter-ego roller derby character. She makes the team, lies about her age, works hard to succeed, experiences her first love with the young lead singer of an Indie rock band, gets disappointed in love, bonds with her new family of roller derby girls, fights with her mother to escape the beauty pageant and live her new dream as roller derby star. She manages to reconcile all of this, impress and win over her parents and friends, and charts an ambiguous goal to move to Austin, continue with Roller Derby, and live her new life.

- Synopsis taken from IMDB

This is actually one of my favorite films, and I feel it has many funny and witty moments throughout the whole 111 minute runtime. I feel that the real reason I love this movie so much is that Ellen Page and Kristen Wig are my favorite actresses/comedians and Drew Barrymore is just the funniest “dumbass” in a lot of the movies she plays, so her role in this one was absolutely hysterical. One thing that really confused me about the film was the setting. I understood that the Cavendar family lives in Bodeen, Texas (the movie is filmed in Detroit, Michigan), and the Roller Derby matches and practices are in Austin, Texas, but what was the time setting? The soundtrack picked for the movie, although very tasteful, was bits and pieces of different decades, so there was no real way to tell what the time period was besides for the hair and clothing styles. I would guess the time period would be mid ’80s to early ’90s; nothing earlier nor later. A good contribution to this film was Bliss’s best friend Pash (Alia Shawkat); her witty comebacks, as well as the great motherly care she had for Bliss was honestly touching. My favorite part was in the beginning when Bliss’s hair was accidentally colored a permanent blue for a dare; Pash said something to mock her because of it and Bliss starts choking her meanwhile Pash says “I’m your only friend.” I have to say that part was quite the pant-pisser. I liked Bliss’s connection with her guy interest but I felt it was too obvious he was only interested once she became a part of the Roller Derby team “Hurl Scouts.”

All in all, I give this movie a 7/10. Poor setting clarity, but very tasteful music. Some poor actor choices (Juliette Lewis and Eve are just wannabe badasses; it shows even in their acting), but love the main characters.