WHIP IT

At the first time at bat, some people strike out and others knock it out of the park. In her directorial debut, Drew Barrymore's WHIP IT is a solid home run.

Juno's Ellen Page stars in this story of a 17 year old girl lost in the world of beauty pageants, high school, and small town life. A bohemian struggling to fit into her parents (specifically her mother's) expectations of her. She waits tables at a BBQ joint where the popular kids stiff her on tips. Whilst on a shopping trip to Austin she hears about a roller derby exhibation match between the worst team, lead by Saturday Night Live's Kristen Wiig, and the 2 time undefeated defending champions, lead by Juliette Lewis. Page's Bliss is intrigued b the sport and when she hears about open try outs, she breaks out the Barbie skates and goes. The rest is well your standard "losers" sports story. But one that deals with things with a light touch and a sweet message.

Supporting Page is a bevy of beauties and character actors. Stunt woman and Death Proof star Zoe Bell, director Barrymore, and rapper Eve are teammates and Owen Wilson's big brother Andrew is her coach. Daniel Stern and Marcia Gay Harding are her parents. Jimmy Fallon shows up almost unrecognizable.

Barrymore directs with a sure hand, balancing the action Roller Derby scenes and the light comedy and romance. The standard third act emotional scenes are also handled well. This is territory she knows well, 10 years ago she would have starred in this movie.

This is a good, solid, heartwarming film about finding you niche in life and following through, and believing that your friends and family will follow you.

WHIP IT hits DVD and BLU-RAY on January 26, 2010.

AVATAR

When you've been following and hearing about a movie for 12 years (like many of us have) you tend to go in with expectations. I remember seeing the first images of the Na'vi, I remember the casting decisions, I remember reading about people reading and their reactions to the scriptment. and I remember thinking, "this is either going to be amazing or a huge dissapointment" I don't think there would be any middle ground with Avatar.

I was not dissapointed.

On the hour long drive home while discussing this with friends, I made the following point "James Cameron is a storyteller as opposed to a filmmaker. Storytellers often take a familiar story and add their own twist to it." That is what I think Cameron has done here. He pulls a little bit from lots of different stories to create a tapestry. You can lean forward and pull out a magnifying glass and look and examine a tapestry and see all the little threads OR you can take a few steps back and look at the amazing story unfolding before you that is beautiful and amazing. Yes one can see the basic outline of the "aggressor goes native" story here (see movies such as Dances with Wolves or A Man Called Horse. If you look closer you can see elements drawn from other science fiction ,from Poul Anderson (his short story Call Me Joe shares some striking resemblances, he also wrote a novel called The Avatar) and Robert Heinlein, or from Star Wars or various animes. Added to the mix is a healthy dose of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness,The Bible and Jewish history (personally I was reminded of the Jewish stand against the Romans at Masada), and Native American and African ceremonies, mythologies, and beliefs. All togather they compile a story that is engaging. I cared about the characters and wanted to know what happened to them. I cheered when they fought back with massive bows and arrows and massive flying dragon beasts.

The acting at times was wooden but at other times amazing. I honestly forgot I was watching Zoe Saldena, CCH Pounder, and Wes Studi as the Na'vi. Sam Worthington was alot better then I expected after his performance in Terminator Salvation. Sigounary Weaver was really good. And as broadly drawn as Stephen Lang and Giovanni Ribisi were, they sold it.

The Visuals are a thing to behold. Much like Kenneth Branagh used 70mm to give his Hamlet scope and an epic feel, Cameron uses the 3D technology like few have before. Yes there are a few "pop out" moments but mostly it's used to give depth and scope and scale to a world that came out of his imagination and a computer (or 2 or 3...thousand). Pandora really is unlike any movie I've seen before. Star Wars you look at Tatoonie and you see desert or you look at Endor and you see forest. Pandora is unlike any of that. A Gas Giant hangs almost omnipresent in the sky, plants illuminate or revert into the ground upon touch, animals soar or run or crash. And it's all, well this seems to be my theme for this review, amazing.