Reel players – the best sports-themed chick flicks
July 9, 2009 by admin
Filed under DVD, Entertainment, Film, Fun Stuff
Looking for something to do on a hot, lazy summer afternoon?
If you feel the need to chill, how about settling in with a bucket of high-carb popcorn and creating your own movie marathon? We’ve watched all the films out there and put together a collection of the best sports-themed chick flicks. Feel the need to add an educational element? Try watching the DVD in another language – a great way to brush up on your French or Spanish.
Pretty Tough Picks
My personal faves include Love & Basketball (Sanaa Lathan), Bend It Like Beckham (Keira Knightly) and League of Their Own (Geena Davis, Madonna). If you haven’t already seen it, Heart of the Game is a terrific documentary that matches any theatrical film for drama.
Kick Like a Girl to air on HBO tonight
May 28, 2009 by jane
Filed under DVD, Entertainment, Film, Soccer, Student-Athlete, TV, Youth Athletics, Youth-HS Soccer
I screened a short documentary called “Kick Like a Girl” a couple months ago and was delighted to find out that HBO is airing it tonight (6:00 ET). Anyone who sometimes feels jaded by the state of sports these days needs to tune in to the adventures of the Mighty Cheetahs, a third-grade girls’ soccer team in Salt Lake City.
After two undefeated, largely unchallenged seasons (with scores like 11-0 and 16-1), the Mighty Cheetahs decide to join the boys’ division in an effort to experience some real competition.
The move to the boys’ division makes sense in terms of sports skill. But it has repercussions for the league, particularly for the boys they play against. “Kick” takes a gentle look at how gender roles are stereotyped — and how parents sometimes have trouble looking past them. Sure enough, there are the soccer dads in the stands who have a hard time watching their boys lose to girls.
The documentary is as much a girl-power story of triumph as a sociological look at the different ways boys and girls approach practice, play and teamwork. We get to know the Cheetahs themselves – both their skill at the game and their views on soccer and life. It’s not so much about winning and losing as it is about teamwork and taking on challenges.
“Kick Like a Girl” was filmed and produced by the coach, Jenny Mackenzie, whose daughter, Lizzie, plays on the team and serves as the film’s narrator. Mackenzie obviously shares a close relationship with the girls allowing for some open, and incredibly realistic dialogue. In addition to being a volunteer youth coach, she is a social worker whose family is involved in the entertainment industry so helming a documentary film came somewhat naturally.
The last segment of the documentary tracks the Cheetahs through their first couple of games in the boys’ division, with enough on-field action to confirm that the Cheetahs belong there. They play well, with a remarkable grasp of teamwork.
The players interviewed have interesting things to say about how the Cheetahs triumphed by planning, passing and working together while the boys often lost because some insisted on hogging the ball in order stand out as a lone star.
Mackenzie interviews some of the boys, too, after their matches with the Cheetahs. Sure, they admit, it’s a little awkward at first to play against girls, but once the game starts, the only real issue is skill.
“If one of my friends say, ‘You kick like a girl,’ I’d be, like, ‘Yeah, that’s nice. Thank you,’ ” one of the boys says in the film.
“Kick Like a Girl” doesn’t pretend to document some dramatic gender divide. But it does suggest a few attitudes may have shifted.
I recommend this film to viewers of all ages, particularly older girls now competing at elite levels. It will remind them of why they started playing and how to celebrate the pure joy of a game well played. It would be interesting for the filmmaker to follow the players as they grow up and apply the lessons of the soccer field to high school, college and professional life.
Be sure to tune in tonight – it will be one of the most enjoyable 30 minutes of your day.
Virginia Madsen teams up for female ski jumper doc
Actress Virginia Madsen (Sideways, Prairie Home Companion, The Haunting) and Title IX Productions, the film company she formed last year, are taking on a good fight – the right for women ski jumpers to compete in the Olympic games.
Titled “Fighting Gravity,” the documentary film follows 15 athletes challenging the International Olympic Committee’s decision to bar them from the upcoming Games in Vancouver. The IOC has rejected a decade-long effort to include women jumpers in the Games, making ski jumping the only Olympic sport exclusively for men. The case is currently making its way through the Canadian court system. Here’s what Madsen had to say:
“To think that in 2009, in a celebrated, international event like the Olympics, women are still dealing with discrimination is pretty shocking. We knew instantly we wanted to throw our support behind this project and get the word out there.”
With ski jumping the only winter Olympic sport that doesn’t include both genders, the female ski jumpers featured in the doc say their rights have been violated. The IOC says women’s ski jumping doesn’t have enough international competitions to merit inclusion.
The most infuriating thing to the ski jumpers isn’t just that they won’t be in Vancouver for the 2010 Winter Olympics. It’s who will be.
Sliders, skiers and shredders of all sorts — bobsled, skeleton, luge, snowboard. And don’t forget the butt of every winter sports joke ever invented: curling.
But women’s ski jumping? As it currently stands, not gonna happen.
American Lindsay Van increased the pressure by winning the first women’s ski jumping World Cup, which was held in the Czech Republic last month.
Men, of course, have been jumping since the mid-1800s. The first World Championships were in 1936. But women have been denied. Though they have been competing for a decade, their first championships were just held.
The argument is always the same. Officials insist the interest and talent isn’t there for women’s ski jumping, even though it apparently is for men. IOC media relations manager Emmanuelle Moreau told The Canadian Press last year, “Any reference to the fact that this is a matter about gender equality is totally inappropriate and misleading.”
World champion Van and Canadian national team member Katie Willis wrote to IOC chief Jacques Rogge last month requesting a meeting while he was in Denver attending the SportAccord convention and IOC executive board meetings. The meeting didn’t happen and the IOC claims they didn’t get the request in time.
If the IOC doesn’t reconsider its stance, the lawsuit filed last May against Vancouver organizers citing gender discrimination will be heard April 20 before a single judge in the British Columbia Supreme Court in Vancouver. Both sides will have two days to make their case. The judge’s ruling is subject to appeal.
“With ski jumping, you can’t just walk out and be top level. It takes years and years,” Van said. “There’s a high level of frustration. It’s frustrating to see people in bobsled and skeleton able to pick it up and the next year they’re in the Olympics. There’s no way that happens in ski jumping. It’s all a little backward.”
Besides being totally not right.
Madsen’s production shingle, which is named after the 1972 law giving women equal opportunity to participate in activities that receive federal funding, seems like the perfect outfit to document this story.
Source: Women and Hollywood and Variety
Sundance pick: The Winning Season
January 23, 2009 by jane
Filed under Basketball, DVD, Film, Student-Athlete, Youth Athletics
The Sundance Film Festival, which takes place each January in Park City, Utah, is wrapping up this weekend. It is the largest independent cinema festival in the U.S and renown for launching the careers of actors and directors who make films outside of the mainstream studio system.
One film of note this year is The Winning Season, a sports pic acquired by Lionsgate. James Strouse’s film stars Sam Rockwell as the coach of a women’s high school basketball team on which his daughter (Emma Roberts) also plays.
From the Sundance Film Guide:
Sam Rockwell stars as an alcoholic ex-basketball star who is currently occupied busing tables. When he is handed the reins of a girl’s varsity team by the school’s principal, what ensues is tempestuous and trying for all concerned.
The battles to be won or lost—of a coach and his team, of a father and a daughter, and of a man struggling with his demons-are complicated by the mundane, yet real, dilemmas of life. This seemingly ordinary basketball drama resonates with wit and truth, attitude and sharp dialogue, and perfectly toned performances. Rockwell is spot on with his depiction of the scruffy, conflicted coach/father/teacher, and [director] Strouse’s work is full of humor and poignancy, insight and fun.
Rockwell has described the movie as Bad News Bears meets Half Nelson meets Hoosiers. Look for it in theatres later this year.
Football Under Cover
April 12, 2008 – One of the highlights of the recent Berlin Film Festival was a documentary called “Football Under Cover” about a women’s soccer match played in Tehran between Iranian and German teams in 2006.
Filmmaker Ajat Najafi and his German colleague David Assmann’s directed the project, whose title refers to the fact that both teams had to cover up during the match - even though men weren’t allowed into the stadium.
From the Berlin programme comes this synopsis:
Iran’s national women’s team and a local Berlin women’s football team are playing their first official friendly match – before a crowd of more than a thousand cheering women. The atmosphere at the stadium is electric and super-charged with girl power. Outside the stadium, a few men peer through the fencing, trying to catch a glimpse of the proceedings, because on this day, men are barred from the game.Although their only desire was to play football together, it has taken the young women of both teams a whole year of bitter struggle to get where they are today. Theirs has been a battle against testosterone, arbitrariness and oppression. This film follows Marlene, left-back of the Kreuzberg club BSV AL-Dersimpor, and Iranian player Niloofar on their journey. The girls don’t just want to play a game; they want to get to know each other.
In spite of the game being postponed time and again, and the fact that the women are not able to play in Asia’s largest football stadium as planned, but on a dried up old pitch; and although Niloofar is forbidden from taking part in the game – for reasons which nobody understands – the girls refuse to be browbeaten. And, when the big day arrives, there’s singing and dancing on the grandstands. This 90-minute film is more than just a football game. The desire for self-determination and equality is being expressed here and, one thing is clear – change is possible.
If you’re interested in the topic, you might want to also check out Offside, director Jafar Panahi’s offbeat tale about a group of Iranian girls who find themselves arrested after posing as boys to sneak into a soccer stadium to see a key international qualifying match. The film, apparently inspired by the director’s daughter, won the Silver Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival Grand Jury Prize in 2006.
Blindsight – the movie
March 16, 2008 by jane
Filed under DVD, Entertainment, Film, Rock Climbing
March 16, 2008 - Set against the breathtaking backdrop of the Himalayas, Blindsight follows the gripping adventure of six Tibetan teenagers who set out to climb the 23,000 foot Lhakpa Ri on the north side of Mount Everest.
The dangerous journey documented in this film becomes a seemingly impossible challenge made all the more remarkable by the fact that the teenagers are blind.
One of the organizers of the climb is Sabriye Tenberken, blind since the age of 12, who is a Nobel Peace Prize Nominee, Mother Theresa Award recipient and Oprah’s personal choice on her show “Eight Women Oprah Wants You To Know.”
She’s joined by a group of Tibetan teens that includes two girls: Fifteen year old Sonam Bhumtso and eighteen year old Kyila.
The doc is directed by British filmmaker Lucy Walker, who won a Fulbright Scholarship to attend NYU’s graduate film program and went on to be nominated for two Emmys for BLUE’S CLUES. Quite a leap from Nickelodeon to what is often called the “roof of the world.”
Producer Sybil Robson-Orr hopes the film inspires audiences “to push through their personal boundaries and reach for their dreams.” We’re certainly inspired, both by the filmmaking team as well as the featured climbers – all pretty tough in our book!
Check release dates in your area.
Girls band together in Girls Rock! documentary
March 07 2008 – After a brief round on the festival circuit Girls Rock!, opens in seven cities across the U.S. this week. The documentary film follows four girls of different ages from different parts of the country through their first year at Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp for Girls in Portland, Oregon. Check out the trailer now:
A raucous tale of female empowerment, the documentary became a three-year saga for Arne Johnson (co-director, co-editor, producer) and Shane King (co-director, co-editor, cinematographer), whose first collaboration was a Super 8mm movie in seventh grade.
Everyone knows boys easily conceive of themselves as budding rock stars when all they have is a few instruments, an amp, a total lack of musical knowledge and delusions of talent. Girls, the filmmakers learned, do not. In tracing the path of the leads through the transformative experience of rock camp, the filmmakers got a real education in what it’s like out there for girls. They discovered, among other things, what many books and studies have already described— that girls struggle with a bewildering and heartbreaking array of challenges to their self-image.
During the film’s long editing process, the girls who emerged as the center of the story include: Laura, a 15-year-old articulate Korean adoptee obsessed with heavy metal; Misty, a 17-year-old bass player emerging from a life of addiction, homelessness and gang activity; Palace, an adorable 8-year-old with a heavy metal sneer, and Amelia, an eccecntric 8-year-old writing a 14-song cycle about her dog Pippi. Over the course of a week, they learn to play instruments (or play them better), form bands, write songs and perform before an audience of hundreds.
Seeing this film for the music, however, is missing the point. Tackling the myriad of tasks, the featured girls and the rest of the camp engage in an experiment in empowerment that leaves no-one unchanged.
What at first seems simple – rock camp looks sort of like a cooler version of that nerd staple, band camp – proves to be extremely powerful. Learning to be comfortable with who you are – hardly an easy task for even the most self-assured girl – is what rock camp is really all about. Carrie Brownstein, guitarist for the indie-rock band Sleater-Kinney and one of the camp’s teachers, stresses to aspiring young musicians that they really can do it their way, not MTV’s.
Without being dull, the film intersperses footage from the camp with animated sequences that highlight relevant statistics about girls. It’s not a secret that ridiculously unrealistic female body images permeate the media or that girls’ confidence drops precipitously during puberty, but those facts take on new resonance when shown next to interviews with the girls about their experiences. Through video diaries, verite footage, revealing interviews, and issue-driven animations, filmgoers will transform right along with the girls.
Chak de India: a movie review
January 28, 2008 by jane
Filed under DVD, Field Hockey, Film
Jan. 27, 2008 – Chak De India (translation: ”Come On India”) is a Hindi film about a women’s field hockey team. On the surface, the film is your basic, every-sports-movie-story about a disgraced player, here called Kabir Khan, who pulls together a team of misfits to do the impossible — here win the World Championship against the six-time trophy-winning Australian Women’s team.
Bollywood megastar Shah Rukh Khan (aka King Khan), plays the coach at the heart of the film. According to international sources, Khan is bigger than Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt combined. Whoa – this guy’s hot! The script is inspired by the life of former Indian Hockey Goalkeeper and coach of the women’s Indian Hockey team, Mir Ranjan Negi, and his contribution in driving the women’s Indian Hockey team to win the 2002 Commonwealth Games held in Manchester.
We start when Kabir, India’s team captain and most successful Center Forward of all time, flubs a crucial penalty against Pakistan and is castigated by his nation. An Islamic last name and a meteoric temper don’t help his case and Kabir is labeled as a traitor involved in match fixing. He leaves his hometown along with his mother and goes into exile.
The Rancho Carne High Toros’ Signature Cheer
May be hard to admit but the signature cheer from the Kirsten Dunst starrer “Bring It On” is catchy in an annoying sort of way. If you missed any of the lyrics, here’s the sing-along version:
Roxy Labor of Love premieres at Boulder Theatre
Roxy rolls out the red carpet for the women’s snow team!
Roxy, the only brand with an all-women’s unified snow team of freeskiers and snowboarders, is pleased to announce the first-ever all-women’s ski and snowboard team film “Labor of Love.” Roxy will host a special premiere of the feature action sports film at the Boulder Theater, 2032 14th Street, Boulder, Colorado next Thursday, November 29, 2007, at 8:00 p.m. Read more
