Whip It!

I just wanted to let you know how much I loved seeing Whip It! this past week!  It is such an amazing movie with a great cast of talented actors, great writing, and a compelling story.  It's not Schindler's List or anything, but it takes that teen girl "duck-out-of-water" formula and makes it exciting, and throws in a few twists to keep things interesting.

The derby scenes in particular are amazing.  The way they're shot is very true-to-life and I'm pretty sure that the actresses did most of their own stunts.  I'm using the word "stunts" loosely here, since everything they did has been done by every derby girl I know.  (Except maybe for that two-person leg whip.  That was stunning!)

I was really impressed by the cast.  Not only did they spend months in daily training learning the ins and outs of derby, but the acting was superb.  Kristen Wiig in particular had me cracking up every time she was on the screen.  (She has an extended monologue about having crabs that is just unbelievable.  Really.)  Ellen Page is adorably clueless until she learns to be her own person ("I can grow the balls!")  And Drew Barrymore is that chronically injured player that every team has.  She appears in a neck brace, on crutches, and with a profusely bleeding nose.  When she's not being hurt she's being ejected from the game for punching opposing players.

I feel very honored to have met at least two of the skaters in this movie, Kat Von D'Stroya and Jackie Daniels.  Kat skates for the "Black Widows" and is very recognizable by her many tattoos.  Jackie skates under her own name in the movie, and at one point kicks Bliss' ass as jammer.  My whole team started spontaneously clapping, forgetting that Jackie was supposed to be on the "enemy team".

It was great to see this movie with most of the Cincinnati Rollergirls (minus Sadistic Sadie, who got whisked away on a romantic vacation, and is now engaged!  Congrats Sadie!)  We got to hang out with a lot of our favorite fans, including Earl, who runs Rabid Derby Fan...

and Bob, who took this awesome picture of the two of us and put it on his blog at 5chw4r7z.blogspot.com.

I also was interviewed for the evening news, which is always nerve-wracking for me, but turned out pretty well!  You should be able to find it on Facebook here.