Whip It, dude!!

I went to see Whip It last night. I'm not a great movie-goer (claustrophobic) but this was totally worth it.


I can't remember the last time I saw a film that passed the Bechdel Test (has two women in it, who talk to each other, about something other than men/babies/marriage) but this did, and more than made up for all the other crap films (hello, Jennifer Aniston!) I haven't gone to see this year.

Directed by a woman (the cute-as-hell Drew Barrymore), written by a woman, and with a mostly-women cast (starring the wonderful, and feminist, Ellen Page); lots of girl-sport action, great young-woman-coming-of-age plot, female co-stars with more than one dimension and some good twists at the end which make it a lot less cheesy than it might otherwise have been. Nice directing from Barrymore too (in her first stint in the chair).

A film, in other words, that made me wake up with a smile on my face this morning.

So I grabbed the latest copy of Empire magazine to peruse over my morning tea, forgetting, you see, that I'm not supposed to read film magazines. Because (whisper it) I'm a girl.

You see, Empire had managed to get FULL ACCESS! to the set where DREW BARRYMORE! and ELLEN PAGE!! who are totally HOT!!!!11! were filming. And, in case readers think that Whip It was some sort of rubbish chick-flick (a woman directing? written by a girl? a mainly-chick cast??? sounds crap, dude!) we ('we') are reassured that they are totes wearing short skirts!! and FIGHTING and shit!!111! So don't worry that your testosterone levels will go down, bro, if your lady drags you to the cinema (though a real man only does what his gf tells him to if he's getting some later), because you can totally secretly MASTURBATE to this film!! Someone give me a high-five, dudez!!!

Whatever. I shouldn't read Empire thinking it's aimed at me, and I wasn't too bothered, until I noticed the full-page photo opposite the story. It took me about 4 minutes to figure out what it was (an ad for Lynx? or Nuts? or the new Corden and Horne film?). Seriously.

I wasn't going to link to this, but it's become a bit of a theme in our posts, so here it is:

Turns out Empire has just used, apropos of nothing, an old shot from September's US Marie Claire. Bizarre. I'm not even sure why MC did this, but apparently Barrymore and Page were promoting the film in the US by, you guessed it, flirting outrageously with each other and doing some Katy-Perry-style IKAG shots.

Which is fine - there are lesbian subtexts in the film, Barrymore is bisexual, and they obviously have phenomenal chemistry.

But... Empire? please. Apparently the only way to get a man to see a great film that's not all about men is to pretend that there are HOT CHICKS!!! MAKING OUT!!! Dude! Sweet!!!!!

Anyway, go see this film.