Whip It (2009) Director: Drew Barrymore

The directorial debut of Drew Barrymore, Whip It spans a number of genres: comedy, coming of age and sports drama.

I’m not generally a fan of againt the odds sports dramas with their accompanying clichés – the team of losers miraculously galvanised, the star player with a problem and the seemingly unbeatable (and highly arrogant) opponents. Not forgetting the last gasp incredible win. Or crushing defeat with lessons learned.

Whip It does incorporate some of the above but quickly proves infectious anyway. Small town Texan gal Bliss Cavendar (Ellen Page) is highly likeable and who wouldn’t identify with a teenage girl choosing roller derby over taking part in grotesque beauty pageants?

Nobody worth bothering about anyway.

The Hurl Scouts, the team she gravitates towards, are a likeable bunch too, fond of banter, bevvy and brawling on the roller derby track and they have some terrifically badass nicknames like Eva Destruction, Smashley Simpson, Bloody Holly and in the case of Bliss, Babe Ruthless. And, believe me, she really is Ruthless and fearless and whips it real good on the track.

Whip It - Find Your Tribe

A little research incidentally informs me that Glasgow has a number of roller derby teams including the Irn Bruisers (a clever play on the name of Scotland’s other national drink), Tyrannosaurus Wrecks and the Glasgow Dangers – okay I made that last one up – with skaters known by monikers like Hadrians Brawl and Spin Diesel which at least sound more a lot more fun to watch than Scott Brown and Kenny Miller.

Whip It also has a very decent soundtrack that includes The Ramones, The Raveonettes and Radiohead. Curiously, like Boogie Nights, the movie takes its name from a song that is not part of the film’s soundtrack which is a pity but instead of Whip It by Devo, here’s a track that does feature, a 1990s indie classic by The Breeders:

 
There’s a number of subplots here too, notably Bliss’s relationship with her controlling, pageant obsessed mother and her romance with indie singer/guitarist Oliver but they’re never as fresh as the moments on the roller derby track.

So, does the long losing streak of the Hurl Scouts end? Does our star player sort out her problems? And how will the climatic league championship game go?

You’ll have to watch and see.

For more on Roller Derby in Glasgow – & mon’ the T. Wrecks by the way! – click here.

Adventureland

Adventureland (2009) Director: Greg Mottola

Okay, it’s the suburbs of Pittsburgh in 1987.

Jesse Eisenberg plays James Brennan, a young man with two immediate ambitions: to tour Europe with his pals during the summer then move to New York where he’s been accepted to study journalism by Columbia Uni.

Neither of these plans work out, though, due to his family’s sudden economic downturn.

Instead of smoking joints in Amsterdam and elsewhere, he’s forced to take on a summer job at the local amusement park Adventureland, where the games are rigged and the prizes tatty – an oversize felt banana with cartoon eyes glued on, anyone?

But he does get to smoke a bit of weed there.

And he gets to smoke that weed with new pal Joel (Martin Starr), a pessmistic intellectual with a wry sense of humour; Lisa P (Margarita Levieva), a gum chewing Madonna wannabe who the theme park males routinely lust over and Em (Kristen Stewart), a sometimes sullen girl who wears a Lou Reed Transformer T-shirt and whose bedroom is decorated with Buzzcocks and Bowie posters.

At one point James compiles Em a mixtape, describing the tracks as ‘truly miserable, pit of despair type songs. I think you’ll love it.’

Presumably many of these tracks are the songs featured on the film’s soundtrack and if that’s the case then she should absolutely adore the tape.

Before Adentureland‘s opening credits have rolled we’ve already heard The Replacements and Bastards of Young and before too long we’re treated to The Velvet Underground and Here She Comes Now.

There’s also Bowie, solo Lou Reed, The New York Dolls, Big Star, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Nick Lowe, Husker Du and a standout original score provided by Yo La Tengo.

Woah.

Occasionally the music is a little on the nose for my liking – when Pale Blue Eyes plays in the car, James lingers on Em’s pale blue (or maybe they’re actually green) eyes, while when he seems to begin to fall in love with her we hear I’m in Love With a Girl.

Saying that those are two of the most beautiful songs ever recorded so maybe I’m being a little mean here complaining about their use.

And here’s a warning: while Adventureland utilises some stunningly good music, the song you hear most during the film is that annoying Rock Me Amadeus track by Falco which is okay as it’s used is a joke, a pretty good joke actually although maybe not quite as amusing as when the characters in Late Night Shopping had to drive in a car where the radio was jammed on a AOR station.

Adventureland still

Adventureland is a consistently funny film although never quite belly laugh funny. Well, apart from the boner in the pool joke.

The characters are all beautifully drawn and Eisenberg and Stewart are perfectly cast. As is Martin Starr, who when told by potential flame Sue O’Malley that she can’t go out with him because he’s Jewish and her parents are strict Catholics, protests: ‘But I’m an aetheist. I mean more of a pragmatic nihilist, I guess, or an existential pagan, if you will.’

I doubt they were ever going to make it long-term as a couple anyway.

Kristen Wiig appears here in a small role and, like her turn as Maggie Mayhem in Whip It, she’s excellent and Ryan Reynolds also excels as Connell, the park’s repair guy. He’s married, manipulative and might just have jammed with Lou Reed once upon a time, providing guitar on a bunch of Lou classics like Shine a Light on Love.

A few moments didn’t strike me as entirely convincing including Connell’s song title faux pas and while I don’t want to give away the ending completely, I’ll just say that sometimes the climax shouldn’t be what the audience wants, sometimes it should be the ending that they really don’t want.

But I did enjoy the first ninety or so minutes so much that I still reckon Adventureland is right up there with the very best films about the trials and tribulations of first love made so far this century.

Utilised in a great scene with dodgem cars, here’s the song that helped break The Cure big in America. This is Just Like Heaven:

 
For more on the films, here are the trailers for Whip It and Adventureland.