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Film: Stick It [PG-13] 105 minutes
WIP™ Scale: $10.25
Where Viewed: AMC Loews Meridian 16, Seattle, WA
When 1st Seen: 30 April 2006
Time: 8:00 p.m.
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DVD | soundtrack |
So far this spring has been a good one for teen movies with a theme of girl empowerment: She’s the Man, Aquamarine, and now Stick It. Stick It takes the genre to a new level and also introduces us to first-time director and former model, Jessica Bendinger (who also wrote this screenplay, the screenplay for Bring it On and co-wrote the screenplay for Aquamarine). As women are steadily making more inroads into the areas of writing and more importantly directing in film industry viewers may start to notice some interesting trends, all of which come through in all three of these films. Both the female and male characters in the films are remarkably different. The girls are more self-assured, spunky, vivacious with verve--basically ‘vervacious’. Think about the memaid Aquamarine herself or Viola from She’s the Man. Totally ‘vervacious’. Take them to the GNC and pump them up on Luna® bars, chocolate soy protein shakes, and essential vitamins and minerals, and suddenly you’ve got ‘ultra-vervacious’ Stick It’s trick bike extraordinaire gym’nice’stic wunderkind, Haley Graham (Canadian Missy Peregrym).
Meanwhile, the guys tend to be more ‘iTunesed’ with their feminine side, less beholden to testosterone and their Y-chromosome. For example, think of Aquamarine’s sensitive, dreamboat lifeguard, let-me-kiss-your-skinned-knee Raymond (Jake McDorman), or She’s the Man’s soccer stud Duke (Channing Tatum) who has long, laid back conversations with Viola pretending to be Sebastian about how he wants a girl with whom he can have laid back conversations (ie. Sebastian who’s really Viola). Move over Ray and Duke and meet Stick It’s Poot (Maryland’s own John Patrick “The Butterfly Effect’s Evan at 13” Amedori).
This is a one-of-a-kind new guy for the 2000s folks. Best friends with and Haley, Poot is equally comfortable with his self-described “hetero life partner” Frank (Kellan “Summerland” Lutz) as he is asking Joanne Charis (Vanessa “The Perfect Man” Lengies) if she likes the dress he plans to wear when they go to prom together. There is not doubt that Poot likes Joanne a lot, and there is no doubt that he, as a character, is just more comfortable with himself in general than most guys. And, all of this makes these three movies, which go very nicely together if you ask me, in a three-DVD set eventually, just totally different, modern, less-male-centric experiences when you boil them down. These are movies where women take on the rules of a male-dominated society, but in a way that, I apologize to my gender but, I have to admit makes them come across as really knowing a lot better what life is supposed to be about. What sets Stick It above the other two in my mind, however, is that it panders least to the “girls need to wear pretty dresses and get a nice boyfriend and read Teen Cosmo® for boyfriend advice” than the other two. The gender stereotypes are far, far less visible, and some of them are downright reviled: for example, certain antiquated, gender biased practices of good etiquette in the gymnastics rulebook are knocked flat on their face.
The film begins with Haley trick bike grand standing herself into $14,000 worth of damages at a new home site and facing the judge to make a choice between jail time in juvenile hall or ‘electing’ to go to VGA instead. Turns out that VGA is her worst nightmare in the form of Vickerman’s Gymnastics Academy run by Burt Vickerman (Jeff Bridges).
This is where Haley’s father hopes she will go and reclaim her future as a collegiate gymnast — a dream she ended when she walked out on her team at the World Championships two years earlier costing the USA a gold medal and making her persona non grata in the gymnastics universe. Needless to say, she shows up with her trick-bike, I don’t need anyone, I’m a tough girl attitude, at a gym filled with girls who are working very hard to become future Olympians under the guidance of this sort of half-broken down coach who has a knack for telling every mom that her daughter has the potential for Olympic gold while swiftly pocketing her check. There is immediate tension between the girls. Most of the them are savvy enough to realize that if Haley turns out to be good again, it could
"...for it’s genre and audience...the film mostly sticks it."
mean their spot on the team could be lost. This side of the competitive world of gymnastics is not something we have seen often in films. Ms Bendinger uses some creative camera work and some visual stunts to have some fun with the filming of the gymnastics meets and practices from synchronized-floor exercise to superimposing all of the gymnasts’ vaults onto one sequence so you see them all at different spots along the way and then a cascade of nearly simultaneous vaults in the middle. In addition, the portrayals of the gymnasts, the judges, and the gymnastics moms were all quite good, as were the gymnastics routines themselves. The script was very funny in both verbal and physical comedy. I could watch Jeff Bridges shoot off that trampoline a million times and never stop thinking it was hilarious. Some of the language and understanding of current teen speak with wit, inside jokes, and puns were right on the money. My favorites were: “Are you Déjà jealous, Joanne?”, “Why do you always have to bite my moment?”, and “[While talking on the fake finger cell phone] Tell the foxymoron I got my G.E.D. when I was 15.”. One thing, also, a lot of people may not realize is that the film features a lot of real gymnasts like Stefanie Aeder, Nicole Doherty, Meloney Greer, Maddy Curley, Nastia Liukin, Yank Yun, Tania Gener, Tacia Van Vleet, Tiffany Chan, and Lenika De Simone.
There are some notable weaknesses to the film, however. The first is in Jeff Bridges’s mumbling portrayal of Burt Vickerman. He mumbles the first half of the film. Serious mumbling...like he just returned to the set from having his wisdom teeth pulled. Whatever the explanation, it made his performance seem forced—like he didn’t really want to be there. Midway, he starts to come along. By the end he pulls out an ‘okay’ finish, at most a 7 on a 10-pt gymnastics scale. The second surrounds Haley’s mysterious walk out from Worlds. Held secret for so long that, once revealed, it was so nearly anti-climactic in comparison to other things going on in her life an in the gymnastics meet at the moment as nearly as to render it hardly worthy of being the event upon which the entire story hinges. The girls are in the middle of, quite literally, putting their own mark once and for all on the history of their sport, ‘sticking it to the man’ if you pardon the puns, and now suddenly she decides to spill her guts to Burt Vickerman? I feel this would have been better placed earlier in the film to allow for the climax to focus on the team and the accomplishments of the girls at the meet vs. making Haley look so self-centered again after finally de-icing enough for us to finally warm up to her.
Of course this movie is pitched at its target audience—it has to be to be successful. And, of course, it is not going to be nominated for any major awards. So, for it’s genre and audience, I would say the film mostly sticks it.
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Stick It [DVD](2006) DVD
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1 comment:
hi does anyone know what phone model poot gives to haley in the car before she goes to VGA?
i really want to know.
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