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Non-Review Review: Whip It

Posted on April 21, 2011 by Darren

Whip It is sort of an inverse version of the Billy Elliot story. In that film, a young boy horrifies his family by wanting to practice ballet. In this film, a young woman shocks her mother by becoming a roller derby celebrity. Featuring the directorial debut of Drew Barrymore, Whip It is a fairly formulaic and straightforward little coming-of-age and self-discovery movie with a quirky angle and a plucky protagonist, but it’s also rather well handled and quite charming.

Whipping the team into shape...

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Billy Elliot, coming of age, Daniel Stern, Drew Barrymore, Ellen Page, films, Juliette Lewis, Kristen Wiig, Marcia Gay Harden, Movies, non-review review, Owen Wilson, review, rollerskates, rollerskating, Whip It | 2 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Meet the Parents

Posted on December 3, 2010 by Darren

Meet the Parents is a pleasant little film which works so well because it takes an awkward social experience that most of us have lived through – in this case meeting a partner’s parents – and turns it into a comedy of errors. It’s this smart little premise and the way that it plays off a familiar situation (with judicious application of the philosophy that “anything that can go wrong will“) that makes it so appealing – and perhaps explains the weaknesses of the movie’s sequel. Still, the original is an effective and charming comedy of manners which executes its premise well and, despite some difficulty balancing everything, manages to consistently entertain throughout.