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January movies
Feb. 3rd, 2018 09:33 amThis January, I actually did a pretty good job keeping on top of my movie reviews! It helped that I decided as part of my New Year’s Resolution to at least try to write a full-length review of each film I see by women directors: eventually I’ll probably hit one where I just can’t think of anything to say, but that hasn’t happened yet.
So the only thing I haven’t yet reviewed is I, Tonya, which is delightful, for the qualities of the delightful that include “a movie about an abused child who thinks she may be able to escape through figure-skating only to lose that escape hatch after her boyfriend, or possibly her boyfriend’s best friend who is her bodyguard, orchestrates an attack on one of her competitors which is supposed to give Tonya a better chance at Olympic gold but actually ends up getting her kicked out of skating for life.”
I cannot overstate the monumental boneheadedness of the plan to attack Nancy Kerrigan. The bodyguard has delusions of grandeur - he likes to brag about how he’s a spy and an expert on international terrorism who Knows People, when in fact he’s a dude who lives in his parents’ basement who asks a couple of his friends (who are, if possible, even more boneheaded than he is) to carry out the hit on Nancy Kerrigan. If security at the rink had been anything but super lax, they never would have got in - but it was super lax, because who attacks figure skaters?
So that part is farcical and very funny (it helps that Nancy Kerrigan recovered well enough to win silver in the upcoming Olympics - they went to all this trouble and they couldn’t even kneecap her correctly!), which is a necessary contrast to Tonya Harding’s sad, sad life. Her mom is a horrible abusive person, and then Tonya tries to escape by moving in with her boyfriend - who also turns out to be abusive, but he occasionally says nice things to her so all in all he’s still an improvement over her mother. At least until his plan to put Nancy Kerrigan out of action spirals out of control and ends with Tonya being kicked out of skating for life.
It’s a sad ending, almost cruel, because skating is the one thing Tonya knows and is good at and her coach seems to be the one decent person in her life - but at the same time, cruel as it is on a personal level, once the Pandora’s box of athletes attacking competitors has been opened, the only way to close it again is to come down on it like a ton of bricks.
***
And now it’s February! My film theme for the month is Romantic Movies (for Valentine’s Day reasons, and the movies I have on my docket are Bright Star, Sleepless in Seattle, Austenland, and Lost in Translation. Also possibly Ava DuVernay’s Middle of Nowhere, which has a romantic element if it’s not a straight-up romance, and also it would be nice to see one of her other movies before going to A Wrinkle in Time.
So the only thing I haven’t yet reviewed is I, Tonya, which is delightful, for the qualities of the delightful that include “a movie about an abused child who thinks she may be able to escape through figure-skating only to lose that escape hatch after her boyfriend, or possibly her boyfriend’s best friend who is her bodyguard, orchestrates an attack on one of her competitors which is supposed to give Tonya a better chance at Olympic gold but actually ends up getting her kicked out of skating for life.”
I cannot overstate the monumental boneheadedness of the plan to attack Nancy Kerrigan. The bodyguard has delusions of grandeur - he likes to brag about how he’s a spy and an expert on international terrorism who Knows People, when in fact he’s a dude who lives in his parents’ basement who asks a couple of his friends (who are, if possible, even more boneheaded than he is) to carry out the hit on Nancy Kerrigan. If security at the rink had been anything but super lax, they never would have got in - but it was super lax, because who attacks figure skaters?
So that part is farcical and very funny (it helps that Nancy Kerrigan recovered well enough to win silver in the upcoming Olympics - they went to all this trouble and they couldn’t even kneecap her correctly!), which is a necessary contrast to Tonya Harding’s sad, sad life. Her mom is a horrible abusive person, and then Tonya tries to escape by moving in with her boyfriend - who also turns out to be abusive, but he occasionally says nice things to her so all in all he’s still an improvement over her mother. At least until his plan to put Nancy Kerrigan out of action spirals out of control and ends with Tonya being kicked out of skating for life.
It’s a sad ending, almost cruel, because skating is the one thing Tonya knows and is good at and her coach seems to be the one decent person in her life - but at the same time, cruel as it is on a personal level, once the Pandora’s box of athletes attacking competitors has been opened, the only way to close it again is to come down on it like a ton of bricks.
***
And now it’s February! My film theme for the month is Romantic Movies (for Valentine’s Day reasons, and the movies I have on my docket are Bright Star, Sleepless in Seattle, Austenland, and Lost in Translation. Also possibly Ava DuVernay’s Middle of Nowhere, which has a romantic element if it’s not a straight-up romance, and also it would be nice to see one of her other movies before going to A Wrinkle in Time.
