Whip It

Ok, so first off it has to be confessed that i am completely pissed while i write this. even so, it was before i had shamelessly quaffed about 5 glasses of red wine at a book party this evening that i saw Whip It, a totally ACE film starring Ellen Page (of Juno fame) and directed by Drew Barrymore about the wonderful world of ROLLER DERBY (out April). you know, Roller Derby: that violent girls sport which involves skating round a ring in teams while basically trying to shove each other off the skate path with as much undignified loutish thugishness as is humanly possible. All team members (hot girls, natch) are all called names like Iron Maven (here played by Juliette Lewis), Babe Ruthless (Ellen Page), Smashley Simpson (Drew Barrymore) and Maggie Mayhem (Kirsten Wiig). I'm not sure i can adequately describe my overwhelming adoration of this film. OK yes, it's essentially an adolescent flick about a teenager grappling with parental vs personal expectation, and finding and being true to herself, but my god, it involves women on roller skates wearing sexy punky outfits, covered in tattoos, with goth makeup and being incredibly cool - it's fucking amazing. totally empowering and i am LITERALLY DESPERATE to dig out my roller skates and get all psycho physical and confrontational. female contact sport worth indulging in. unlike something say, like lacrosse - which i loathed and terrified me when i used to have to do it and definitely didn't involve lashings of makeup as part of the uniform. i am thinking roller derby would be THE MOST FANTASTIC theme for a party. or actually the most fantastic thing to actually take up. or at least watch, anyway, courtesy of the London Roller Girls.