Derby Baby - coming soon to a cinema near you

This looks great - a trailer for a documentary on roller derby leagues in America, Germany, the UK and Ireland. Looks like 'Whip it' has got a challenger! The blurb on Vimeo says: "Emmy-winning filmmakers Robin Bond and Dave Wruck take you along on their quest to learn why women's flat track roller derby is the most controversial and fastest growing sport in the world."  Watch out for the skeleton face-paint.

Enjoy and have a great weekend :)

Pure Climbing

Ah, Fridays. Now if only the weather gods would remember that it is summer in the northern hemisphere! This is from an incredible climbing film, featuring Anna Stoher, Sarah Marvez and a few boys too. For all you height-junkies ...  Pure Climbing from Chuck Fryberger.

Happy weekend!

Wanna arm wrestle lady?

What do you get if you add arm wrestling plus fancy dress plus a few beers plus a shed-load of screaming women? The Collective of Lady Arm Wrestling, that's CLAW to you and me.

It all started three years ago in Virginia, USA and is spreading around the States faster than you say big guns pardner. Billy Hunt and Brian Wimer are making what looks like a great documentary, following the women around and putting together the story of how much money they are raising. Well, that is they are hoping to make that doco. They emailed me from Kickstarter - a website where creative types promote their plans and ask for mico-funding - and honestly, if the film is half as intriguing as their trailer, it's well worth a few dollars or euros or whatever your bank is stocking.

Their project home is here at CLAW  They're only looking for about $1,600 more, piece by piece building up to their five grand total. This is their idea:

UPDATE: CLAW reached their total and then some.

Watching Hanna

SPOILER WARNING: if you haven't seen Hanna stop reading now.

Hanna

I finally made it in to this, having been excited since I saw the trailer in February. Great to see Saoirse Ronan (Ireland) and Cate Blanchett (Australia) starring and running a film together (well, with some input from Eric Bana to be fair). So aside from having two strong female roles with any gratuitous sex - except that strange scene in the camping tent between Ronan's character and her new best friend, what was that about? - was it a good film?

Not quite sure in the end how strong the female roles are as Ronan is completely guided by Bana's character, to the point of not even being sure who she is. Blanchett, although her actions start the sequence of events off, also seems dependent on Bana's decisions. I'm not quite sure if that is how the director meant it to play out.

But from a martial arts perspective, great fight scenes, very well-choreographed and executed especially for the scenes between Ronan and the 'baddies' in the truck-yard.

And definitely set up for a sequel with that lovely circular ending. I enjoyed it a lot more than most films out at the moment, and read a piece on how teenage girls in the States were inspired by watching it.

This is, of course, the slightly sticky ethical point; inspiring or glorification of violence?

Wordless Wednesday

Whip It - for real pic from flickr xxcrystal85xx

Wordless Wednesday is a group of bloggers who give words a rest once a week.

Snow-time in Switzerland

Just when we thought winter was over in Ireland, temperatures dropped again this week. And the snow continues to fall elsewhere too, bit of a blessing if you snowboard and take a deep breath if you don't. Have you seen Chalet Girl yet? Not sure if I will fit it in as I'm pretty sure the story-line is maybe, umm, a little predictable! 

If you do go to see it, leave a comment here and let us know if it's realistic! 

In the meantime, enjoy this film from Mpora with some real-life snow-girls shot earlier this year at Saas-Fee, Switzerland. (Important -  no comment on the lifestyle of these women implied)

More Snowboarding Videos

Who should play Wonder Woman?

Wonder Woman womenanimating

So it looks like the new Wonder Woman series is happening. It's not really clear how they're going to vamp her up for the new century but could be a lot of fun.

DC Women Kicking Ass says the script calls for a real woman who is powerful but vulnerable.Right, a real woman who runs around dressed like that and saves the world. Maybe it was simpler being a Superhero 30 years ago, that's definitely not something that came across in our childhood memories?

The rest of the released script says: "Female, late 20s to 30s. A kick-ass Superhero / Powerful C.E.O. / A vulnerable woman. Long flowing black hair, blue eyes. Amazon-like, muscular, an Olympian. The charismatic stage presence of a rock star. A crime fighter. Also, a real woman who yearns to live a normal life. She is accessible and appealing to all people, men and women alike…"

We talked about the ideas for the new WW costume here.

Who do you think should play Wonder Woman?

Are violent females in movies a good thing?

Have you seen Hanna? I saw the trailer here in Ireland at the weekend - and I'll be going. Yes, I know it's violent but isn't it about time we recognised that violence isn't a gendered thing, that everyone is capable of inflicting pain?

And more than a tad refreshing to see two main characters played by women who stay dressed for the duration (what I saw) of the film. What do think - violent female characters as a step forward or a regression?

Dear and Yonder surf film

Dear and Yonder

The soundtrack on this trailer for  surf-film 'Dear and Yonder' is 'Been so long' from Vetiver - and if you're reading this in Europe, it's probably feeling very long since the summer was here.

Plus tomorrow January 19th is apparently the most depressing day of the year. Great! But just 'cause it's too cold to swim, doesn't mean you can't dream. This film will definitely bring a smile to your face with Steph Gilmore (Australia), Sofia Mulanovich (Peru) and Kassia Meador (USA) surfing at home and in their favourite travel-spots.

Where do you think about when you can't get out to do your favourite things?

Thankless Female Film Roles

The Town

I posted a while back on MovieNewsFirst about sports movies with great female characters - took a while to find enough good ones for a list but we got there.

A reader ( Thanks Laura!) just sent me a link to this slideshow on NYMag -  14 Most Thankless Female Roles

It must have been hard to narrow it down to fourteen, just looking at it I can think of more to add already. I wonder what goes through producers' minds as they set up the films - I mean we pay the same ticket-prices, it might be fun every now and then to see actresses with their clothes on, brains intact and driving the plot?

Pic shows Blake Lively playing one of two female characters in The Town - she's a drug-addict, doesn't take care of his kids, brings the male lead down and all-round disaster. The only other woman in the film falls in love with her kidnapper. I really wanted to like this film but ...

Let's make some Christmas cheer - movies with strong women characters anyone?

Guest Post on Movie News First

pic credit speckham on Flickr

I was chatting the other day with some boys-who-like-sport and sports movies came up. There are so many great films about sportsmen. But women in sports movies? That was a little harder to list. But when Olive over at Movie News First asked me to write a guest-post, I did find some inspiring work for her.

My Top 5 women in sport movies are on her blog here Movie News First

Pop over and have a look, and please share if you have other faves not here! And as always, please leave a comment for her too.

Iron Jawed Maidens

Elections are taking place in the States as I type. It's strange how large they loom over here in Ireland. I'm excited about how many women are running. But scared at the kind of woman so many of them are. End of political broadcast.

And I've been dossing off work watching clips from this film "Iron Jawed Maidens". It tells the story of the first American suffragettes and what they went through to get the vote for women. All women, even Sarah Palin. I read about it over on From Byline to Finishline  - thanks!
Best Movie quote: In women courage is often mistaken for insanity