Film Review: Ice Princess (dir by Tim Fywell)

Posted on February 10, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In the 2005 Disney film, Ice Princess, Michelle Trachtenberg plays Casey Carlyle.

Casey is a brilliant high school student with a potentially wonderful future. At least that’s what her mother, Joan (Joan Cusack), has decided. As far as Joan is concerned, Casey’s destiny is to go to Harvard, become an award-winning physicist, and serve as an inspiration for young women everywhere. When Joan looks out of her kitchen window and sees that Casey is skating on a nearby frozen pond, she doesn’t praise her daughter’s athleticism. Instead, Joan taps on the window and holds up a text book. It’s time to study!

If Casey’s going to go to Harvard, she’s going to need to win a scholarship. And Harvard doesn’t just give out scholarships to anyone! I mean, I sent them a note asking for money a few years ago and I still haven’t heard back from them. So, Casey decides to prove that she’s Harvard-worthy by filming a bunch of ice skaters and showing how she can use physics to make their routines even more impressive. Or something like that…

(Look, I’ll just be honest. Science was always my worst subject in school. Quite frankly, I don’t have the attention span necessary for it and I kind of like the idea of not knowing how the universe works. I love the mystery of it all. I realize that Neil deGrasse Tyson would probably be disappointed in me but, honestly, I know more about movies than he ever will. So, I figure it all evens out.)

For her experiment, Casey tries to watch and film some other skaters, just to discover that the parents of ice skaters are insane. Not only are they convinced that Casey is some sort of spy who has been sent by a rival skater but they also put their children under a tremendous amount of pressure. They expect their kids to be champions and, even more importantly, to land the type of endorsement deals that go with being champions. Casey, on the other hand, just wants to skate.

When Tina Harwood (Kim Cattrall), a former Olympic skater, agrees to teach Casey how to skate, she is shocked to discover that Casey is a natural on the ice. Casey not only befriends Tina’s daughter, Gen (Hayden Panettiere), but she is also soon competing in regional competitions. However, Casey’s mother still doesn’t know what Casey is actually doing and Tina soon becomes paranoid that Casey will outshine Gen.

So, what happens?

Does Joan discover that Casey is more into skating than science?

Does Casey win her scholarship to Harvard or does she give it up so she can pursue her dreams?

Does Tina try to sabotage Casey?

Does Gen encourage Casey to follow her dreams?

And, most importantly, does Casey win the heart of the guy driving the Zamboni?

You probably already know the answer to all these questions. I mean, this is a Disney movie. It was rated G and, after a somewhat unsuccessful run at the box office, it found a second life on the Family Channel. Ice Princess is not exactly a revolutionary film. It doesn’t set out to rewrite the rules of sports film genre. Instead, it’s content to be a likable crowd-pleaser. Michelle Trachtenberg and Hayden Panettiere were both perfectly cast as the unlikely friends and their relationships with their respective mothers feel authentic and true. More importantly, the film features enough real-life ice skaters to lend verisimilitude to the competition scenes.

Right now, like all good people, I am insanely enthusiastic about the Winter Olympics. (For the record, I’m hoping that Team Ireland and Team Italy takes everything.) That’s one reason why I watched Ice Princess. While no one in the movie actually goes to the Olympics, it’s still a figure skating movie and I imagine that, if there had been a sequel, Casey would have been skating at the Winter Games.

Ice Princess is an entertaining and thoroughly light-weight film. There aren’t any surprises but you don’t really watch a movie like this to be surprised. In an uncertain world, there’s a definite comfort to be found in movies that are content to simply be likable and entertaining.

My advice is to watch Ice Princess as a double feature with I, Tonya.

(This trailer is Italian but you’ll get the general idea…)

Cleaning Out The DVR Yet Again #32: Sister Cities (dir by Sean Hanish)

Posted on December 5, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

(Lisa recently discovered that she only has about 8 hours of space left on her DVR! It turns out that she’s been recording movies from July and she just hasn’t gotten around to watching and reviewing them yet. So, once again, Lisa is cleaning out her DVR! She is going to try to watch and review 52 movies by the end of Wednesday, December 7th! Will she make it? Keep checking the site to find out!)

Sister Cities originally aired on Lifetime on September 17th. When it first aired, I was really expecting to like it just because it’s a movie about four sisters and I’m the youngest of four sisters. Add to that, one of the sisters was named Dallas and Dallas is my city. Seriously, I seemed destined to like Sister Cities.

But then I actually saw the film. And I have to admit that, for the first hour or so, I felt a little bit guilty about not liking the film. It may have been a painfully slow film but I figured that it deserved some credit for at least trying to take the time for the viewers to get to know the four sisters. As well, I couldn’t deny that casting did a good job when it came to selecting the four lead actresses. You looked at them and they all had enough features and mannerisms in common that you could actually believe that they were related.

In the film, the four sisters gather together after the suicide of their mother (played, in flashbacks, by both Amy Smart and Jacki Weaver). The sisters all have their own distinct personalities and, for some reason, three of them are named after cities.

For instance, the youngest sister is named Baltimore (Troian Bellisario). She’s a free-spirit who does what she wants. Now, my boyfriend is from Baltimore. I have friends who live in Baltimore. I’ve visited Baltimore and I loved it. But I would not name my daughter Baltimore because Baltimore is a great name for a city but it’s a terribly clunky one for a human being. If I was going to pick a city to name my daughter after, I’d probably go with Savannah or maybe Charlotte. Or, for that matter, maybe Ardglass. But not Baltimore.

Then there’s Dallas (Michelle Trachtenberg), who is the super organized and neat sister. She’s the one who gets taunted for always wearing matching underwear but seriously, what’s wrong with that? At least Dallas gets a pretty name.

Austin (Jess Wexler) has a pretty name too. We’re told that she’s a successful writer. We never believe it for a second. Austin lived with her mother and she’s the one who called the other sisters back home. Austin is as close as the film comes to having a central character.

And then there’s Carolina (Stana Katic), who is the oldest. She’s a lawyer and she’s angry because her mother named her after one of the Carolinas but never clarified which one.

To be honest, it’s a bit too much. The sisters are all exaggerated types. The mother is an exaggerated type. They all have cutesy names. The nonstop theatrical quirkiness of it all is very off-putting and it doesn’t help that the film’s first hour is painfully slow. There’s a few attempts at dark humor but it’s never as insightful or affecting as it seems to think it is.

Then we get to the second hour and the film remains painfully slow but it also turns into a rather strident screed about assisted suicide. Eventually, the whole film comes down to an extended flashback of a beatific-looking Jacki Weaver smiling as she calmly explains that Austin will have to help her commit suicide because she’s the only sister who is emotionally strong enough to handle it. It was all so manipulative and heavy-handed that I ended up getting so annoyed that I took off my shoes and nearly threw them at the TV.

Sorry, Baltimore.

Sorry, Dallas.

Sorry, Austin.

Sorry, Carolina.

Cleaning Out The DVR: The Christmas Gift (dir by Fred Olen Ray)

Posted on December 21, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

After I watched The Flight Before Christmas, it was time to continue cleaning out the DVR by watching The Christmas Gift! The Christmas Gift was one of the first Christmas films to show up on Lifetime this year, premiering on November 30th.

Megan (Michelle Trachtenberg) is an ambitious writer who works for a tabloid magazine and who is frustrated by the fact that she’s only assigned to write articles about the best lip gloss for fair skin. As well, her boorish boyfriend, and fellow journalist, Alex (Daniel Booko) not only dumps her but gets assigned the big story that she wanted! Michelle’s editor, Cooper (Rick Fox), tells her that, if she really thinks that she deserves better assignments, then she needs to go out and find a story that proves it.

Megan returns home to discover that her aunt has sent her a package of her old belongings. Going through it, Megan comes across a notebook that was anonymously given to her one Christmas many years ago. The notebook — and the poem that was inscribed within — inspired Megan to become a writer. She decides, for her story, to track down the person who gave her the notebook.

Her investigation leads her to Wesley Hardin Johnson, Jr. (Sterling Sulieman), who runs a foster care program. Megan says that she wants to do a story about the program and the kids that Wesley is helping. Wesley agrees, on the condition that the story be about the kids and not about him. For reasons that only make sense when you consider that this is a Lifetime holiday film, Megan decides that this means that she shouldn’t tell him about the notebook.

Not only does Megan have a hit story but she and Wesley are also falling in love! However, Megan then discovers why her aunt sent her all of her old stuff. It turns out that her aunt’s retirement community is about to be leveled and repalced with condos. And who is evicting Megan’s aunt? None other than Wesley’s father, Wesley Hardin Johnson, Sr. (Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs)…

Needless to say, it all leads to misunderstandings and conflicts but it’s nothing that can’t be solved within 90 minutes of narrative. This is a Lifetime Christmas film, after all. You watch it with the full knowledge that everything’s going to turn out okay. The Christmas Gift is a good-natured and likable holiday movie and Michelle Trachtenberg does a pretty good job in the lead role.

Perhaps what is most interesting about The Christmas Gift is that it was directed by the incredibly prolific Fred Olen Ray, who is better known for directing horror films and thrillers than for directing sweet-natured family films. (That said, if you look at his filmography, you’ll actually come across several movies that you wouldn’t normally associate with him.) Someday, someone is going to write the definitive overview of Ray’s long and varied career and, hopefully, I will be one of the first to read it.