Thursday Movie Picks: Female Athletes

 

For the 27th week of 2021 as part of Wandering Through the Shelves' Thursday Movie Picks. We go into the subject of female athletes as professional women’s sports in basketball and futbol (soccer for you stupid Americans) has been getting more popular in recent years. Even as it proves that not only could girls play sports are also better than some of the guys. Here are my three picks:

1. Love & Basketball

Gina Prince-Blythewood’s feature film debut remains one of the great first-feature films ever made and it’s about a man and a woman who grew up as neighbors since they were kids yet they have a love for the game of basketball. Both would endure many journeys involving the game but also love for each other as well as for the game. Starring Omar Epps and Sanaa Lathan that includes an incredible supporting cast in Alfre Woodard, Dennis Haysbert, Regina Hall, Harry J. Lennix, Gabrielle Union, and Tyra Banks. It’s a film that says about what the game does as well as how it can bring people together whether it’s for fun or in competition.

2. Whip It

Drew Barrymore’s sole directorial feature so far in the world of roller-derby is a film about a young woman trying to find herself as she falls for the world of roller-derby while trying to win the approval of her mother who insists on putting her in beauty pageants despite her unconventional look. Starring a winning Elliot Page (then-Ellen) as this young woman who would become a star in the roller derby world, it is a film that is a lot of fun and wit with Barrymore taking on a supporting role and getting one hell of an ensemble cast that includes Marcia Gay Harden, Daniel Stern, Alia Shawkat, Jimmy Fallon, Andrew Wilson, Juliette Lewis, Kristen Wiig, Eve, and Zoe Bell as it’s just a film full of heart and lots of violence.

3. I, Tonya

Craig Gillespie’s unconventional bio-pic on the unfairly disgraced figure skater Tonya Harding is this unique study of a woman who had the skills to be this great figure skater but lacks the look and the idea of what America wants in a figure skating champion. Starring Margot Robbie as Harding, the film is unconventional where it plays with the elements of the documentary as well as breaking the fourth wall a bit on what really happened and what is fiction. It’s a film that breaks a lot of rules yet it works with Robbie giving a career-defining performance that includes great supporting performances from Sebastian Stan, Bobby Cannavale, Paul Walter Hauser, Julianne Nicholson, and Allison Janney in a much-deserving award-winning performance as Harding’s abusive mother.

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