THE STRAIGHT DOPE:
In the land of cheesy movies Ice Castles (1978) is the big gooey king.
The story of a figure skater who won't let any adversity stand in her way, Ice
Castles is so fraught with melodrama and teary trauma that Douglas Sirk
might find himself weeping. In fact, the film lifts big chunks from Sirk's All
That Heaven Allows along the way. That's because Lexi (Lynn-Holly Johnson)
isn't just fighting against convention by being over the hill at the advanced
age of 16, but she's also a newcomer, an outsider, and, in the film's final
act, almost completely blind. With the help and prodding of her boyfriend (Robbie
Benson), her dad (Tom Skeritt), and her brutish coach (Colleen Dewherst), however,
she manages to make a triumphant return to the ring without alerting anyone
to her condtion.
Realism isn't really a problem here - this is pure tragedy. Character development
is a mere speedbump on the super-highway to the grand finale. So many of the
scenes are rushed and so much of the dialog muttered incomprehensibly that there
were times when I didn't even know who some of the characters were. Personalities
change from scene to scene and time passes arbitrarily. Some points are made
about the cut-throat nature of the amateur figure skating game, but Johnson's
success is so sudden that at one point she appears on the cover of Sports Illustrated
without any warning at all. Her dissatisfaction with that success is equally
jarring. The accident that causes her to lose her eyesight immediately follows
a big competition but we have no idea why she has turned self-destructive. She
goes from wide-eyed and innocent, to suicidally jaded in a few short scenes.
It seems pointless to criticize a movie like Ice Castles. It's not
clear why this film even needs to be on DVD. It is maudlin and silly. Without
the hysterics of other corn classics like Staying Alive (won't anybody
hear my pleas for a special edition?) all that's left is a weak plot, undefined
characters, and bad acting. Still, to some this combination has a charm all
its own.
VIDEO:
The video is widescreen and surely looks better than any previous release. The
cinematography is expectedly drab and there is some dirt on the print.
AUDIO:
The audio is Dolby Digital 2.0 but the original mix is muddy and hard to understand
at times. The film is also available in French, Spanish and Portuguese, with
subtitles in those languages as well as Chinese, Korean, and Thai. Cause lord
knows, the whole worls loves Ice Castles.
EXTRAS:
A trailer and some production files round out this disc, along with trailers
for other fine films of the genre.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
I don't want to be too harsh on this film. It does what it wants to do. Fans
of figure skating should definitely give it a look, as should fans of late-70's/early-80's
weepers. I'm sure that Johnson has a sizeable cult following somewhere (after
all, she is the Cynthia Rhodes of the ice) and they'll certainly want to snap
this disc up as soon as possible. As for everyone else, Ice Castles might play well at a movie night with a bunch of folks who can appreciate the
cheesier side of life.
Gil Jawetz is a graphic designer, video director, and t-shirt designer. He lives in Brooklyn.
E-mail Gil at buskerdog@yahoo.com
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