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| | Girls Rock!
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Girls Rock! |
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Review by Shelley Cameron
for Reel Movie Critic |
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2 ½ Stars |
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Directed by
Arne Johnson and Shane King
Documentary
Rated PG
90 Minutes
In English |
Sort of an
Outward Bound experience for young female extroverts, girls rock, literally, at
a week-long Oregon camp devoted to the notion that girls just
wanna have fun, and
they need some help learning how. While they're at it, the camp and the
filmmakers pound home a not so subtle message in a variety of ways that the
girls are OK, just as they are, however far outside the mainstream they might
be. Not a girlie girl among them, they range in age from 8 to 18 and from the
first awkward rehearsal workshop encounter to the surprisingly smooth
performances at week’s end before an audience of 700, we watch the girls adapt.
The film
suggests that a one week emersion experience can have a lasting effect, and one
gets the feeling that to a limited degree, it just might be true. The
production is given a shot in the arm with fun graphics and images that liven
things up and keep tedium at bay, though the 90 minute running time seems a tad
long, or not nearly long enough to really let us get to know the girls.
The mission
of the music camp might be described as outsiders learning to like being
outsiders. The camp counselors and the filmmakers reiterate and restate that
it’s OK to be who you are while you are trying to grow up, or at least its OK to
craft your own mold rather than squeezing into one that is simply the wrong
shape. Interspersed with vintage footage of junior miss pageant types, long the
sought after standard of with-it girls, the filmmakers seem to be the only males
allowed for this inside look and wisely stay out of the way completely, lending
the cinéma
vérité
style broader interest.
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