Made: The Movie (DVD Review)

Dir: Samir Rehem ("Degrassi: The Next Generation", "Skins (2011)" )
Cast: Cyrina Fiallo, Rachel Skarsten, Stacey Farber, Marline Yan, Brett Dier, Kyle Kass, Ashley Leggat
Canada, 2010

Reason to see: I love films about 'finding yourself', plus it's Canadian!

Made: The Movie stars Cyrina Fiallo as Tuba, a high school band geek and band member whose dreams was to always be a cheerleader. Although her geekness does feel certainly livable as she has band-friends Emerson (Stacey Farber) and Kitty (Marline Yan), it's embarrassingly accentuated by her popular older brother basketball player Marshall (Brett Dier) who is of course dating head cheerleader Andi (Rachel Skarsten).

Using the classic popular kids vs geek crowd set up, Made: The Movie is smart to add some extra layers to complicate matters further and adds twists and turns along the way. One of the funnest things about the film was the clear as glass innuendo dialogue between Andi and Marshall and the all around general cattiness of the the cheer leading crowd. I certainly wasn't rooting for them, but you have to give credit where it's due and they were rolling out the attitude like there was no tomorrow. Now, I did find the time line of the events in the film felt very generous to accommodate for all the character development needed to connect all the dots that we need to see in the plot for this kind of school competition format film (it also happens in dance & martial arts movies too - got to get that training in!), so it's a bit of a given and I can give it a grace period for that.

I really enjoyed Tuba's journey to find herself and to really go for her cheer leading dream, even though picking a popular activity to dive into was not supported by any means, she still stubborn soldiered on and that shows a heck of a lot of spirit. Overall, I found the film nice combination of catty and sweet, bringing out both the awkward truths of finding your own way along with the fun spirited nature of friendship plus the great persistence of working to live your dream.

DVD Extras:

• No extras

Made: The Movie is available on DVD as of January 25, 2011. Check it out over at Amazon.ca

Shannon's Overall View:
I enjoyed it
Ill watch it again
I'd recommend it fun spirited find-you-way film

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© Shannon Ridler, 2011