May I have your permission to use your image on my blog “One Time, One Meeting.” It would accompany a post entitled “Mishaps and Mistakes.”

Ben

I attended the live showing of Rise and it was truly stirring and emotional.

I felt like too much time was spent on the Owens family. (They deserve an entire movie of their own, IMO, and I hope that some other producer feels the same way and starts working on one!).

And then a little time was spent on a few more skaters. And then…oops, they ran out of time, and everyone else just got a mention, or we saw their name scroll by on the commemorative plaque, and we STILL didn’t know who they were or what their story was all about.

Darn.

I realize that it’s possible that some of the families may have either refused to work with the writers/producers, or perhaps some of the people in the crash no longer have family alive to speak for them.

But information from other sources could have been used to put together a small sketch about everyone from the skating community who was lost in the crash. People like Paul Harvey (is he dead? If so, RIP) do such a great job of telling little vignettes about people in just a few minutes–it would have been nice to hear a little something about everyone.

I also felt like waaaay too much time was spent on the “storytellers.” Hey, I love Hamilton, Boitano, Hamill, Fleming, and Kwan! But I really didn’t want to hear things from them that I already knew. I like the way connections were made between the modern skaters and the ones who passed away; e.g., Hamill compared her age and short haircut with Laurence Owen–cute! And I’m glad that these skaters were emotional when they talked about their connections with the skaters, coaches, and officials who died.

But I didn’t need to hear quite so much! This could have been left for interviews after the film, while the film could have included more info about those who are no longer with us.

Finally, I felt like the story of the “rise” of figure skating from the charred ashes of that crash was NOT well told at all.

I remember reading Peggy Fleming’s bio, and she talked about getting a new coach and working to “build up” figure skating again in the U.S. and how hard this was emotionally. I wanted to hear more of this kind of story in this film–after all, it was called “Rise.”

I agree–the best part of the film was the vintage film of figure skating! Beautiful to watch! I predict an upsurge of interest in school figures in the U.S.! I hope so.