What's your favorite gymnastics movie/show/book?

[Flipomaniak]

I've seen stick it, make it or break it, reach for the sky, and Nadia Comanechi's movie. I really liked Nadia and reach for the sky. What's your favorite gymnastics movie, show, or book? How many have you seen/read?

 

[LiveLoveTumble]

I have also seen Stick It, Make it or Break it, and part of Nadia. Also, I saw Little Girls in Pretty boxes. Books, I just finished reading Winning Balance by Shawn Johnson, and I read Chalked Up by Jennifer Sey a while ago. My opinions:

Stick It: My favorite gymnastics movie! I found it funny and fairly realistic when it came to the gymnastics part. Except that *spoiler!!!* they all scratched at a big competition. Seriously, no one does that. But props to them for getting it right that gymnastics is extremely unfair!!!
MIOBI: Ugh. What to say. Well, I'm not the best judge, because I never made it past the first season. Couldn't stand it. But while I didn't watch the rest, I read Spanny's hilarious recaps on her gymnastics blog. From what I saw/read, it was awful. Not realistic, and it was about the girls' drama instead of gymnastics. For non-gymnasts, it would be okay. But there were soooo many mistakes! Like trying to pass off a double back for a triple back. Really???
Nadia: As I said, I only saw part of it. And that was because I just couldn't make myself watch the rest of it. Ugh. The acting was terrible! And, correct me if I'm wrong, but I am pretty sure they got her "first perfect 10" routine wrong. I am fairly certain that the real routine was the compulsory routine, and they showed a different one.
Little Girls in Pretty Boxes: Again, ugh. Acting wasn't great, neither was the storyline. Quite boring, but I did manage to watch the whole thing. I found the last scene pretty funny, where the girl is walking on the high beam, and her mom is like, "can I spot you?" And so she holds her hand and "helps" her walk down the beam. Last time I checked, that was for little kids, not elite gymnasts.
Winning Balance: Personally, I loved it, but I'm a bit biased. Shawn is my favorite gymnast ever, so I love anything about/by her. But I liked how it wasn't just a plain autobiography, with just the plain hard facts. She told little stories to go with all the big events, and also she talked about the lessons she learned. I learned a lot of new things about her that I never knew. I found it very inspirational.
Chalked Up: I thought it was pretty good, but I read it when I was about 10, so I didn't understand parts of it. I think I might enjoy it more if I read it again now that I'm older. Now that I think about it, it probably wasn't a very age-appropriate book for a 10 year old... But my mom was reading it, and I saw that it was about gymnastics, so I read it.

So, yeah, those are my opinions on them.

 

[hawaii_gymnast]

Favourite movie is American Anthem, its old and not the most accurate but I still enjoyed it. I liked Stick It to except being about to see the beam made wide during wei weis beam routine. But the same happened in MIOBI, which I just watched because I found it hilarious. The details were completely wrong, and the editing as awful. I read some of the series "The Gymnasts" when I was in about grade 3 and really liked them. Not sure if they were actually good though or if I was just excited to have a book about gymnastics. I want to read Winning Balance and Dominique Moceanu's book (I can't remember what it is called) but probably won't for a while.

 

[Mack_the_Ripper]

Stick It is my favorite, obviously! It doesn't take itself too seriously, and even though not all the details are correct or up-to-date with the new COP, it does show a lot of cool skills and the focus IS on gymnastics. Unlike, ya know, MIOBI. I can't stand that show - not nearly enough gymnastics!

I read Chalked Up and Letters to a Young Gymnast. They were both interesting, but not very well-written (especially Letters). Worth a read for curiosity. Little Girls in Pretty Boxes (the book) scared the bejeezus out of me the first time I read it when I was about 10. I still think about the horror stories in it. Do not read.

 

[LiveLoveTumble]

Little Girls in Pretty Boxes (the book) scared the bejeezus out of me the first time I read it when I was about 10. I still think about the horror stories in it. Do not read.

Okay then. Note to self: do not read. I was actually thinking about reading it sometime, but I guess not!
Yeah, I don't do well with the gym-horror-story thing. At all.

 

[Mag_7_Fan96]

I've seen Stick it, Reach For The Sky, Nadia, Little Girls in Pretty Boxes, Make it or Break it, and The Gymnast (after school special I think) as well as many documentaries. I'm sure I'm missing a few but it's all I can remember at the moment. My favorite of all was definetly Reach For The Sky. I loved it's core message. It was inspiring to see a little girl so serious about her dream and working very hard to make it happen. The title says it all.

As for books, I've read Chalked Up by Jennifer Sey, Winning Every Day by Shannon Miller, Dominique Moceanu's first autobiography when she was 13 as well as The unauthorized (I'm guessing by the girls) biography of the Magnificent 7 that was authorized by USA gymnastics. I'm hoping to read Winning Balance by Shawn Johnson and Off Balance by Dominique Moceanu soon. My favorite was Shannon Miller's book. It had many facts and journal entries as well as advice for others. I did like the other books, even Chalked up because I felt it gave people a look at another side of gymnastics. People are so used to seeing just the competitions on tv. Some think it's very glamourous and don't realize the pain that can go with it.

That's about it. I can't wait to see it there's anything I missed.

 

[gymnasticky]

I am a huge fan of Make It or Break It. It isn't exactly realistic in the gymnastics sense, but I find it entertaining anyway. Reach for the Sky wasn't great, but I liked it. I'm reading Winning Balance right now (just got it yesterday afternoon, and I love it so far!). I want to read Off Balance and finish watching Little Girls in Pretty Boxes (I've seen parts of it, but never the whole thing). I actually didn't think Stick It was as good as everyone else said. It felt really fake to me, but I still liked it.

 

[gymstaryaya]

I love Stick It!!