Look for a couple of special announcements at the end of this post. And now on with the show…
I remember The Cutting Edge being kind of a big deal when I was in high school. It was edgy, it was sassy, it was a match-up between D.B. Sweeney and Moira Kelly, two stars who were the icing on the cake at the time. It also spawned a direct-to-video sequel and two TV movies most people have never seen and probably fewer remember, but it’s hard to top the original movie. Does it hold up thirty years after its release? That is indeed the question.
Kate Moseley (Moira Kelly) aspires to be an Olympic gold medalist, and she’s been training for years as a pairs skater. She can’t keep a partner because she’s developed quite a reputation as a firebrand, and after jettisoning her old coach, Rick Tuttle (Barry Flatman), Kate’s dad, Jack (Terry O’Quinn) hires the vastly superior Anton Pamchenko (Roy Dotrice). He’s way more patient than Rick, but he has to be honest with Dad: Kate is way too picky and her reputation is her worst enemy.
Even the grand pumbah of male pairs skaters, Spindler, won’t touch her. As Anton puts it, “Spindler say, before he skate with her, he wear garlic from neck and sleep with cross.”
Okeydokey. Having exhausted the available pool of male figure skaters, Anton goes to Minnesota to meet Douglas Dorsey (D.B. Sweeney), a fabulous hockey player who would have turned pro had he not been slammed into a plastic partition and lost eighteen degrees of peripheral vision. Douglas’s own pool is exhausted. He works in a refinery and helps out at his brother’s sports bar, the Dorsey Penalty Box.
Despite his desperation to be anywhere but where he is, Doug has to be sold on the idea of figure skating, and can’t hide his distaste when Anton shows him a pair of men’s skates. Still, he agrees to go with Anton to the Moseley property in upstate New York, where Kate has her own rink, workout room, and a ballet teacher and personal trainer who show up as needed for private lessons. Kate has led a very disciplined, priviledged life, but not without some fun now and then. She has a boyfriend, Hale (Dwier Brown) who works in her dad’s London office.
Doug and Kate clash from the beginning, and Doug is about to quit except that he makes a deal with Jack: Jack will pay double or nothing if Doug puts up with Kate.
Easier said than done, especially seeing as Doug has to learn the mechanics of figure skating, namely how to use a little thing called a toe pick. Kate torments Doug and his initial ineptness by laughing maniacally every time he falls and singing “Toe pick.”
Doug gets her back, though, in his own way, and in between plenty of verbal sparring and a lot of hard work, he and Kate make it to Nationals, where Kate introduces Doug to the world of pairs skating, and she knows everyone in it. It goes without saying that they qualify for the Olympics. To celebrate, Doug and Kate go to a bar and do tequila shots.
I don’t drink, like hardly at all–maybe an occasional sip of chardonnay or burgundy when I’m cooking–so this scene strikes me as a little much. Couldn’t Kate have just had a beer? Tequila shots seem a bit hard-core for someone who doesn’t drink.
Not surprisingly, it doesn’t take long for Kate to get absolutely hammered, and after a wild night of shots and dancing, Doug deposits her in her hotel room with a glass of water. Kate’s hoping the night will go somewhere else, but Doug’s not about to take advantage of her in her inebriated state. Among other challenges, they’ve got the Olympics in front of them, and the competition is intense.
The Cutting Edge is basically The Taming of the Shrew, only there’s a certain amount of cheese involved. There’s a New Year’s Eve party scene that’s one instance, and there’s plenty of blurry slow-mo that would make Zack Snyder jealous. By and large, though, cheese’s name is rival pairs skater Lorie Peckarovski (Rachelle Ottley). I won’t ruin anything, but I will put it this way: We’ve all heard that lamest of lame pick-up lines, “If I said you have a nice body, would you hold it against me?”
Well, it’s got nothing on what Lori says to Doug after Nationals. “You’ve got a great sit-spin. I thought maybe we could trade secrets?” She’s even holding a rose when she says it, all breathy and bright-eyed.
Bleah.
The Cutting Edge is a lot of fun, and while there’s not much question where things will end up, the writing is sparky with one-liners galore and Moira Kelly and D.B. Sweeney have great chemistry. It’s also dated in the best way, especially during the party scenes because we see a lot of women walking around with poufy hair-sprayed ‘dos carried over from the 1980s. I always look forward to watching it around Christmastime even though it’s not technically a Christmas movie. The scene when Doug and Kate exchange presents do not a Christmas movie make.
Spoiler alert: Kate gives Doug a nice hardbound edition of Great Expectations. Doug gives Kate Bobby Hull’s game jersey.
Anyway, what can be even funnier about The Cutting Edge are the reviews (See some here and here). A really common complaint is that figure skating competitions don’t use theatrical lighting or spotlights.
Yeah, well, they don’t use stunt doubles, either, but I digress.
No, The Cutting Edge isn’t perfect, but it’s an extremely respectable rom com on its own terms, and that’s just fine.
All right, and now for those announcements I promised. Virtual drum roll, please…
This is my thousandth post. Wow. And…yours truly is now a member of the Classic Movie Blog Association!
Yes, really! Any bloggers reading this will probably know that this is a big deal. Long story short, I was recommended, I got a note from CMBA’s acting chairman, I submitted a statement introducing my blog, the board met, said a lot of nice things, and voilá! In my case, the board was especially nice, because I got my statement in a day late, so thank you, thank you, thank you! And thank you to everyone who’s been rooting for me to get in. Apparently acceptance on the first try is unusual.
What does this mean for Taking Up Room? Well, there will be CMBA-related posts on here from time to time, and the CMBA logo is now proudly displayed at the foot of the blog. It has a link to CMBA’s blog if anyone would like to read a bit about their goings-on and find out more about them.
This is Taking Up Room’s weekend for announcements, because another very special one is coming up tomorrow. Thanks for reading, all, and I hope to see you then…
The Cutting Edge is available on DVD and Blu-ray from Amazon.
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