CNET Networks Entertainment GameSpot | GameFAQs | SportsGamer | Metacritic | MP3.com | TV.com
Home | About Metacritic | About Metascores | What's New | Wireless Versions | Discussion Forums | Advertising Inquiries | Contact Us | RSS
Metacritic.com: We Deal With Criticism
     Help
> Switch to Advanced Search  
Film Video/DVD Music Games TV

Film

Upcoming Release Calendar
Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
How Metascores Are Calculated
Discuss Film In Our Forums

 

Wide Releases

sort by name sort by score

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

 

Limited Releases

sort by name sort by score

83 Alexandra
80 Band's Visit, The
76 Beauty in Trouble
47 Bella
80 Bigger, Stronger, Faster*
59 Blind Mountain
55 Bra Boys
60 Brick Lane
70 Caramel
49 Children of Huang Shi, The
83 Chop Shop
83 Chris & Don. A Love Story
78 Counterfeiters, The
52 Diminished Capacity
64 Dreams with Sharp Teeth
73 Duchess of Langeais, The
84 Edge of Heaven, The
52 Elsa & Fred
79 Encounters at the End of the World
62 Expired
64 Fall, The
51 Finding Amanda
57 Flawless
86 Flight of the Red Balloon, The
63 Foot Fist Way, The
60 Fugitive Pieces
45 Full Grown Men
55 Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts
69 Go-Getter, The
74 Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
63 Gunnin for that #1 Spot
68 Heartbeat Detector
34 Holding Trevor
68 Honeydripper
55 Irina Palm
69 Jellyfish
60 Jihad for Love, A
68 Kabluey
62 Kiss the Bride
63 Kit Kittredge: An American Girl
82 Last Mistress, The
38 Life Before Her Eyes, The
70 Love Songs
64 Married Life
30 Meet Bill
33 Miss Conception
53 Mister Lonely
74 Mongol
52 Mother of Tears, The
52 My Blueberry Nights
71 My Brother Is an Only Child
84 My Winnipeg
61 On the Rumba River
69 Operation Filmmaker
61 OSS 117: Cairo - Nest of Spies
83 Paranoid Park
72 Priceless
51 Promotion, The
55 Quid Pro Quo
29 Red Roses and Petrol
79 Reprise
71 Roman de gare
56 Sangre de mi sangre
51 Savage Grace
76 Shotgun Stories
66 Son of Rambow
70 Standard Operating Procedure
62 Stuck
72 Surfwise
81 Tell No One
56 Then She Found Me
xx Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic
71 To the Limit
54 Tracey Fragments, The
70 Trumbo
72 Tuya's Marriage
83 U2 3D
56 Unknown Woman
86 Up the Yangtze
79 Visitor, The
62 Wackness, The
37 War, Inc.
64 Water Lilies
66 When Did You Last See Your Father?
55 Without the King
72 Woman on the Beach
64 XXY
67 Year My Parents Went on Vacation, The
75 Young@Heart

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

 



Printer-Friendly Version Email This Page Discuss In Our Forums

Lipstick & Dynamite, Piss & Vinegar: The First Ladies of Wrestling
Koch Lorber Films

Lipstick & Dynamite, Piss & Vinegar: The First Ladies of Wrestling reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 62 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
8.6 out of 10
based on 17 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
based on 3 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: Not Rated

Starring Penny Banner, Lillian Ellison, Gladys Gillem, Judy Grable, Ida May Martinez, Ella Waldek, and Mae Young

This documentary shines a spotlight on the forgotten first ladies of the ring. Each woman reflects on her own remarkable life with fond and bitter memories, reconciling a wild, flamboyant youth with the reality of getting older and fading away. (Ruthless Films)


GENRE(S): Documentary  
DIRECTED BY: Ruth Leitman  
RELEASE DATE: DVD: September 6, 2005 
Theatrical: March 25, 2005 
RUNNING TIME: 75 minutes, B/W / Color 
ORIGIN: USA 

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

75
Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
An entertaining look at a genuinely offbeat subject.
Read Full Review
75
New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman
Dynamite perfectly describes this riveting documentary.
Read Full Review
75
Seattle Post-Intelligencer Paula Nechak
The film dwells more on the sensationalistic aspects than the sport itself but it's impossible to deny the tawdry entertainment value in this compelling film tabloid.
Read Full Review
70
TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
Generous, slyly tough-minded documentary.
Read Full Review
70
Slate David Edelstein
What a gutsy, sad, seize-the-day, glorious life it was for the women warriors of Lipstick & Dynamite.
Read Full Review
70
Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
What makes Lipstick & Dynamite its own animal is that, intentionally or not, the director has allowed something else into the mix, a glimpse of the unvarnished and the unsanitized.
Read Full Review
70
The Hollywood Reporter Frank Scheck
Highly entertaining and frequently fascinating.
Read Full Review
70
Chicago Reader Hank Sartin
The women, many in their 70s and 80s, are still tough and proud--and nursing grudges that go back decades, something Leitman plays up by crosscutting between rivals' accounts.
Read Full Review
70
Variety David Rooney
Smart assembly of terrific archive footage is matched by spirited interviews with the tough old broads today.
Read Full Review
70
The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias
Leitman gets some wonderful tall tales from her subjects, who open up like they've been waiting for years for someone to come along and ask, and she complements it with punishing footage of their exploits.
Read Full Review
63
Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
The documentary visits elderly women who, then and now, can best be described as tough broads, and listens as they describe the early days of women's wrestling. What they say is not as revealing as how they say it.
Read Full Review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Brad Wheeler
The best gal wrestlers had their signature moves: Ida May Martinez, with her flying drop kick; Ella Waldek, with the "short-arm scissor lift." Filmmaker Leitman, for all her good work, is in need of a close-out manoeuvre of her own.
Read Full Review
60
The New York Times Stephen Holden
This visually stylish work, with its vintage glamour photos, film and television clips, and snippets from a 1951 B-movie, "Racket Girls," is more of a scrapbook than a coherent history of the sport during its rough-and-tumble infancy.
Read Full Review
50
New York Post Russell Scott Smith
Offers plenty of fun, nostalgic footage of 1950s pro lady wrestlers kicking butt.
Read Full Review
50
Village Voice Jessica Winter
Leitman's interviews are lax and inconclusive.
Read Full Review
50
San Francisco Chronicle Peter Hartlaub
At its best, the movie is a collection of entertaining memories from a group of gutsy women.
Read Full Review
50
LA Weekly Chuck Wilson
Leitman has unearthed a terrific collection of vintage footage - yet, as if doubtful about holding our interest, she skims too quickly over the historical background.
Read Full Review

What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this movie is 8.6 (out of 10) based on 3 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Jim G. gave it a6:
Leitman has drawn out, mostly in the unspoken moments, a wonderful story of contrast: paths chosen and unchosen, modesty and arrogance, school learning and school of hard knocks. In many ways these women inhabit a world of their own but their story says a lot about the world around them. What fun.

Carla M. gave it a10:
This movie was such a great experience to go through. I went in the theatre thinking that this was going to be a movie about wrestling, and I came out understanding that this film is about strong, confident, and amazing women! I loved it!

Discuss this movie in our forums

Return to top of page
Home | FILM | DVD/VIDEO | MUSIC | GAMES | TV | Forums | About Metacritic metacritic.com

Popular on CBS sites: World News | Fantasy Football | Amy Winehouse | Baseball | E3 | Batman | Firefox 3 | iPhone 3G

About CNET Networks | Jobs | Advertise

© 2008 CNET Networks, Inc., a CBS Company. All rights reserved. | Privacy Policy | Terms of Use