The Fabulous Ice Age (2013)
For decades, American touring ice shows dominated family entertainment with their dazzling production and variety acts. This documentary honors them through interviews and archival footage, and depicts one skater's quest to keep this history alive.
Watch Trailer
Free Trial Channels
Cast
Similar titles
Reviews
What a waste of my time!!!
Too much of everything
The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.
This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.
When I was a kid -- and I'm old -- big ice-skating shows used to barnstorm through my metro area every year: Ice Capades, Holiday on Ice, Ice Follies. I never went, and I never knew what they were like. But this movie shows you: huge, crazy spectacles of massed skaters in brilliant costumes, special effects, inspired ice-dancing. It was like a two-hour production number from one of those crazy MGM musicals from the '40s -- only done live. On ice.Kids who were good skaters, and wanted to badly enough, barnstormed the world with these companies, performing in South America, Europe, Mexico, even Russia. What was it like to be one of these kids? That's what the movie tells you, through interviews with people who were there and who describe their time as a twenty- or thirty-year party with their best friends. I can't recommend this movie highly enough. It describes a form of pop culture that was once as huge as rock concerts and is now almost forgotten. And it makes you sorry the big shows are gone, while it describes why they had to go. All in all, a great trip.