Carolina Kostner of Italy took my breath away yesterday.

She received not one but two perfect tens from the judges (one judge awarded her a 10 for Performance/Execution and another for Interpretation.) She is just .80 points behind the leader (and reigning Olympic gold medalist) Kim Yu-Na and a hair behind Russian spinning sensation Adelina Sotnikova.

Kostner was the only skater to receive a perfect score for any portion of their performance. If I’d been a judge I’d have given her additional high scores for GRACE and RESTRAINT.

While other, younger skaters swirled, popped, jiggled and flailed every move they had on the ice in front of the judges Kostner’s performance was absolute minimalism and control. And she proved that control doesn’t equal robotic automation and grim concentration. This young woman (at 27 I’m happy to say Woman’s Figure Skating has at least ONE woman in its ranks) skates with such pure joy invested in every move that those of us at home had as much fun watching her as she had on the ice.

She almost quit skating after a dismal performance at the Vancouver Olympics, but stayed with the sport because, she   ” ‘because I love it …The hard times make you understand what you really want and I’m really glad that I continued and honored to have experienced everything that I have in the past years.” [NBCsports.com] She went back to the training rink and rethought her program. She retooled the routine and tightened her technical moves.

“So long we have been thinking of Carolina as the artist,” added 1998 Olympic champion Tara Lipinski, …a NBC Sports commentator, “but her technique; she took everything down a grade and then built it back up these last four years. That was the whole package. ” [Ibid]

As of this posting there isn’t  video on a You Tube of her brilliant performance last night, [there may never be an official NBC video as she isn’t in first place and she isn’t an American] but here’s the the same short program from earlier this year. Enjoy:

I’ll be routing for Italy tonight as Carolina takes the ice in the long program. She’ll be skating to Ravel’s Bolero.

Well, I’ve got a kind of Disney thing going for February, so I thought I’d do Disney villains today. There are plenty of characters to choose from (“125 different villains from films, sequels, television, video games, books and even the Disney Parks” [disney.wikia.com.)

I did a totally unscientific survey by asking my friends on FaceBook who they though deserved the Disney Villain crown. The major culprits seem to be:

 

• Maleficent — curses an infant to prick her finger on a spinning wheel and die before the sun sets on her 16th birthday. Then she imprisons and tortures Prince Phillip.
• The Evil Queen — Queen Grimhilde is another child killer in the making. She’s a shape shifter too.  She employs magical, talking furniture to spy on her subjects. According to disneyvillians.net she ranks #10 in the American Film Institute’s list of the 50 Best Movie Villains of All Time.” The scene where she create the poisoned apple is still one of the scariest scenes out there.
• Ursula — She’s manipulative and sinister. She can shape shift. She’s shrewd when she striking a bargain (some might even say she cheats.) She has magical powers which includes turning people and merfolk into worms should they fail to fulfill the terms of their contract.

• Cruella De Vil— Unlike the first three on this list Curella is fits squarely into the HUMAN category. She has not supernatural powers, she’s not a witch or magician. She’s a villain by her sheer ability to be bad, vain and greedy. She’s used to getting what ever she wants and in 101 Dalmatians what she wants is a coat made of dalmatian puppy fur. Any woman who hates puppies this much strikes a chord of horror in any young girls heart. She scored high in the survey, especially in those of us of certain age group who remember seeing the animated film when it first came out in the theatres.
• Gaston &  Claude Frollo — Cruella wasn’t the only human to make the list. Gaston and Claude Frollo bring a male perspective to villainy. While Gaston is all brawn and misogyny Claude Frollo is lechery and hypocrisy.

 

So who made you quake in fear as a kid? Who do you think holds the crown as best Disney villain?

 

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All images courtesy Disney Corp.