How To Choose Your Olympic Program, a la Kim Yu-Na and Les Miz

First of all, let me just say, WOW. She was amazing. She skated both programs like a robot. A graceful, fine-tuned, technically perfect robot. I still prefer her Vancouver programs to these two, but they were incredible.

I also enjoyed her choice of music for the long program, Les Misérables. Beautiful dress, beautiful choreography. She probably could have won wearing a potato sack dress, though. She was that good.

But the choice of skating to Les Misérables, got me thinking. Perhaps if you were bombarded with Les Miz movie music and hype, maybe you were sick of the music already. But I was not. I saw a fresh take on an older musical that came with a few freshly-minted Oscars as well. Good timing.

I think it is important to skate to music the audience already knows. Why? I have a theory about this ....

I've said it before and I'll say it again - when you skate to something familiar, the crowd doesn't have spend time wondering if they a) like the music and b) whether the choreography goes with the music, so instead the mind is able to relax and focus on the skating.

Uh, excuse me Miss Ice Charades, aren't the judges supposed to be able to concentrate on the skating and know how to score appropriately whether they know the music or not?

Yes, they should. But ... I would still want to make it one step easier for the judges, wouldn't you?

Now, one needs to be careful not to pick some music that everyone is tired of ... as in Carmen. No more Carmen, please. Maybe we should retire Charlie Chaplin for a while, although I loved Javier Fernández's program. But let's pass on future Charlie's for now. I also wouldn't do Bolero. Caroline Kostner did have some nice choreography, but I wouldn't touch it. After Torville and Dean, I wouldn't touch it.

I also would like to see a ban on any flamenco or tango short programs for about ten years. An outright ban. Come on, there are many other countries, especially Latin ones, with unique music, dance and costumes that we could see for a change. Mexico, Bolivia, Peru, even Panama. Email me if you need some music.

With all of that in mind, what to skate to for next year's biggie competition? The Olympics. It would be good to ride the wave with something like Les Miz.

So, here's what you do ... go to IMDB and look for movie releases for next year, say, December. That's when the Oscar hopefuls come out. Looking under 2013 December releases, we've got some choices: the sequel to the Hobbit, Tyler Perry's A Madea Christmas or Anchorman: The Legend Continues. Nope, nope and nope.

But here's one - remember this title: Saving Mr. Banks. It's a drama and I'm not sure what the movie score will be like (you need IMDBPro for that!) but the plot of the movie is: author P.L. Travers travels from London to Hollywood as Walt Disney Pictures adapts her novel Mary Poppins for the big screen.

Mary Poppins - it works for singles, Ladies or Mens (think Julie Andrews or Dick Van Dyke) or Dance teams. Get your Chimney Sweep costume out.

And here's the Buzz, according to IMDB,

"...what has to be one of the most bankable releases of the year - a bona fide return to movie stardom for Tom Hanks as Walt Disney. Ditto Emma Thompson and, well, pretty much everyone else in the cast."

Sounds like it will be a good movie and Tom Hanks and Emma Thompson nominated for Oscars would keep the movie buzz going through to February, which is right in time for the Olympics. So, if I were the choreographer, I would be cutting the music right now: Chim Chim Cher-ee, A Spoonful of Sugar and Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

We'll see.