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Post by Mattsby on Aug 11, 2020 20:21:15 GMT
First a joke: Did you hear about the reclusive baseball player? He stayed at Home.
What are your fav sports movies? List the sport first then the movie, discuss, list, w/e. Do your favs align with your fav sports? Which sports best "fit" the movies or which deserves more movies made about 'em? and which filmmakers/actors have most influenced the genre do you think? Just some ideas; Have at it.
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Post by theycallmemrfish on Aug 11, 2020 20:51:19 GMT
Well baseball and boxing make for the best movies... sadly football does not.
(in no real order) Bull Durham. Chariots of Fire. Major League. Rocky. A League of their Own. Friday Night Lights. Any Given Sunday. The Longest Yard. Rudy. Hoosiers. Rush. Field of Dreams. Tin Cup. Bang the Drum Slowly. Remember the Titans. Miracle. Goon. Slap Shot. Warrior. Heaven Can Wait. Breaking Away. Foxcatcher. Moneyball. The Fighter.
Yeah, I guess you can say that I'm a fan of sports movies.
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Post by mikediastavrone96 on Aug 11, 2020 20:51:47 GMT
Baseball - Moneyball Boxing - Rocky Football - Jerry Maguire
I feel like the very clear stakes of sports movies make it that much easier for them to go big with emotional metaphors and my top 3 pretty much aligns with that.
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Post by pacinoyes on Aug 11, 2020 20:56:18 GMT
Two I like.......I'll mention Foxcatcher - I don't think it gets enough credit for addressing a lot of things within athletics - and they are dark things often or that curdle into dark things: fraternity, purpose, family (real or pseudo), self-worth....often dovetailing with sexuality. It is a brilliant film but in a lot of ways it's about packaging human beings for product(s) (as the NCAA does with basketball/football) until they lose humanity - and it shows that by not addressing those bigger sports at all - but focusing on an individual within the collective.......it's very profound imo. I'm not much of a Spike Lee fan but He Got Game has a genuinely great Denzel Washington performance (he's a top 15 American film actor btw - that's a shout-out to Zelbot fan #1 who had the lack of brains to troll me today....ooooh he's a blue belt don'tchaknow) He Got Game gets at a lot of the things going on in Foxcatcher in a more surface/entertaining way and has one of the best athlete performances too (Ray Allen)....
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Post by Mattsby on Aug 11, 2020 21:01:07 GMT
Wrestling â Foxcatcher Team Foxcatcher Vision Quest The Wrestler All the Marbles The Foul King Singling out the underrated ones, 7.5s for me: The Foul King (2000) - Kang-ho Songâs breakout year and his first great perf - a slapstick, hilarious turn as a picked-on office clerk who finds release as a wrestling heel, turning his minimized life around. It follows the sports genre formula (itâs also a bit like a wrestling-Shall We Dance) but it subverts some elements, with director Jee-woon Kim in droll mode. All the Marbles (1981) - like GLOW, but better. Robert Aldrichâs last pic and the Peter Falk âcoachâ to a female wrestling duo is cleverly director-symbolic. If they focused and cut down the movie a little bit itâd be a bonafide classic. With developed characters, strong perfs, and really really awesome wrestling scenes (it saves the best for last).
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Post by Mattsby on Aug 11, 2020 21:12:33 GMT
Well baseball and boxing make for the best movies... sadly football does not. Yeah I can't say I really love any football movies; I think North Dallas Forty is my fav - have you seen it? With a veryyy good Nolte perf, looking at the ironic sacrifice and physical toll of the athlete - and a sports sort of partying atmosphere. It fits with the anti-establishment movies of the 70s, and it fits with the director's previous destroyed-male themes. It succeeds where Semi-Tough a year or so before somewhat failed, though I kinda liked it; Semi-Tough doesn't fill out its relaxed narrative so it dries up, and its director Michael Ritchie may have made more sports movies than any other filmmaker. Actually, the Aaron Hernandez doc might be one of the best football pics I've seen.....
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Post by Mattsby on Aug 11, 2020 22:09:13 GMT
Another I like The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner (1974) -- Herzogâs small 45min doc on the Olympic skier that looks at the poetic ascent of his talent, how it goes beyond the sports own parameters, framing him as sort of superhumanly gifted - but, unlike Herzogâs usual deranged outcasts, what isolates Steiner is his total sanity, and his humility, especially in the face of a corporation indifferent to his risk. It questions the expected behavior of a star athlete and the peril underside the appeal.
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Post by dadsburgers on Aug 11, 2020 23:26:03 GMT
Well baseball and boxing make for the best movies... sadly football does not. There are so many movies about boxing (including many great ones), but I'm curious why we think that is? What makes boxing "made for the best movies"? It isn't that popular of a sport, but it's so big in cinema and I can't put my finger on why. I guess the boxing match itself is up close and personal, and one v. one, which strips conflict down to its core. Any other thoughts??
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Post by Pittsnogle_Goggins on Aug 11, 2020 23:26:19 GMT
Major League The Sandlot The Replacements Friday Night Lights The Longest Yard (OG) Bad News Bears (OG) Any Given Sunday Brianâs Song Bull Durham Warrior White Men Canât Jump Rocky The Fighter Slap Shot Miracle Hoosiers Rudy Cinderella Man
Iâll probably add some more later
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speeders
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Post by speeders on Aug 11, 2020 23:44:10 GMT
Not a genre I'm a fan of at all, but am willing to try to broaden my horizon.
The Wrestler Foxcatcher Rocky Breaking Away I, Tonya Raging Bull
I think that's it.
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Post by theycallmemrfish on Aug 12, 2020 0:39:37 GMT
Well baseball and boxing make for the best movies... sadly football does not. There are so many movies about boxing (including many great ones), but I'm curious why we think that is? What makes boxing "made for the best movies"? It isn't that popular of a sport, but it's so big in cinema and I can't put my finger on why. I guess the boxing match itself is up close and personal, and one v. one, which strips conflict down to its core. Any other thoughts?? Honestly, I think it's the boxing schedule that aids its storytelling. All other sports you have at least a game a week... but with boxing you have that long period of time where they train, which is where a lot of the drama happens.
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Post by mikediastavrone96 on Aug 12, 2020 1:26:32 GMT
There are so many movies about boxing (including many great ones), but I'm curious why we think that is? What makes boxing "made for the best movies"? It isn't that popular of a sport, but it's so big in cinema and I can't put my finger on why. I guess the boxing match itself is up close and personal, and one v. one, which strips conflict down to its core. Any other thoughts?? Honestly, I think it's the boxing schedule that aids its storytelling. All other sports you have at least a game a week... but with boxing you have that long period of time where they train, which is where a lot of the drama happens. Yup, a lot of build-up to the match, a clear-cut opponent, and it's such a physically intensive sport with clear and obvious stakes. You get a full three-act structure out of setting the fight, training for it, and then the match itself. Pretty much every other sport you need a full season and a myriad of faceless opponents to get anything dramatically compelling out of it.
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Post by jakesully on Aug 12, 2020 10:34:29 GMT
Peter Berg's Friday Night Lights is so freaking great imo.
It came out in 2004 starring Billy Bob Thorton as the head coach and Garrett Hedlund, Lucas Black, Derek Luke etc as the players. I thought Berg did an excellent job of capturing just how crazy Texans are for football. The film has so much heart & great football game sequences thru out. Really good sports film imo.
8.5/10
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Post by TerryMontana on Aug 12, 2020 13:05:06 GMT
Rocky
After that, in no order:
Heaven Can Wait Chariots of Fire. Raging Bull
And some guilty pleasures of mine: Space Jam and BASEketball!!
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Post by themoviesinner on Aug 12, 2020 13:07:07 GMT
Jafar Panahi's Offside is probably my favourite. Great poignant film and probably the best of his filmography.
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Post by Martin Stett on Aug 12, 2020 15:29:34 GMT
A Knight's Tale and nothing else is close.
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Post by Martin Stett on Aug 12, 2020 15:31:06 GMT
Peter Berg's Friday Night Lights is so freaking great imo. It came out in 2004 starring Billy Bob Thorton as the head coach and Garrett Hedlund, Lucas Black, Derek Luke etc as the players. I thought Berg did an excellent job of capturing just how crazy Texans are for football. The film has so much heart & great football game sequences thru out. Really good sports film imo. 8.5/10 All I can remember is constantly rewinding this PG-13 movie for that nip slip. I seem to remember the rest of the film being a terrible bore, though.
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Post by jakesully on Aug 12, 2020 15:43:17 GMT
Rocky After that, in no order: Heaven Can Wait Chariots of Fire. Raging Bull And some guilty pleasures of mine: Space Jam and BASEketball!! +1 for mentioning BASEketball. I wish Trey Parker & Matt Stone would have pursued more acting roles cause they were fucking hilarious in that film.
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Post by Sharbs on Aug 12, 2020 16:06:10 GMT
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Post by cheesecake on Aug 12, 2020 16:23:40 GMT
A League of Their Own Bend It Like Beckham Breaking Away Eddie the Eagle Field of Dreams Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India Major League Rocky Rookie of the Year Whip It
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cherry68
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Post by cherry68 on Aug 12, 2020 17:26:55 GMT
Chariots of fire The natural The replacements A league of their own La mossa del pinguino
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Post by Mattsby on Aug 12, 2020 17:43:04 GMT
Two for soccer - If it counts, The Firm (1989) with Gary Oldman is the best; competitive sports culture with club factions taken to the streets like a livid gangland, but really a fulfilling of empty adulthood for some, and for others brutally coerced, inculcated. "We come in peace, we leave you in pieces" is the great quote Oldman says. And.... Coup de tĂȘte (1979), written by Francis Veber, starring Patrick Dewaere (came out in France two months before Serie Noire) - a revenge comedy around the sport with some very outdated aspects/humor but still entertaining with an unforgettable unmistakable score; one critic called it PG Wodehouse meets Joseph Losey.
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Post by pacinoyes on Aug 12, 2020 18:04:07 GMT
Not yet mentioned John Sayles Eight Man Out and Barry Levinson's Paterno - the latter not a sports film per se but one that suggest the existence of sports as a bureaucracy can isolate people from responsibility in pursuit of a single-minded purpose (much like the church).......in a sort of arrested development. Eight Man Out suggests this in reverse in a way by saying the penalties have to be so extreme as to not always match the crime and implying sometimes complexities in individual circumstances don't even matter (was Shoeless Joe Jackson "innocent"?) Also 2 good movie jokes: The Front: Woody Allen asking Andrea Marcovicci if she likes sports........she replies "I like swimming" .......to which Allen says "Swimming is not a sport.......it's what you should do so you don't drown" White Men Can't Jump - Where the blacks guys refer to Woody Harrelson as "Gretzky"
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Post by Mattsby on Aug 12, 2020 18:26:44 GMT
Very wonderful movie, I just watched it recently. One of the best "feel good" movies bc it gets to that feeling inside of a complete portrait of its place, small-town Indiana, and its detailed characters, while also never losing the humor throughout, right to that hilarious ending shot. Another phenomenal cycling movie - The Armstrong Lie (2013) from Alex Gibney. Fascinating doc as a character study and wider complex look at the sport. I knew it was on point when Tom Waits came on the soundtrack and those amazing lyrics - "Money's just something you throw off the back of a train, Got a head full of lightning, a hat full of rain."
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Aug 12, 2020 19:10:58 GMT
hate this genre. my highest rated titles in "sports" according to IMDB are nothing like what you typically think of as a sports movie... because I hate them the titles listed under "sport" on IMDB I rate 8/10 or higher: Foxcatcher - psychological character study Moneyball - not really a sports movie. a character study and economics movie Downhill Racer - character study Breaking Away - coming of age The Bad News Bears - sardonic comedy about a bunch of losers and misfits (ok, that sounds pretty formulaic when I say it like that) The Boxer - political drama / romance Jerry Maguire - rom-com Fat City - social drama A Prayer Before Dawn - gritty character study High Flying Bird - black empowerment / economics movie Ford v. Ferrari is probably the closest to a typical sport movie that I rate highly, but I also think of that as a buddy movie and about exploring the contrast between corporate interests and artistic vision/freedom, so even that isn't just a sports movie. I loved Remember the Titans as a kid. Introduced me to a lot of good 60s music and Denzel Washington. That's probably the only formulaic sports movie I watched as a kid that I'd be able to still enjoy. Lots of sweet moments. Glory Road not so much.
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