![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
![]() Malkovich, Lane and the Greatest Horse Ever, what could go wrong? Nothing, it turns out, although Secretariat never pulls a Secretariat, turning promise into triumph. Perhaps because it’s a Disney production – reverential to a fault – or perhaps because of its mildly precious dialogue. Sti…
WikChip Image
Big Red and his Intrepid Owner
|
||||||
![]() Brutally brilliant, Raging Bull grew legendary after fading from the silver screen. It remains one of the greatest movies ever made, flawed only by Cathy Moriarty’s disappointing portrayal of Vickie La Motta. Everything else – notably Scorsese’s up-close and personal filmmaking, coupled with …
WikChip Image
Jake was crazy for Vicki. Really.
|
||||||
![]() A treat for football fans and civil rights era history buffs, this charming and affecting but overly reverential biopic will likely bore everyone else. That said, excellent performances by Rob Brown, Dennis Quaid and others, top notch production values, and first-rate football action do this i…
WikChip Video
Jim Brown interviewed about Ernie Davis
|
||||||
![]() Ron Shelton made White Men Can’t Jump after Bull Durham and before Tin Cup. His sequence of great sports movies is thus baseball, basketball, golf. This middle one – his hoops hit – nailed the J with its title, even if the rest veers from perfection. White Men Can’t Jump was welcom…
WikChip Image
They've Got Game.
|
||||||
![]() This magnificent political biography also happens to be a very good movie. Not a great movie, but a great and important story, well told and even better acted by its two leads. Lessons in history and leadership should all be so charismatic. The movie has rhythms and totems unfamiliar to Amer…
WikChip Image
American superstars as African heroes
|
||||||
![]() Rudy is the first perfect boyhood football movie, if not necessarily the first overall perfect football movie. It beatifies a tough Irish-Catholic boy from Chicago who lionizes football, then plays it and is defined by it. Daniel ‘Rudy’ Ruettiger grew up craning his neck one state over, towa…
WikChip Video
Watch Parseghian prowl practice.
|
||||||
![]() When the Game Stands Tall pegs several meters: football movies – coach movies – Bay Area movies. Arguably the greatest Football Movie ever, it is surely the first great Bay Area Football Movie. It profiles an all-time great football coach: Coach Bob Ladouceur of Concord’s legendary De La Salle…
WikChip Video
Jim Caviezel talks about Coach Lad
|
||||||
![]() Cliches are rarely so well calibrated as in Trouble with the Curve. Crusty father, chip-off-the-ol’-block daughter, minor league baseball, small towns, hot dogs, roadhouses, and on and on. BTW, those hot dogs are of the ballpark and ballplayer varieties, with one of the latter played by Justin …
WikChip Video
Heartwarming
|
||||||
![]() Channing Tatum’s tortured performance as Olympic gold medal-winning wrestler Mark Schultz anchors Foxcatcher. Mark Ruffalo and Steve Carell orbit above him as Dave Schultz, his older brother and fellow Olympic gold medal-winning wrestler, and John du Pont, the crazy rich guy who murdered one of…
WikChip Video
Steve Carell masterfully plays this guy.
|
||||||
![]() Southpaw telegraphs its punches. They do connect, but lose much of their impact because you see most coming. That said, Jake Gyllenhaal is an impressive physical actor, if not an exceptionally charismatic one. The result is a movie that’s worth a cheap’o rental for boxing movie fans, albeit …
|