Created Jan 21, 2011 11:32PM PST • Updated Jan 23, 2011 01:14AM PST
The good, the great, the concussed. America’s game via Hollywood’s medium.
2 Forum
Replies
- Very Good
- 78 Points
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Wick
– with 66 Trust Points – rated it
Really Great
 1 Forum Reply
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, towards South Bend, home of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. Notre Dame football and by extension Notre Dame University was how the Ruettiger men defined themselves, none more than the little man of the family – all 5'6", 185 lbs. of him. Sean Astin jumped in the box, assumed the position, took on all… |
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Wick
– with 66 Trust Points – rated it
Really Great
Discuss
Arguably the best football movie ever, We Are Marshall is about much more than sports. Don't shy away because 75 people – including dozens of collegiate football players – died in the horrific plane crash that forms its centerpiece. The movie is about what led up to the tragedy and mostly about how the team, the school and the community picked themselves up afterward. The crash itself is over in a flash, like a band-aid ripped off a wound. Only this flash opens a wound, one almost too big to comprehend, too big to overcome. American spirit rises to the challenge, at least as this… |
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Wick
– with 66 Trust Points – rated it
Really Great
Discuss
Poignance, glory, Denzel: three ingredients that make Titans a great football movie. Poignant as in funny and affecting, glorious as in achieving great and meaningful victories, Denzel as in pure movie star charisma. |
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Wick
– with 66 Trust Points – rated it
Great
Discuss
Invincible is a great football movie, tough yet sensitive in a manly sort of way. Relationships between fathers and sons and buddies and girls-who-wear-jerseys are all well mined for emotional wallop. The movie has added resonance for those of us familiar with Philly and the 70s, especially Philly in the 70s. The music (Nugent, Edgar Winter, et. al.), The Vet, the plaid slacks, it's all here in its funky glory. |
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Wick
– with 66 Trust Points – rated it
Very Good
1 Forum Reply
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 important story proud. |
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Wick
– with 66 Trust Points – rated it
Very Good
Discuss
Perhaps a movie past its time – when the Dallas Cowboys were TV America's Team – but a rousing and funny movie nonetheless. Notable for a classic Nick Nolte man's man performance, football action that for the first time seemed real, and a whiff of the larger changes going in 1970's society outside of football. |
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Wick
– with 66 Trust Points – rated it
Very Good
Discuss
The original manly tear-jerker football movie. So what if it was made-for-TV. Big time movie stars (led by a never better James Caan) and a compelling drama of adversity gamely addressed in the shadow of superstardom make Brian's Song one for the ages. |
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Wick
– with 66 Trust Points – rated it
Very Good
Discuss
A three hanky weeper of the best kind – uplifting and funny. I was fortunate to watch it in the darkened cabin of an overnight flight to London, otherwise the tears streaming down my face would have been noticeable to others. But a good "man-cry":http://www.viewguide.com/forums/15/topics/16282 is one reason I love the movies, and The Blind Side triggered more than a few. One needn't be a football fan to fall for this richly affecting true story. An appreciation for a wholesome human interest story – well told and performed – is enough to fall in love with it. |
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Wick
– with 66 Trust Points – rated it
Barely OK
Discuss
The dramatic depth of a lite beer commercial, egregious stereotyping and one-note performances consign The Replacements to cellar-dweller status. Even the great Gene Hackman can't rescue it from ridiculousness, triteness and mean-spiritedness. Consider it a weak replacement for a quality football movie, of which "there are many":http://www.viewguide.com/#football. |
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Wick
– with 66 Trust Points – rated it
Pretty Bad
2 Forum Replies
Yuck. A big F. U. to the NFL that hypocritically revels in jock sniffing, Any Given Sunday qualifies as a guilty treat mainly due to its extensive use of legendary players. Non-fans should steer clear. Oliver Stone manages the near impossible: making the NFL banal. He wastes copious star power in caricature roles, gives them dialogue consistently dripping with disgust and employs them in a trite plot full of cheesy melodrama. Did I mention that at 2.5 hours, the entire abomination is way too long. And way … too … jumpy. Flag it for delay of game, offsides and unnecessary… |
