Contest: Win a DVD of the Football Drama “Catching Faith”

Posted on August 19, 2015 at 11:10 pm

I am pleased to have two copies of “Catching Faith” to give away. It is a faith-based story about a high school football star whose family is not as perfect as they seem. When he is caught drinking, he risks losing his place on the team and his reputation. His sister is so desperate to maintain her position as valedictorian that she compromises her integrity. The family faces a sad loss that adds to the distress and upheaval. But the tough times carry important lessons about sticking together, telling the truth, resisting peer pressure and what being on a team really means.

To enter the contest, send me an email at moviemom@moviemom.com with “Catching Faith” in the subject line and tell me your favorite football team. Don’t forget your address! (U.S. addresses only). I’ll pick a winner at random on September 1, 2015. Good luck!

Reminder: My policy on conflicts

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Exclusive Clip: When the Game Stands Tall

Posted on December 8, 2014 at 11:00 am

We are proud to be able to present this exclusive clip from the new DVD release “When the Game Stands Tall,” the extraordinary true story of the high school football team with the longest winning streak in the history of any sport, professional or amateur, and what happened after they lost a game. The DVD will be available on December 9, 2014.

Draft Day

Posted on April 10, 2014 at 6:00 pm

How do you choose?

That is a critical and daunting question for anyone. And a defining one, too. How can we take what we know now and figure out what we will need in the future?

In this film, set in the course of one taut, tick-tock of a day, Sonny Weaver, Jr. (Kevin Costner), manager of the Cleveland Browns football team, has to decide. Should he trade all his future draft picks to get this year’s number one? If he picks the one everyone else thinks is this year’s most valuable choice, will he have to forego the one only he believes to be the most valuable?

Weaver is under a lot of pressure. The team’s owner (Frank Langella) and coach (Denis Leary) have their own ideas about what Sonny should do. His much younger girlfriend Ali (Jennifer Garner), who also works for the team, is pregnant. His mother (Ellen Burstyn) thinks that this day is the best time to spread the ashes of his late father on the training field.

If that sounds like it gets pretty soapy, you get the picture. Really, this is the day to spread his father’s ashes? Really, the 59-and-looks-it Costner is paired with the 41-and-looks-31 Garner? And even though she works for the organization and lives and breathes football, this is the day she decides to tell him she’s pregnant? Really?

Nevertheless, the mechanics of the arcane (to non-fans) system are fascinatingly put in place by screenwriters Scott Rothman and Rajiv Joseph and then played like a musical instrument by director Ivan Reitman. As Sonny trades future picks back and forth with other managers who are doing the same kinds of now vs. future and salary cap vs. budget calculations, the plot pings back and forth like a pinball machine. Like the “Moneyball” scene where Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill trade phone calls and players in a masterfully orchestrated round robin of bluff and strategy, this gives us a look at off-the-field maneuvers as suspenseful, as skillful, and as intense as anything we will see on the field. Unlike “Moneyball,” this is not about the metrics. Sonny is acting on old-fashioned judgment. He knows that skill matters. Everyone knows that. But Sonny also knows that character matters, maybe more than anything else.

That’s true of movies, too, and Costner’s shaggy integrity is what makes him this movie’s MVP.

Parents should know that this film includes some strong language and crude references.

Family discussion: What does it mean to say the battle is won before it is fought? Should the draft rules be changed? Who should decide, the manager, owner, or coach, and why?

If you like this, try; “The Replacements,” “The Damned United,” “On any Sunday” and “North Dallas Forty”

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Are You Ready for some Football? Happy Super Bowl Sunday!

Posted on February 3, 2013 at 8:00 am

Get ready with one of my favorite football movies:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mO0lbi3PGFA

Or this one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Itqiy2N6Uo

(Did you catch Ryan Gosling and Hayden Panitierre?)

There’s more Ryan Gosling in this little-seen football movie gem:

Or you could try this one, featuring real-life college football player Dwayne (The Rock) Johnson:

Or watch them all at once!

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Sports

Celebrate the World Cup with Soccer Movies

Posted on June 18, 2010 at 8:00 am

Is this the year the US finally gets it about soccer, I mean football? The biggest sporting event on the planet is the World Cup, taking place this year in South Africa. Now is a great time to recognize the beauty and skill of the world’s most popular game with soccer movies.

1. Bend it Like Beckham A young woman from a traditional Indian family living in London joins a soccer team in this delightful comedy about fitting in and standing out. Parminder Nagra stars along with Keira Knightley, Jonathan Rhys Meyers (“The Tudors”), and Archie Panjabi (“The Good Wife”)

2. The Cup is a gentle and utterly beguiling story of a group of Tibetan monks who go to great lengths to watch the World Cup.

3. Gracie Gracie Bowen (“Mean Creek’s” Carly Schroeder) is the only girl in a soccer-mad blue-collar family in New Jersey, based on the true story of actress Elisabeth Shue, who plays Gracie’s mother. Her younger brothers tease her without mercy, but her older brother Johnny, a star athlete, always encourages her. When he is killed in an accident, she decides to make his dream of beating the rival team come true by taking his place on the team. The boys’ team.

4. The Damned United The star and screenwriter of “The Queen” and “Frost/Nixon” explore some of the same themes of ambition and celebrity in this fact-based story of the soccer coach who took one team to the top and then nearly took a top team to the bottom. Michael Sheen plays Brian Clough, a man whose talents were almost as great as his ego.

5. “The Other Final” When the Netherlands did not qualify for the 2002 World Cup Finals, a Dutch fan came up with the idea of an “alternative” final between the two lowest ranking countries in the world. That would be Bhutan (202nd) and Montserrat (203rd). Neither side had a coach and three days before the match they still didn’t have a referee.

6. A Shot at Glory My friend Desson Thomson, former movie critic for the Washington Post, knows as much about movies as anyone and more about soccer than everyone. He says this movie is worth seeing but not for its story and warns that you should probably turn the volume down when Robert Duvall attempts a Scottish accent. But he assures me that the soccer scenes, featuring real professional players are very well done.

7. Air Bud: World Pup The sports-playing dog joins the soccer team in this family-friendly series entry featuring real-life U.S. Women’s Soccer Team champions Brandi Chastain, Brianna Scurry, and Tisha Venturini.

8. Shaolin Soccer This king fu fantasy movie about an underdog soccer team from writer/director/star Stephen Chow is a genre-bending delight with out-of-this-world special effects.

9. Fever Pitch (1997) Forget the pallid US remake about the Red Sox with Drew Barrymore. And ignore the inflammatory DVD cover art and poster. This version, stars Colin Firth, based on the Nick Hornby book about a teacher whose love for his underdog team begins to interfere with the rest of his life, and it is a sharp, funny, and affectionate portrait of the tribal world of the passionate fan.

10. The Miracle Match (originally called “The Game of Their Lives”) In one of the great upsets in sports history, the US beat England for the World Cup championship in 1950. Gerard Butler and Wes Bentley star in this movie from the people behind “Rudy” and “Hoosiers.”

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