Post on sports books is really good. What about movies. Touching the Void is coming out this month should be good. They had an article about it in this month’s Outside.
I just got The Hard Road (2001 Net Zero Cycling Team) Really good. Read my review at triyoda.com
I’ll just stick to Endurance sports type. Other ones (good):
Without Limits (Steve Prefontaine)
Fire on the Track (Steve Prefontaine documentary)
American Flyers (Bike Racing, with Kevin Costner) a little cheesy, but fun and you can get it in the bargain DVD bin for $6.00
Not so Good:
Triathlon, through the eyes of the elite. Boring!
Prefontaine (Jared Leto and Ed O’Neil) funny but its not a comedy!
Hands down to “Breaking Away”, brings me back to that magical time in cycling. Those who can relate to ogling Campy Super record stuff (oh man that’s real titanium) and wearing wool jerseys should have this in their movie chest.
My favorite movies are those based on real stories … Rudy, The Rookie, 61*, etc.
Rare is the sports movie that comes across as true even though it isn’t … Rocky, Hoosiers, Field of Dreams, etc. These movies are fantastic.
Even more rare are those great sports movies that are humorous without being outright cheesy or stereotypical. Good ones are Slapshot ("You Saw Em. Gloves off, sticks on the ice, they CHALLENGED THE CHIEFS!), Bull Durham, etc.
Rather than watch retarded movies like For Love of the Game, I’d rather just watch ESPN and view Jack Morris throwing 10 innnings in the 91 World Series to beat Atlanta 1-0. No movie could duplicate the real-life drama and emotion.
Most sports movies are either music videos (Any Given Sunday) or a lame attempt a humor (Unnecessary Roughness and countless others).
I’d rather watch a sports documentary than most movies. Fiction rarely, if ever, compares to real-life. Can any fictional story compare to Armstrongs’ or the Miracle on Ice?
2 favorite movie scenes:
Rocky II … when he’s visiting Adrian in the hospital and she tells him “I want you to do one thing for me. Win”. I feel as though I could run through a wall. The training montage following is inspritational.
Rudy – as he opens the 3rd letter from Notre Dame. The previous 2 have been rejections. The 3rd one is acceptance. He weeps, and so do I. Very few would even have the balls to make it that far, let alone go through with the football part.
yep, I liked Rudy too…although I saw it after Lord of the rings and it bugged me to see a hobbit trying to play football…
slapshot was great…but it was just plain hilarious in the Quebec version…people from QC on this forum will likely agree
Endurance was good too. (life of Gebreselassie with himself)
there was a movie with Michael Douglas as a marathon runner (remember he runs to work with his tie around his head…) where he collapses a few miles from the finish of the qual race for the olympics.
It was the called “the champion” I think…but not sure.
Hoosiers was based on a true story- tiny Milan High School winning the Indiana all schools state title.
And ESPN Classic rocks when it’s actually showing the old games (not Sportscentury) I cry every time I see them show a hockey team clinching the Stanley Cup. I’m fascinated by the old Wide World of Sports broadcasts. Now when are they going to do an Ironman marathon?
" I tried to capture the spirit of the thing. " (repeat)
"This young man has had a very trying rookie season, with the litigation, the notoriety, his subsequent deportation to Canada and that country’s refusal to accept him, I guess that’s more than most 21-year-olds can handle. Number six, Ogie Oglethorpe. "
" Is the answer Jesus? "
“The fans are standing up to them! The security guards are standing up to them! The peanut vendors are standing up to them! And by golly, if I could be down there, I’d be standing up to them!”
“Breaking Away” was the first time I saw that men shaved their legs for reasons other than surgery. I did some business in Bloomington, Indiana, where the story was based out of and filmed and loved walking around seeing the locations.
“Slap Shot” always makes me laugh (Paul Newman - Grrrrrowl!)
“The Replacements” has given us a few good one-liners in our house with football sons (Remember chicks dig scars).
Can never make it through “Rudy” without a box of tissues nearby.
Can’t wait to see “Miracle” as soon as it is out, based on the 1980 US hockey team.
I really hate to do this, but it’s “Brian’s Song” the story of Brian Piccolo and his rival teammate turned friend Gale “The Kansas Comet” Sayers. I prefer the James Caan & Billy Dee Williams version to the newer “Hey we can make money of this tear-jerker” crappier version.
As a Bears’ fan I couldn’t let it be called “Ryan’s song” (although Ryan is the most regal and powerful of all names). Nothing personal.
This movie led to one of the saddest moments of my life. A speech by Virginia McCaskey … wife of longtime owner of the Bears. At the game following Walter Payton’s death, this little old lady spoke to the crowd at Soldier Field, saying “After Brian died, we said we’d never get involved with another player. Then came Walter …”
I couldn’t choke them back.
Forget Jordan, Forget Hull, Forget Sandberg, Banks and Sosa, Chicago is STILL Walter’s town.
I saw Touching the Void last night (it’s released in England). Very good. Documentary style with Simpson and Yates in a studio talking about what happened and two other climbers recreating the story at the same time.
Truely amazing - Simpson should have died several times.
I also rewatch the IMAX film “Everest” fairly frequently on DVD. It’s both inspiring and a recognition of our mortality when pushing the edge.
The Cutting Edge- yeah it’s cheesy, cliched and over the top, but I can’t stop watching when I come across it on the dish. Helps that the leads are attractive and have a good sense of comic timing; the story, though cliched, works; and the producers seem to be in on the joke. (“I can’t believe it. He’s tangled up in his own lederhosen!”)
I saw a documentary on HBO called “Smashing Machine” about one of those Ultimate Fighting guys the night before a criterium. It wasn’t inspirational, per-se, but seeing the hell those guys went through made the “butterflies” go away. On race day, the movie stuck with me and I just thought about “how much worse” it could be and ended up racing more aggressively than I ever have. Course, I crashed spectacularly on the last lap (not my fault, honestly) but that’s the way it goes
I can’t believe noone has yet mentioned “American Flyers” with Kevin Costner. I believe that was 1985 or so. A bit corny, but I have always loved that movie!
