Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Do People Only Like Their Sports' Movies Sympathetic?

I noted that 42 despite tepid reviews did okay at the box office. MONEYBALL, an excellent but cynical look at baseball last year or the year before, did not do all that well despite the star power of Brad Pitt.

Are we especially nostalgic about sports movies and only embrace ones that show the sport the way we would hope it to be rather than how it is? My favorites take a more jaundiced look at sports. HOOP DREAMS, for instance.

Baseball movies seem the most nostalgic. What are your favorites? Which ones offer a full picture?

26 comments:

Anonymous said...

You're right, lots of good baseball movies. Here are 10 favorites:

Field of Dreams
Bang the Drum Slowly
Bull Durham
Pride of the Yankees
Eight Men Out (certainly unpleasant)
The Stratton Story
It Happens Every Spring
The Bad News Bears
The Bingo Long Traveling All Stars & Motor Kings
A League of Their Own

The worst sports movies ever:

The Babe Ruth Story (William Bendix)
Safe at Home!

As a big Yankee fan I had to see this when it came out in 1962. Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris played themselves, very very badly.

Jeff M.

Charles Gramlich said...

Hadn't really thought about it before. Two of my favorites are North Dallas Forty and Any Given Sunday, both of which are pretty cynical, I think.

pattinase (abbott) said...

the most cynicism seems to come with football and boxing movies.

George said...

Sports feed fantasies so I suspect you're right about the positive endings being preferred over downers. But an exception might be the original Brian's Song.

Todd Mason said...

Football and boxing are the primary US sports about hurting each other, though hockey always tries to high-stick its way into that club. MMA gaining currency as Real Life wrasslin'.

Bendix was fine, as I remember him, in KILL THE UMPIRE...not in scary thug nor hagiography mode so much as a less goofy variation on Riley.

Among the most clear-eyed sports films I recall:
PERSONAL BEST
DOWNHILL RACER
FAT CITY
SLAPSHOT
the somewhat hagiographic telefilm BABE (haven't seen it since it was new)
HEART LIKE A WHEEL

among the worst:
THE BETSY (despite the swimming pool scene)
WHEN WE WERE KINGS (if the fetishistic worship of every backstage sweating frame of James Brown they could find wasn't enough, they so tellingly coupled that with repeated insult to Miriam Makeba)

Prashant C. Trikannad said...

I thought the ROCKY series was overdone. Do they actually fight like he does in the ring? I have never been to a real boxing match. On the other hand, THE CHAMP, I think, is the most sympathetic film about boxing I've seen.

Anonymous said...

Ah yes, who could ever forget the swimming pool scene in THE BETSY?

Not I.


Jeff M.

Todd Mason said...

I was oddly happified to learn a year or so back that Ms. Beller and Thomas Dolby wed, some years after their most intensely public lives, and apparently have had a good or at least a lasting marriage.

George said...

One of my favorite movies features a bicycle race: BREAKING AWAY.

pattinase (abbott) said...

saw that again not long ago and it holds up.

Todd Mason said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Todd Mason said...

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2013/05/likable_and_unlikable_characters_in_fiction_claire_messud_and_meg_wolitzer.html

Anonymous said...

My favorite sports movie is Bull Durham which is wise about baseball AND life. It also features one of my all-time favorite quotes: "The world is made for people who aren't cursed with self-awareness." How often I have had recourse to quote that line. Sigh.

Deb

pattinase (abbott) said...

THat seems to be a very common discussion right now, Todd.
I wondered where that line came from Deb. Thanks.

Todd Mason said...

Fantasies of meaningful "genre" will do that to one.

Chris said...

Caddyshack!

How about Casey's Shadow?

pattinase (abbott) said...

Wow1 They both are distance hums for me. Horse racing movies? Are they more about gambling than sports?

Anonymous said...

The only part of CADDYSHACK I really liked was Rodney. Other non baseball sports movies I like:

Brian's Song (original only)
Slap Shot
Breaking Away


Jeff M.

Todd Mason said...

More horse-racing films should be about cruelty to horses, but NATIONAL VELVET through SECRETARIAT are largely about the horses and their keepers, as opposed to GUYS AND DOLLS...

Todd Mason said...

BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM was certainly pleasant/reasonably true to life.

Kent Morgan said...

How come no one mentioned Idol of the Crowds where John Wayne plays a chicken farmer who tries to save his farm by playing hockey? Try to top that one. I have to admit I haven't seen it, but I do have a borrowed VHS copy that I will watch at the cottage where we still have a player.

pattinase (abbott) said...

WOW!! Let us know if it's any good.

Anders E said...

The best boxing movies tend to be the cynical ones:

Requiem for a Heavyweight
The Set-Up
The Harder They Fall

Anders E said...

There is a surprising lack of good soccer (ouch, I hate that word - you yanks are just WRONG) movies. BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM, sure. SHE'S THE MAN is also quite good - except for the actual football (ha!) scenes. I haven't seen THE DAMNED UNITED but I have heard good things about it.

Anders E said...

There are of course many documentaries out there. I guess I'm partial but I just love the footage from the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm, some of which can be found on youtube. Things were so much simpler back then.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvN6DD8fMJ4

And speaking of 1912, there's this about the remarkable Jim Thorpe:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlur2JYDYhg

Chris said...

For soccer movies, The Damned United was great.

Seabiscuit was a good enough horse racing movie too.