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Author Topic: Munchin's Sports Movie Marathon  (Read 10196 times)

smirnoff

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Re: Munchin's Sports Movie Marathon
« Reply #20 on: May 09, 2011, 11:23:24 AM »
Pretty much how I feel about it too (though I'd give it a rather lower rating). Not a film I grew up on so that part of the charm is lost on me. The jokes were mostly dated which made me look to the story to carry me through, but as you said, it's nothing special.

Bull Durham, now there's a film that holds up nicely.  8)

munchin

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Re: Munchin's Sports Movie Marathon
« Reply #21 on: May 09, 2011, 12:03:32 PM »
Pretty much how I feel about it too (though I'd give it a rather lower rating). Not a film I grew up on so that part of the charm is lost on me. The jokes were mostly dated which made me look to the story to carry me through, but as you said, it's nothing special.

Bull Durham, now there's a film that holds up nicely.  8)

Yeah, I appreciated enough about the film that it seemed more like a 3.5 than a 3.0, but my ratings are somewhat arbitrary anyway. I agree that it seems like the kind of film that nostalgia helps out. I bet if I watched Little Big League now (which was ALWAYS playing on Showtime) I'd be kinder to it than it deserved.

maņana

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Re: Munchin's Sports Movie Marathon
« Reply #22 on: May 09, 2011, 12:06:00 PM »
The Randy Newman musical bookends are really evocative
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tinyholidays

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Re: Munchin's Sports Movie Marathon
« Reply #23 on: May 12, 2011, 03:54:18 PM »
Bull Durham, now there's a film that holds up nicely.  8)

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munchin

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Re: Munchin's Sports Movie Marathon
« Reply #24 on: May 21, 2011, 09:01:39 PM »

3. Wimbledon (2008)
Written by Adam Brooks, Jennifer Flackett and Mark Levin
Directed by Richard Loncraine


I should preface this by stating that tennis is, by far, my absolute favorite sport in the world to watch and to participate in. A constant source of annoyance and bafflement to tennis fans is the fact that, to this date, there has never been a truly great tennis film that really captures the game in an evocative, passionate way. Tennis doesn't have a Bull Durham or a Hoosiers. In fact, the best tennis films that I've seen have been produced for television (the fun Billie Jean King/Battle of the Sexes biopic When Billie Beat Bobby with Holly Hunter and Ron Silver and the ESPN 30 for 30 doc about Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova). Everything else has been mediocre or just plain bad.

When Wimbledon was about to come out, a lot of tennis fans sort of held their breath. It had a decent budget, two notable stars in Paul Bettany (fresh off an excellent turn in Master and Commander) and Kirsten Dunst (fresh off of not detracting from Spiderman 2 and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) and a fun-looking trailer. So when it came out and was a fairly weak film, we fans weren't surprised but very disappointed. But hope springs eternal. This is the third time I've seen this film and I always hope that I'll catch something I missed before or find something to latch on to that will make the experience enjoyable. This time I thought that maybe in the context of this marathon, I would enjoy the experience more. I'd say for the third time, I've struck out on that (to mix sports metaphors) but I can at least say that this time I hated it less than ever.

Wimbledon is the tale of a journeyman British tennis player (Paul Bettany) at the tail end of his career.  He was once ranked in the top 20 but now he's a step slow, less powerful and being overtaken by younger talent. But filled with confidence after a tryst with a young American up-and-comer Lizzie Bradbury (Kirsten Dunst), he is filled with renewed confidence and finds himself in a position to be the first British man to win Wimbledon in decades. But Lizzie's father (Sam Neill, given almost nothing to do but frown) is unhappy with his daughter being distracted and seeks to put an end to their budding relationship.

I won't beat around the bush, Kirsten Dunst does not turn in a great performance. She doesn't imbue her character with any personality or charm. On the podcast, Matty sometimes references young actresses "playing at" something rather than being convincing. Dunst here always seems to be "playing at" being a free-spirit with attitude. But she's utterly unconvincing. On the court, she simply seems to be doing a John McEnroe impression (the easiest impression in tennis history, for the record). I couldn't help but mentally compare it to Tom Hulce's transcendent performance in Amadeus. Hulce has said that much of his inspiration for that performance came from John McEnroe's behavior. Anyway, that's just a random musing about an actor channeling someone and Dunst doing a very simple imitation.

Bettany does the best he can to make the romance between the two engaging, but that is probably the weakest part of the film. It's a romantic comedy without a convincing romance. The two Meet Cute, have sex, and all of a sudden they're in love. All of the spark, charm and chemistry has been omitted.

This film also tries to be accessible to both tennis fans and tennis outsiders, succeeding in appeasing no one. There are a bunch of nice touches that only tennis viewers would  appreciate (the well-placed cameos by John Barrett and Mary Carrillo, for example) but then there are simple details that make a tennis fan want to put their foot through the screen (confusing "games" with "sets," forgetting that Wimbledon has 7 rounds, not 6, etc.) The kicker is the commentary. Mcenroe and Chris Evert make cameos as TV commentators for the final match and their play-by-play is so idiotic and oversimplified  that i can't believe those two excellent real-life commentators agreed to read the lines.

Okay, rant over.

The film does have some nice touches. The screenplay is often very fun and very funny. Paul Bettany and James McAvoy (playing Bettany's brother) have some very clever lines and moments with each other. In fact, I wish the film would have been about Bettany's relationship with his dysfunctional family, rather than with Kirsten Dunst. The family is typically only utilized for simple comic relief but their scenes work while the ones with Dunst don't. Bettany's inner monologue during his matches also rings very true. Voiceover, more often than not, isn't terribly effective, but in this film, the scenes where we hear Bettany's thoughts as he's losing or winning work for me because they seem to be written by someone who has a strong relationship with the game of tennis. I laughed out loud when Bettany was serving for a match and all he could think ad nauseum was "don't choke, don't choke, don't choke, please don't choke." Any tennis player can relate to that exact moment.

But the film ultimately doesn't work. Dunst is simply a drag on the film and romance is completely dead on arrival. The plot itself is formulaic to a fault and it doesn't build any tension. There is not a single surprising or original thing here cinematically or plot-wise. It's a bit of a missed opportunity. With a different focus and a stronger, more dedicated lead actress it could have been something worth seeing a fourth time.

2.5 out of 5.0

verbALs

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Re: Munchin's Sports Movie Marathon
« Reply #25 on: May 22, 2011, 05:58:39 AM »
Hitchcock tried to make an interesting film about tennis.
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Monty

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Re: Munchin's Sports Movie Marathon
« Reply #26 on: May 22, 2011, 06:52:38 AM »
munchin, I don't know if your a fan of cricket, but Fire In Babylon, a documentary about the West Indies cricket team of the 70/80's has been recently released. I haven't seen it myself, but is supposed to be very good.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1727790/

http://fireinbabylon.com/


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munchin

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Re: Munchin's Sports Movie Marathon
« Reply #27 on: May 22, 2011, 01:27:40 PM »
Hitchcock tried to make an interesting film about tennis.

Strangers on a Train? I think that's a masterpiece (i just rewatched it about 3 weeks ago and loved it more than ever) but in no way would I consider it a sports film, unfortunately. Though the tennis scenes are unarguably the best ever filmed.

munchin

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Re: Munchin's Sports Movie Marathon
« Reply #28 on: May 30, 2011, 12:29:48 AM »

4. Ring of Fire: The Emile Griffith Story (2005)
Directed by Dan Klores and Ron Berger


The champion boxer Emile Griffith has had to overcome so many mental and societal torments in his life and career that it's a little amazing he made as much of himself as he managed to. Griffith has lead a life of some notoriety stemming largely from two things: the fact that he is a gay man who was not as deeply in the closet as most other prominent gay celebrities of his heyday and the fact that he killed another fighter, Benny Paret, in the ring in a televised fight on NBC in 1962. The guilt and mental anguish from this fight and the severely limited acceptance of gay men in society (and total rejection of gay men in sports) combined to take a strong toll on the man. But what I enjoyed about Ring of Fire were the glimpses we got into the gregarious spirit of Griffith as he fights his latest battle - dementia caused by decades of boxing and a vicious hate-crime perpetrated on him as he was leaving a gay bar in 1992.

Griffith seems like such a gentle, fun, energetic man. Nothing about his modern-day self, as we see interviewed in this documentary, would indicate that this was a man who had brutally ended a life in a boxing ring. Yet as the film describes the events of that 1962 fight, we see the energy kind of flow out of him. In the interviews, he still seems a little baffled that it happened at all. Reliving the events appears tortuous for him. The guilt still consumes him 4 decades later. This aspect of the film is handled quite well. Griffith still seems broken by those events and watching him talk about them is riveting.

Unfortunately, the other issues the film tries to explore don't feel like they're examined closely or thoroughly enough. The film would have done well to include more discussion about Griffith's attitude toward sexuality. This is a man who dismisses as ridiculous every silly stereotype about gay man, yet that dichotomy is only explored in passing and Griffith and this film don't spend much time talking about his personal life, except to discuss his brief, unfulfilling marriage (for obvious reasons). That subject is prime for exploration but the film doesn't spend anywhere near enough time there.

The other giant misstep the film makes is its handling of the family of Benny Paret, the boxer killed by Griffith. We get a some insights from his widow about raising their young child by herself, but again, it's not really enough. We hear that it was hard and that she was very sad, but there could have been much more of an exploration of her life after losing her husband. We do get a decent look at their son, which is very interesting and handled well up until towards the end where there is a contrived and awkward meeting of the son and Griffith himself during which the son forgives Griffith for everything. My problem with this isn't that it's awkward - I mean, of course it would be. How could it not be. But it's utterly uncinematic. It falls completely flat and you just end up feeling like you're intruding on what should be a very private cathartic moment.

While a fascinating documentary in theory, I was left with a similar impression I had after watching The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg. It really would have been great if some of the multitude of talking heads had been diminished and in place, we could get some more words straight from Griffith's mouth. He's the more engaging figure; he's the one who has lived through all of this. I hope the future documentaries I see for this marathon get that a little closer to right.

3.5 out of 5.0

munchin

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Re: Munchin's Sports Movie Marathon
« Reply #29 on: July 11, 2011, 10:21:17 AM »

5. No Holds Barred (1989)
Written by Dennis Hackin
Directed by Thomas J. Wright


I'm back from a somewhat extended vacation from the movies and thought I'd choose one of the lighter items on my list to continue the marathon with. Now, I won't lie, I've always been at least a moderate fan of professional wrestling. In my teen years, it was the one thing I would watch every single week, and even now I find myself tuning into it every now and then, just because I find it rather interesting. It's nothing sophisticated, to be sure. It's a showcase for often very choreographed fighting and stunts as well as a spectacle of charisma and unnaturally muscular humanity. In fact, spectacle is probably the exact right word. It's nothing deep and nothing to think much about - just something to enjoy for a couple hours.

This is perhaps why pro wrestling does not translate especially well to narrative film. It's already contrived and choreographed and, to use a crass description, "fake." So it usually seems silly to add an extra layer of contrivance on top of it, suggesting that perhaps, in the film's world, it's real. Many films have tried to do this successfully over the years and I cannot think of one that actually did. Perhaps the highest profile example of this is the 1989 Hulk Hogan vehicle - No Holds Barred. In the world of this film, real-life disputes are settled in semi-sanctioned brawls between muscle-bound men who, I guess, can't put enough coherent words and thoughts together to settle them any other way. More ridiculous premises have worked on film before. In this case, however, I can't help but imagine that I've viewed the worst film of the marathon.

Hogan plays "Rip," a monumentally popular professional wrestling champion who draws colossal ratings on his network when he defends his title. A ruthless, conniving rival network executive (a cringe-worthily over-the-top Kurt Fuller) tries to buy Rip's allegiance but is enraged when Rip proves incorruptible. He then scours the country to find a vicious enough fighter (Tiny Lister) to both steal ratings from Rip's network and to defeat Rip in the ring. Along the way, he terrorizes Rip's one-dimensional girlfriend (Joan Severance) and his oddly personality-free brother (a young Mark Pellegrino). Rip is eventually pushed far enough that he decides to fight back - on his enemy's terms.  ::)

Enough about the plot - it really makes absolutely no sense. This is obviously a film aimed at little kids and little kids only. There are a so many moments of such childish scatalogical humor and illogical behavior, that I wouldn't be surprised if very young wrestling fans were used as consultants. If you have any understanding of the way the world works, there is quite decidedly nothing to latch onto in this mess. The TV executive and Tiny Lister do so many wildly, recklessly illegal things in public and on camera that they should spend the entire film in prison. But in the world of the film, the police don't even seem to exist, so the only option is to settle scores in no-holds-barred wrestling matches. This is a truly bad film. Ineptly shot, poorly acted, edited almost randomly it seems, at times. It's simply a disaster. I'm upset at myself for having even chosen it for the marathon.

0.5 out of 5.0  (basically it gets a half star for 3 pretty funny lines)
« Last Edit: July 11, 2011, 10:23:29 AM by munchin »