Last week, Chris Withers took offence to my list of ten must-watch sports films, and responded by posting one of his very own. While his list contained some gems, I’ll admit — A League of Their Own and The Battered Bastards of Baseball are impressive entries, in particular — but questioning my taste just because I included an awkward Canadian bobsled film? That’s just low, man.
Oh well, at least he went full Bob Barker and punched Adam Sandler in the face with his words.
Here are five more sports movies you oughta know.
5. Bull Durham
Buy it here.
I am not the biggest Kevin Costner fan in the world, trust me, but I have to admit the guy had a spell there where he could do no wrong. No Way Out, JFK, The Untouchables… Even Dances with Wolves, for all its tatanka cheesiness, was a remarkable accomplishment. One of the first post-modern instances of a star pouring their own resources into a project when studios were backing off Dances with Wolves can be argued as the forefather of such films as Good Night and Good Luck, franchises like Mission: Impossible or series like True Detective, House of Cards and Arrested Development. But I digress. Bull Durham sees Costner at his stoical best, plain-Janing the lead role while chaos swarms around him. Susan Sarandon is steamy and smart as a baseball groupie who latches onto the Durham Bulls minor league team; Tim Robbins is hilarious as a young pitcher who focusses as much on his libido as the strike zone. The jokes hit more than miss, and the acting chops of everyone involved mean we actually care about the people trapped in this special breed of small town hell — two things Major League can’t claim for all of its nearsighted gags and MLB licensing. Bull Durham is worth watching for Tim Robbins standing on the mound in high-end lingerie.
4. Dodgeball
Buy it here.
Is it smart? No way in hell. Is it funny? Hells yes. Vince Vaughn turns in his only watchable performance, and Ben Stiller nails the brain-dead obnoxious a-hole he’s known for. Let’s call a spade a bleeping shovel here: Dodgeball boasts an insultingly formulaic script. The owner of a small gym (Vaughn) needs $50,000 to prevent being bought out by a soulless corporation (run by a hilariously over-the-top Stiller), so of course they go head-to-head in a dodgeball tournament with a winner-take-all payout of — wait for it — $50,000. The script, while simple, hits every point a sports movie should: the set-up, the team-building, the initial failure, the swelling of doubt, the seemingly insurmountable obstacle, the almost inhuman opposition, the celebrity cameo, the colourful play-by-play, the moment of truth. We know what’s coming, and when it’s going to come. Still, Dodgeball works, because it features a stellar cast of comedians, all playing to their strengths. It’s worth watching for Rip Torn’s wheelchair-bound ex-world class dodgeballer whipping the contents of his toolbox at his team: “If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball!”
3. The Rookie
Buy it here.
Dennis Quaid takes the lead in this Disney movie based on the real-life story of science teacher Jim Morris. In his late 30s, nearly 20 years after injuring his shoulder and cutting short a promising baseball career, Morris finds himself coaching a small town high school baseball team. When he challenges his sad sack team not to quit, they throw his own shortened career in his face. “We’re quitters? You’re the quitter!” And thus, a wager is born: if the team wins the local tournament, Morris will try out for a major league team once again. Cue the montage of Rocky-esque training techniques that shows improbable improvement in a few short minutes. Likewise, compact years of marital tension into two perfectly scripted 30-second scenes. Just like that, the team qualifies for the state championship, and Jim Morris sneaks off to a conveniently timed open tryout for the Tampa Bay Rays. It turns out, that shoulder surgery he’d gotten all those years ago didn’t wreck his arm at all. In fact, he’s now throwing 98-mile-an-hour fastballs. History — and a few years later, Hollywood feature — was made, as Morris became the oldest rookie in Major League Baseball since World War II. Director John Lee Hancock isn’t exactly known for a light touch; still, he’ll appear twice on this list with this and #2 below. The Rookie is worth watching for the acceptable cheese in those Disney moments: “Owls win! Owls win!”
Here’s an interview with Quaid and Morris that took place during the film’s promotional cycle:
2. Cinderella Man
Buy it here.
When Ron Howard directs Russell Crowe, only good things happen. Okay, the Best Actor Oscar for 2002 went to Denzel Washington for Training Day — while I loves me some Denzel, this was a travesty as far as awards go. Washington won for two political reasons: first, in an attempt to erase decades of quite literally whitewashing their awards, the Academy as a whole was in love with the idea of giving both lead actor statuettes to black performers. Training Day is far from Washington’s best performance, but then again it’s unfathomable that Al Pacino won his Best Actor statue for the pedestrian Scent of a Woman. Second, Crowe had taken home the big prize just one year earlier as the lead in Gladiator. Digression achievement unlocked. Other than Best Actor at the Oscars, A Beautiful Mind won just about every award available in 2002. Three years later, Paul Giamatti was nominated as Best Supporting Actor for Cinderella Man —a Depression-era boxing movie that is at once gritty and gorgeous, superb and sad. It wouldn’t be a Ron Howard picture without a dramatic happy ending, but even that is drenched in a palette of mud browns and dust greys. Like Quaid’s Jim Morris in The Rookie, Crowe’s ex-boxer James J Braddock overcomes injury (in this case a broken dominant hand) to come back better than ever. His wife, played angrily by Renée Zellweger, is so tortured by her hubby’s choice to go back into the ring that she can’t bear to watch the title fight. Cinderella Man is worth watching for its brutally realistic boxing scenes. I felt like Max Baer was hitting me in the midsection in those final moments.
Here’s some highlights from that 1935 title fight:
1. Seabiscuit
Buy it here.
I’m sensing a bit of a pattern here. The Oscar-nominated Seabiscuit features a broken athlete who defies the odds to come back after devastating injury. Tobey Maguire plays Red Pollard, a Depression-era jockey whose side gig as a small town boxer leaves him blind in one eye. That’s not good enough, you say? Well, he shatters his leg at one point in the film as well, but comes back to ride the famous race against War Admiral. Oh, I’m sorry, was that a spoiler? Come on, you know the beats in this film every bit as well as the ones in Dodgeball.The difference: this film features Jeff Bridges, Chris Cooper, Elizabeth Banks and William H Macy instead of Vince Vaughn, Ben Stiller, Jason Bateman and Rip Torn. Another: it’s written and directed by Gary Ross, of Pleasantville, Big, The Hunger Games and The Tale of Despereaux, whereas Dodgeball was helmed by a guy whose only other widely known feature is the mediocre road flick We’re the Millers. Seabiscuit is worth watching for excellent performances up and down the cast, but especially for the stirringly well-shot racing sequences. This is a gorgeous film; the American Society of Cinematographers gifted Seabiscuit its Oustanding Achievement in Cinematography award for 2004.
If you’re interested in some historical perspective, here’s actual footage from the 1938 match race between Sea Biscuit and War Admiral: