So, due to a nice coincidence, when I hadn't been studying over the last month, I've been watching sports movies. Call it an unplanned sports marathon. I have a similar story to Stephen Fry regarding sports. I couldn't be far enough away from them as a teen, but as I've grown older (wiser?), I regret not taking an interest sooner. To be fair to my younger self, I still maintain a lot of the blame has to go on the PE department at my high school. On my first day there, all of the new kids had to jog around one of the school fields. After fifteen minutes, the head of the department shouted out letters while we finished our laps. I was assigned to Group D (the worst). I was wearing glasses. A friend of mine was assigned to Group A (the best). He had asthma, but he was tall.
Since time has gone on, I've learnt to appreciate the fine art of ice hockey and motorsports, but I can watch most sports now with a semblance of knowledge. However, there are two sports that baffle me; cricket and baseball. They're pretty equivalent sports; balls get chucked, balls get hit, people in the stands get drunk and the whole thing lasts an eternity, but there's just something about them that has never inspired my imagination. So, what does LOVEFiLM decide to do? In a four film run of sports, it sends me two baseball films. Ah well, at least I'll be clued up on it before I go see Moneyball (stupid November UK release date).
To be fair, the selection of the films was quite well balanced. There was a mixture of fiction and documentary, comedy and drama. In order; Bull Durham, Slap Shot, the King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters and Eight Men Out. Like I said, quite a good selection. KoK is highly touted, Bull Durham was held on a very tall pedestal by a screenwriting book I own, Eight Men Out would be my first John Sayles and Slap Shot is about ice hockey - the greatest sport devised by mortal personage. For the sheer sanity of anyone reading this, I'll quite these reviews brief.
Bull Durham: Damn, that's a good opening line, but I don't think this is a great baseball movie. That's not to say I don't rate it, but I never see why their only drive is the game. You could replace baseball with nearly an art, craft or frivolity and this film would work just as well (hmm, the Wedding Planner meets Bull Durham - I think I need to call Fox). Tim Robbins is pitch perfect (boom boom), Costner is...well...Costner, but he works well here.
Slap Shot: This is quite an odd beast. I've only ever heard about this film second hand; in news articles from hockey writers referencing a joke here and there when discussing current events. From this I was expecting some silly farce in the vein of Airplane. Sure, there's definitely a lot of humour in this film, but I feel that it plays out like an elegy to the working class aesthetics of that period. Sure Paul Newman is very funny, but his far from being a "cool" character in this. In fact, his inability to correctly place the anger caused by the loss of his livelihood (be it from financial collapse of the club, the evolution of the game or his wife) makes him incredibly pathetic in his impotency. There's definitely a lot to love in this film (the chance to see a pre-Twin Peaks Michael Ontkean makes it well worth the rent) and I'd recommend it in a heartbeat.
King of Kong: This is definitely the urgent of the four. In fact, as soon as I finished watching it, I slapped it straight back into the DVD player and watched it all again. It plays out very similar to another documentary I saw this year, Senna. If you're at all familar with some of the "controversy" surrounding Senna, you'll instantly recognise the same issues with KoK, which hits on an interesting point. How truthful should a documentary be? Should it forgo honesty for an immersive narrative? Either way, it's an incredibly well constructed film and I look forward to seeing what director Seth Gordon can do when he's finished with his "commercial comedy" phase.
Eight Men Out: I can't believe I'd ever watch a film that made me nostalgic for a by-gone age of a sport I don't even like. Maybe I'm just a sucker for rose-tinted history, but I thought this was a wonderful film. This nearly had me excited about the World Series, nearly. But I tell you what, unlike Bull Durham, the threat of never playing baseball again is very much more real in this film. There's one shot especially that brings the thrill of the sport to life (you'd recognise it if you saw it, tracking shot around the diamond).
Maybe cricket just needs a good movie.
--------------------------------------------------
Sorry this post is a bit disjointed, I think I need to get back into the swing of things a bit here. Hopefully should be on top of posting once a week, maybe twice if I become incensed about something.
The BFI London Film Festival is on at the minute. I'm five films out of six down right now, last one is on Tuesday. Expect the next post to feature this heavily.
I received my first celebrity twitter follower t'other day - Sam Neill. Maybe this is because I sent a pro-Event Horizon to my favourite film podcast. He's quite big into his wine, I hope he doesn't find out that I often (read always) pick wine out by how cool the label looks.
I finally read the Great Gatsby. Jeez, those last three chapters are sheer perfection. Almost makes me too depressed to put pen to paper.
Yay! New Jersey aren't doing as bad as last year! I still think the playoffs are out of the question this year, but hopefully we'll be a better state next year. Larsson is looking like a thorough-bred right now.
Excitement is picking up on the current project with Jonathan Hatfull (http://jonathanwriting.blogspot.com/). Nothing of great interest to report yet, but it's all coming together rather nicely.
Since time has gone on, I've learnt to appreciate the fine art of ice hockey and motorsports, but I can watch most sports now with a semblance of knowledge. However, there are two sports that baffle me; cricket and baseball. They're pretty equivalent sports; balls get chucked, balls get hit, people in the stands get drunk and the whole thing lasts an eternity, but there's just something about them that has never inspired my imagination. So, what does LOVEFiLM decide to do? In a four film run of sports, it sends me two baseball films. Ah well, at least I'll be clued up on it before I go see Moneyball (stupid November UK release date).
To be fair, the selection of the films was quite well balanced. There was a mixture of fiction and documentary, comedy and drama. In order; Bull Durham, Slap Shot, the King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters and Eight Men Out. Like I said, quite a good selection. KoK is highly touted, Bull Durham was held on a very tall pedestal by a screenwriting book I own, Eight Men Out would be my first John Sayles and Slap Shot is about ice hockey - the greatest sport devised by mortal personage. For the sheer sanity of anyone reading this, I'll quite these reviews brief.
Bull Durham: Damn, that's a good opening line, but I don't think this is a great baseball movie. That's not to say I don't rate it, but I never see why their only drive is the game. You could replace baseball with nearly an art, craft or frivolity and this film would work just as well (hmm, the Wedding Planner meets Bull Durham - I think I need to call Fox). Tim Robbins is pitch perfect (boom boom), Costner is...well...Costner, but he works well here.
Slap Shot: This is quite an odd beast. I've only ever heard about this film second hand; in news articles from hockey writers referencing a joke here and there when discussing current events. From this I was expecting some silly farce in the vein of Airplane. Sure, there's definitely a lot of humour in this film, but I feel that it plays out like an elegy to the working class aesthetics of that period. Sure Paul Newman is very funny, but his far from being a "cool" character in this. In fact, his inability to correctly place the anger caused by the loss of his livelihood (be it from financial collapse of the club, the evolution of the game or his wife) makes him incredibly pathetic in his impotency. There's definitely a lot to love in this film (the chance to see a pre-Twin Peaks Michael Ontkean makes it well worth the rent) and I'd recommend it in a heartbeat.
King of Kong: This is definitely the urgent of the four. In fact, as soon as I finished watching it, I slapped it straight back into the DVD player and watched it all again. It plays out very similar to another documentary I saw this year, Senna. If you're at all familar with some of the "controversy" surrounding Senna, you'll instantly recognise the same issues with KoK, which hits on an interesting point. How truthful should a documentary be? Should it forgo honesty for an immersive narrative? Either way, it's an incredibly well constructed film and I look forward to seeing what director Seth Gordon can do when he's finished with his "commercial comedy" phase.
Eight Men Out: I can't believe I'd ever watch a film that made me nostalgic for a by-gone age of a sport I don't even like. Maybe I'm just a sucker for rose-tinted history, but I thought this was a wonderful film. This nearly had me excited about the World Series, nearly. But I tell you what, unlike Bull Durham, the threat of never playing baseball again is very much more real in this film. There's one shot especially that brings the thrill of the sport to life (you'd recognise it if you saw it, tracking shot around the diamond).
Maybe cricket just needs a good movie.
--------------------------------------------------
Sorry this post is a bit disjointed, I think I need to get back into the swing of things a bit here. Hopefully should be on top of posting once a week, maybe twice if I become incensed about something.
The BFI London Film Festival is on at the minute. I'm five films out of six down right now, last one is on Tuesday. Expect the next post to feature this heavily.
I received my first celebrity twitter follower t'other day - Sam Neill. Maybe this is because I sent a pro-Event Horizon to my favourite film podcast. He's quite big into his wine, I hope he doesn't find out that I often (read always) pick wine out by how cool the label looks.
I finally read the Great Gatsby. Jeez, those last three chapters are sheer perfection. Almost makes me too depressed to put pen to paper.
Yay! New Jersey aren't doing as bad as last year! I still think the playoffs are out of the question this year, but hopefully we'll be a better state next year. Larsson is looking like a thorough-bred right now.
Excitement is picking up on the current project with Jonathan Hatfull (http://jonathanwriting.blogspot.com/). Nothing of great interest to report yet, but it's all coming together rather nicely.
No comments:
Post a Comment