Tag: Sports

I really like hockey. Definitely my favorite sport to watch and cheer for. I also really like movies (you see where this is going?) So generally, hockey movies I am pretty fond of. Goon was fan-fucking-tastic, and Score: A Hockey Musical was so ridiculous, I couldn’t not enjoy it.

Well, the streak of great hockey movies is coming to an end tonight, unfortunately. Because I watched Breakaway.

I know what you are wondering. Yes, they do have helmets that can fit around turbans.

Rajveer Singh (Vinay Virmani) likes hockey. But he is Indian. Indian’s don’t play hockey. That is a fact! But her is actually good. All he does is play pick up with his friends, also all Indian, and they are looked down on by others. No, not by white people, just other older Indians. Indians don’t play hockey. Or Soccer. That is a movie reference of a movie with a similar plot, guys. Don’t make me spell it out.

Anyways, Rajveer had to leave college to work for his father (Anupam Kher), who really hates this hockey thing. He wants him to rise up in the family business that he created when he moved to America, but all Rajveer seems to want to do is play hockey and be a truck driver. No drive.

When Rajveer tries out for a local technically amateur but almost professional team in Toronto, he isn’t given a fair chance at all, despite being a great player. So he gets the idea. Why not just make a team with his friends? Then they can compete in the local tournament, win the cup, beat that other team whose name I can’t remember, and be heroes! Heroes to themselves at least.

Unless…unless the local Indian culture actually finds their tale inspirational and bands behind them? Just don’t tell Rajveer’s dad about it. No, the Speedy Singhs want to prove they can play hockey too. Also starring Camilla Belle as his love interest, Drake as the actual Drake (he likes Hockey, so what?), Russell Peters, and Rob Lowe as the local janitor turned their hockey coach.

Rob Lowe is LITERALLY the most famous person in this movie.

Oh goodness, the cliches.

Before anyone makes the claim, no I am not giving the movie a low rating just because of the first scene. Where our main character was imagining he was on the Toronto Maple Leafs and about to score the game 7 OT winner for the Stanley Cup against the Detroit Red Wings. Not the reason at all, but I did dislike it.

Unfortunately, this film is filled with all the cliches, even ones that are not about sports. There are other plot lines in here, outside of just Indians wanting to play hockey, but they weren’t as important, and just in general side plots. Because all the cliches happen, you will know already how it ends, and yeah, it does. There is even a chance when they might not get to play anymore due to a rule, but hey, they find a way around it. They even found an enforcer. They got it all!

The hockey in this movie isn’t really exciting to watch, and the story isn’t original. There was also a lot of Drake in this movie, more than I expected (which was around zero, I guess). It had some amusing moments, but not enough to make it worth ever watching again.

1 out of 4.

Turbo is the latest example of a kids movie following a very standard formula. Let’s take some sort of entity and either a) give them an impossible dream (and reach it!), or b) give them some ridiculous flaw (and overcome it!). Like a bird who doesn’t know how to fly. Or a plane that is afraid of heights (and wants to race). Or an overweight comedian who wants to box. Or a snail who wants to race in the Indy 500. Oh wait, that one is Turbo!

Fuck. Let’s get this over with. Turbo (Ryan Reynolds) is a snail! He has big dreams. He wants to go fast, and is the fastest snail he knows. In fact, he just did the yard in 17 minutes, a new personal record. He dreams of entering the Indy 500, thanks to words of advice from his hero Guy Gagne (Bill Hader), who claims that no dream is too big. His brother Chet (Paul Giamatti) thinks his dream is stupid, rightfully so.

Well, eventually Turbo falls into a car engine and gets coated with NOS, transforming his DNA and giving him incredible speed! This also somehow turns him partially into a car, with headlights, radio, rear review lights and stuff. Not sure how that second part happened. Even more eventually, Chet and Turbo find themself caught by Tito (Michael Pena), a down on his luck Taco maker. He works for his older brother (Luis Guzman) and their business is not doing well. Why did Turbo decide to not run away as soon as they were captured? No idea. But he could have.

Luckily, Tito is all into snail racing. Turns out Turbo is stupid fast and he wants to use Turbo to get more business. A very noble cause. So they set off to enter him into the Indy 500, for exposure. Nowadays kids would just make a YouTube video and become famous that way.

Oh yeah, Turbo has his own snail crew to back him up now. There is Whiplash (Samuel L. Jackson), Smoove Move (Snoop Dogg), Burn (Maya Rudolph), Skidmark (Ben Schwartz), and White Shadow (Mike Bell). Of course Ken Jeong voices a tiny Asian nail technician.

This movie is about to get fucked. Seriously. No mercy. Cover your eyes if you don’t like violent imagery.Let’s start with some factual errors. Why? Because they matter to me. I am a Masters Geophysics Student, and the sloppiness bugged me. Basically I am going to be super critical.

Turbo made a big deal about getting a yard in 17 minutes. I know it was a yard, because they showed the measuring stick briefly. However, 36 inches in 17 minutes is really slow. Like, really really slow. That is why I went over to WolframAlpha to convert it. Seriously check the link.

WolframAlpha is so amazing it compared the velocity calculated to the the velocity of a garden snail automatically and it is about 33% the speed of the actual garden snail. Great, we have a snail that is statistically slower than most garden snails. Let’s say that factual error can be ignored, fine. Unfortunately, almost every other point in the movie (pre-genetic manipulation), Turbo and other snails are still shown with greater velocities than his trial. Unless it was important to the plot that is (see: the tomato/lawn mower scene).

Come on now, consistency.

[Editor’s note: Apparently IRL and F1 are different things, but similar vehicles. I just know them as “Not NASCAR”. Point still stands, basically.]
The ending bugged me a lot as well. As it is a car race, it involved a pile up of cars real close to the finish. At this point, Turbo and Guy go into a “foot race” type of situation for the finish like, similar to Talladega Nights.  But according to official Formula 1 racing rules (here and here specifically), none of it would count and the whole thing feels pointless.

Let’s get to the most important part of the movie. This plot is inherently stupid and bad. I didn’t read the full rules for the Formula 1 racing, so I can’t confirm if there is no rule that would disallow a snail. However, the concept behind it can only be described as cheating and a snail would never be allowed to race in such an event. They have very specific standards for the size of the vehicles, type of protection they need, everything you can possibly imagine. The snail’s dimensions do not match a car’s dimensions. For an extreme example, it’d be like using a Ferrari. Or like doping.

At one point during the race, the announcer screams that he can’t believe Turbo is passing a car from below. I am fine with his reaction, because Turbo is basically cheating. But the announcer is surprised instead that he could fit, even though Formula 1 cars have about 4.5 inches of room underneath them, while a garden snail is at most 1.5 inches tall.

If you hadn’t figured out by now, Guy is the villain of this movie, but only because he wants to win the race too. Just like the other 30ish humans in the race, all doing it without cheating.

I laughed I think a total of two times. The laziness of the plot, the laziness of the details, and the laziness of the character development ruined this movie for me. To quote Eleanor Roosevelt. “America is all about speed. Hot, nasty, bad-ass speed.” Turbo would not have lived up to the former First Lady’s opinions on America or Racing.

 

1 out of 4.

First off, I am a bit disappointed. The movie 42 doesn’t get me any closer to figuring out the question of life, the universe, and everything.

Unless that question is baseball related. That’s right, 42 isn’t about The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy, but instead baseball, go figure. Not just any baseball story, like the forgettable Trouble With The Curve. This is baseball history! The story of Jackie Robinson, the first black MLB player. Well, technically the first black MLB player in modern, post World War II baseball. After all, Moses Fleetwood Walker played in the MLB for a season in 1884. But after that, sixty years is a pretty long time, with “Negro Leagues” put in place, so Jackie Robinson still turned heads in his debut.

Despite the turned heads, he still didn’t help us answer that dang question… 42 doesn’t focus on Jackie Robinson’s (Chadwick Boseman) entire life, but instead about 2.5 years of it. But before we get to Jackie, we first get to learn about Branch Rickey (Harrison Ford), GM of the Brooklyn Dodgers. If we listen to his reasoning at the beginning, he wants to try something crazy. That’s right, a black man on the Dodgers! Why not, that should increase ticket sales, and he will also do whatever he can to get his team a pennant.

So he picks Jackie from the pile, gets him on their minor league team, and hopes he can kick enough ass to make it on the MLB team, while holding back his anger enough to not let the rampant racism get to him.

This is a true story, we all know he makes it to the team after a year in the minors, and the rest, really is history. We also see a little bit into his relationship with his wife (Nicole Beharie), and I do just mean a little bit. There are other members of his team who all embrace in him different ways, some with petitions (Ryan Merriman), some with open arms (Lucas Black). Some managers didn’t give a shit (Christopher Meloni), and some made it their mission to make his life a living hell (The Phillies) (Alan Tudyk). But that is to be expected from a Philadelphia based team I guess.

This also has the smaller, yet still important, story of Wendell Smith (Andre Holland). He was the the first black member of the Baseball Writers Association of America, but first had to travel with the teams for two years, writing articles about Jackie and his struggles. That means Jackie Robinson was influential on more than just the baseball level, he just chose to end racism through beating the other team’s pitchers and stealing bases.

Oh there is also a John C. McGinley cameo as the radio announcer, dropping classic line after classic line of old timey talk.

Jackie probably thinks I am talking far too much about white people in this review.Speaking of white people, I guess Branch Rickey was pretty dang important to this story, but no one really talks about him in popular culture. The filmmaker makes sure you know how much of this all falls on his shoulders, and how it would not have happened (so soon) without him. Yep, this just ends up being another civil rights movie where white people are the saviors. Just like The Help and The Secret Life Of Bees. This literally keeps happening in film, and it is kind of annoying.

Even though in this example it might be true, it is still frustrating to see that it is focused on so heavily just to sell more tickets.

I loved Chadwick Boseman as Jackie Robinson. I am glad they went with a relatively unknown actor for the role, because that was one of my bigger problems with the movie Ali.

Overall, 42 is a feel good inspirational movie and it succeeds at that level. There is some intense emotion in here, but it still ends with everyone smiling by the end. It could have dealt with a lot more of his life, but hey, after his first year, he wasn’t the only guy able to make the switch. He was a great athlete, and this is an acceptable (if not entirely accurate) portrayal of his life. I personally still left the theater happy, despite any real issues.

 

3 out of 4.

Regardless of how good or bad the movie Here Comes The Boom ends up being, I think we all should give Kevin James some serious credit. He lost over 80 lbs for this movie, trained with MMA fighters (already being a big fan), and actually grew the muscle you see in the film.

You see that? That is perseverance if anything.

Scott Voss (James) is a down and out high school biology teacher. He gives zero fucks right now about his life, and is late quite often to teaching his own class. How does he teach? He lays back and lets them do book work, very little interaction. Ten years ago he was teacher of the year! He used to care then! But with budget cuts and changes in policy, he has lost all will to care. But you know who does care? Marty Streb (Henry Winkler), the music teacher. Not only that, but at his old age he has a kid on the way! So much passion, so little time. However, the school budget is being cut, and his job is gone after next year.

Well, Scott can’t accept that. He loves the orchaestra music he hears. They need to raise the money! But with out any other teachers willing to help, except for the school nurse (Salma Hayek). After teaching a few nigh time citizenship classes for extra funds, Scott agrees to tutor Niko (Bas Rutten), a large man from Holland who introduces him to UFC and other MMA events. What’s that? Even the loser makes cash? Well, shit! Scott used to wrestle in college, twenty years ago, he can just do that to earn money much faster!

Here Comes The Boom is one man’s quest to lose (and hey, maybe sometimes win) to save his new friends job at a high school that just doesn’t seem to care anymore. Also featuring Joe Rogan as himself, and Charice as a school girl in his class, who you might recognize as Sunshine for a few episodes on Glee.

Oh there is no way he doesn’t make it to the big times with this all star talent in his corner.

I know this may come as a shock, but the song Boom – P.O.D. is actually featured quite heavily in this movie. Who’d have thought?!

As expected, this film doesn’t offer much in terms of unique never before seen moments of film. It has its Rocky moments, but its hard to do a fighting movie without them. It even reminds me a bit of Warrior, one of the better/underrated films of 2011, as one of the main characters was a teacher who was trying to raise money through MMA fighting. That one being a lot more realistic, having him lose his job once the school found out about his second life and all.

But hey, this is a family movie with a happy ending. The drama that happens is expected, as is the conclusion to the story. I wouldn’t describe this as Kevin James’ worst movie, but it isn’t his best either. Henry Winkler brought a lot of heart to the movie though, and Bas Rutten had enough energy to be exciting as well. Basically, without reading a review, most of you could guess on how the movie would turn out, a pretty average film.

2 out of 4.

From what I can tell, Trouble With The Curve seems to have snuck up out of nowhere. It is Clint Eastwood‘s first acting role in four years, and the first time he has acted in a movie he also wasn’t directing since 1993!

It is quite understandable that he is slowing down, right now clocking in at 82 years old and generally can only play the “mean old man” roles at this point, which doesn’t give him much diversity. But what does it mean that he is willing to act in a movie he has no control over? I guess he believes in that film’s message.

This is a shot of Clint Eastwood doing whatever the fuck he wants.

Eastwood plays Gus, a scout for the Atlanta Braves baseball team. He is a pretty big name in the scouting world, signing some of the greats and having an incredible eye and ear for future potential. Unfortunately, his wife died almost thirty years ago, when their daughter Mickey (Amy Adams) was only five years old.

Not being one for emotions (he is Clint Eastwood, after all!) Gus has had a strained relationship with his daughter throughout the years. Originally sending her off to live with her aunt/uncle, he began to take her on the road with her for about six years. She learned a lot about baseball, scouting, and potential, but when she hit 13 she was sent to boarding school (and later college, and law school), with barely any contact with her dad.

Mickey is now an associate lawyer, close to reaching a Partnership, making her both the youngest partner ever, and only female to have done it. But there is competition, and problems at home. Gus has problems with his prostate, and his body seems to be failing him. Most notably, his eyes. What good is a scout that can’t see the prospects?  Mickey is convinced by Pete Klein (John Goodman), the head of Braves scouting to head out with her dad to North Carolina to check out Bo Gentry (Joe Massingill), a potential future star in the MLB. The Braves have the number 2 overall pick, so if the Red Sox pass, they can nab Bo, but they have to make sure it is the real deal!

While in NC, we are given the perfect storm of dramatic potential. An aging man, going blind, too stubborn to care, and unwilling to tell his organization as his contract is coming up. A daughter, who wants nothing more than to talk with her father and finally clear the air with some of their issues. Coniving young people with fancy computers (Matthew Lillard) trying to take over the scouting department without even leaving the office. Not to mention a former pitcher that Gus signed for the Braves, who had his career end early, and is now scouting Bo for the Red Sox and scouting Mickey for himself (Justin Timberlake).

Also, there is some baseball in this movie as well.

The first thing I noticed about this movie is that it felt like the anti-Moneyball. Moneyball is a true story about how different advanced statistics could be used to determine players better than the old stats and ways of scouting. Trouble With The Curve is about how computers don’t know a thing and that the only good way of scouting is by being there in person watching them play.

The obvious real life answer is that both parts are important, computers can’t predict how a players hands move during a swing, or if they have trouble with certain situations, or their ability to bounce back. But to ignore computer stats completely is also ridiculous.

I think the movie had a good idea behind it, but didn’t execute it to its full potential. One scene early on, involving Eastwood singing “You Are My Sunshine” is one of the saddest things in awhile. It made me cry, and I thought I was in for a depressing movie. But it lets off from that sad feeling and just kind of rides neutral until the end of the film, with a happy ending and everything getting resolved. One plot point that they were clearly building towards early in the film was then ignored and brought back by the end, seemingly forced and not natural.

I will say the film had some great acting, but the way they got their point across at the end didn’t flow as well as I’d have liked.

2 out of 4.

The 5th Quarter had a weird effect on me. I knew the basic story: guy dies, older brother of guy changes number, and also Wake Forest wins a lot of games, despite not being good on paper.

Alright, so cliche’d sports movie. Right? Wrong. Because this is horribly done.

It also apparently popularized something similar to the Nazi salute.

So yeah, Luke (Stefan Guy) is a high school kid. On the football team. From a pretty tight family. Kisses and acknowledgement of love at every greeting/goodbye. But his ride home is in question, and instead of calling his mom, he accepts a ride from a fellow high schooler. OH THE HUMANITY. Because that guy goes off road, and puts Luke in the hospital. Severe brain damage.

Eventually his brother Jon (Ryan Merriman) gets all mopey, and eventually rejoins the wake forest football team. Changes number to 5. And like I said, Wake Forest wins a lot. They call the 4th Quarter now the 5th Quarter for more inspiration I guess, to give them an end of the game edge. The parents constantly hold their hands up, to represent the five. Andie MacDowell and Aidan Quinn do a good job of staying sad the whole damn movie. Then they lose at the Orange Bowl. But hey, at least they made it?

But is Mr. “I’m Playing For Two!” happy?

So here is what bugged me about the movie. The first 35 minutes. It took awhile for the accident to happen, a while for the hospital stuff to happen, and a long time for pre football to happen. Most of it was in montage form. Video of people being sad with music playing over it. Also a long extra story about the dangers of teenage reckless driving, and organ donation.

Then another montage, of the brother training. Why does he need a trainer? I dont know, because as far as I can tell he was always on the football team. BUt for some reason he needs more training, and thus more images and music.

Then football happens. Most if not all of the scenes of the football games are actual footage. The only thing they did is showed the parents in the audience, doing that hand shit over and over. Also some made scenes to include Jons character talking with others. Eventually everyone does the hand thing.

But do I care? No. The movie makes it hard to care. They seem to be trying to do something just to make you sad, without substance. The amount of times in the movie where very little talking occurs and just a background song going on, I’d need to raise two hands.

They took a familiar story, and pretty much trashed it to try and make it a dedication to Luke instead of an actual good story. The people should be punished for making a poor movie of an actual good story. Captain Hindsight tells me that they should have done a documentary movie instead. I mean, this was in 2006. Can have the actual people talk about the experiences, talking about Luke, and a nice dramatic voice guy going over the game /win highlights.

But nope. Instead some filth. Filth I tell you!

0 out of 4.

The Mighty Macs is a sports movie! This time set in the 70s, and this time I will explain most of the plot before the first picture. Carla Gugino plays a woman who is finally getting to coach college basketball, at a Catholic school, for next to nothing. Very little supplies or support, and a ragtag group of girls. Her husband, David Boreanaz, or that guy from Angel/Bones who is also NOT Nick Lachey, is also an NBA ref or something.

Eventually she gets an assistant coach, a real nun, played by, Marley Shelton, and they come together unexpectedly to kick ass at basketball and win multiple titles.

This could be a horror movie picture.

I think this whole movie HAS to be a joke. Honestly. First, the main two female leads, the coach and the nun. I am looking at their past movies and it just doesn’t fit from the religious stand point. Marley Shelton was in Scream 4 as random cop hottie, and in the Grindhouse movies. Carla Gugino was the main character in something called Elektra Luxx, an R rated movie about a Prostitute who becomes pregnant…and it also has Marley Shelton in it!

Outside of the glaringly mis-casted main stars, this film has applied every sports cliche it could think of. To be fair, it is set in the 70s, so maybe sports movie cliches are just based off of their season, and they now finally get a movie?

We have an outcast girl, who helps save the day. We have girl who goes through big tragedy, almost leaves, but stays and kicks ass (normally a death, this was just boyfriend breaking up with her). The Coach is doing it all for practically nothing and no support on supplies, or from her family. There is no support, because of course the school is going to close THAT YEAR unless something good happens.

The team doesn’t do good until they work together without the coaches help. The final rival defeats the team soundly earlier in the movie, but they get to meet again at the end. The rival team also has a personal connection to the coach. They are losing to the rival team until a nice halftime speech. Really, I could go on.

“Yay teamwork and friendship!

What bugged me is their outfits. They made a big deal about how “lame” their uniforms were, and they do look silly. Nothing like a normal basketball outfit. Yet in the credits it shows footage of their championship wins…and the outfits look normal.

I just don’t get why that would be exaggerated for the movie, if it was a lie. What the hell are you guys trying to pull?

1 out of 4.

“Inspirational sports movies” has got to be one of my favorite categories of movies. They are usually long, have drama, and sports! And they hopefully make you feel good at the end. Also preferably with nice quotes during locker room moments, you can you steal their good words later when you are playing a non important Intramural game or maybe even a video game.

Jeez, I pretty much like most of the ones I have seen too. I did not like We Are Marshall, Gridiron Gang, or Miracle though (even as a huge hockey fan). Seemed like they were just copies of other things I had already seen, don’t care if they were “true stories” either.

Moneyball is another “True Story”, based on the Oakland As of 10 years ago going for a title, with little money, and a different way of evaluating players. I’d say the biggest problem with it is that it is so soon, and MLB, so even if I hate baseball, I know enough to know that the team hasn’t done squat after when this movie takes place. So very disappointing in that regard!

But hey! Those movies didn’t have a serious Jonah Hill.

Shit. But each one of them had an action star as the head coach. Oh, what? Philip Seymour Hoffman is the coach/manager, but Brad Pitt is the GM? Thank god.

So Pitt is the GM, and just saw his team lose in a best of 5 series after going up 2-0. Shame. They are losing their star first baseman. With no real payroll available to find one guy as a suitable replacement. Even though trades are attempted, including with the Indians. Pitt sees Jonah Hill in the corner, and thinks he is secretly calling the shots, so he finds him, talks to him, and buys him from the Indians to be his assistant GM (a huge upgrade). He is a Yale graduate in Economics, and think the best solution to replacing the first baseman is to bring in three different guys, undervalued. None of which play first base.

Chris Pratt plays the catcher, who no one wants, and has to change position. He also has a smaller role than I would have expected, but does a nice job of being “Serious”. Stephen Bishop plays David Justice, a “washed up” athlete who the Yankees cut, and therefore the As can afford.

Of course since this is based on a true story, all the trades / transactions that happened in the movie, actually happened, and it isn’t just a team of misfits, like The Replacements or Major League. But the movie is about the first attempt to try and rebuild a team through this new method of evaluation, and their quest for the world series.

Chris Pratt’s character may be important.

Overall I thought the movie was very well down. I think people argue on whether or not Pitt acted good, or acted at all. They try to show his character to have a lot of past demons, based on his own dealings as a MLB player when he was younger. I thought he did a good job, like most of the leads. I think the manager character was probably way too stubborn in all of the talks with the GM, but hey, what do I know?

Movie is over two hours, and has a touching ending too, and I think is interesting enough. Don’t even have to understand much baseball to get it. Hitting percentage is probably the easiest thing to grasp, and one of the things talked about most.

But I might have enjoyed a fictionalized movie about this more, just to have a better outcome.

3 out of 4