So! Football Season is underway, the Baseball playoffs are fast approaching, the NBA is in a lockout wait, that doesn’t help me here… Anyways, Sports seem like they’re in full swing around here.
Which made me think it’d be a good topic for this week’s “Tossin’ It Out There”, because there are 18,759,412 Movies about sports, and Friday with the release of “Moneyball” that number will be 18,759,413!
Eight Men Out, Slapshot, North Dallas Forty, Blue Chips, Invictus, Victory, Rocky, Warrior, Vision Quest… it seems as if if there’s a sport, there’s been a movie about it. Even if you’re not a sports fan, I’m willing to bet there’s SOME sports movie you love.
So, let the Games begin! What’s YOUR favorite movie revolving around sports??
Whip it, Facing the Giants, League of their own
Whip it. Was that any good? I’ve never seen it… it had the warning signs of a chick flick…
Its on cable now though, so maybe I’ll catch it.
Ok. My turn!
I usually like to defer to the masses first. LOL.
Mind you now… I said favorite. Not best (Most of my friends know what’s coming now…)
It’s Rocky III.
I’ve seen Rocky III so many times it is seared into my brain. I cannot not watch it when its on. I literally see it on the guide and go “Oh no”! And somehow wind up watching it anyways. You could drop me at any point and I can tell you the next line. I’m an idiot for it.
It’s not even a GOOD sports movie! The boxing scenes are RIDICULOUS. But hey. Love is blind. I love Rocky III. I can’t help it.
I reject the challenge. ‘Cause Balboa is no challenge. But I’d be more than happy to beat up on him some more.
Guilty pleasure…. LOL!!!
I’ve moved beyond feeling guilty about it. It’s one of my favorites, the rest of the world be damned. LOL.
Aside from all the obvious greats, I’ll have to add what I would assume are a couple lesser known great 70′s movies, “The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings” and “Greased Lighting”.
Did you just make those up?
Nope. Bingo is based on the true story of Jackie Robinson, Sachel Paige, and Josh Gibson. It stars Billy Dee Williams (Paige), James Earl Jones (Gibson) & Richard Pryor. A great baseball flick.
Lighting is about Wendell Scott (Richard Pryor again, I know…) who starts out runnin’ moonshine as a kid, which leads to stock car racing and eventually NASCAR, where he was the only black NASCAR driver for pretty much his whole career. Probably Pryor’s only drama (that I can think of).
If they’re available on Netflix, I would highly recommend them.
I’ll keep an eye out. “Bingo” sounds interesting as hell.
“Jo Jo Dancer your life is Calling” would qualify as a drama, no? Some scary shit in that one man.
Forgot about Jo Jo…. serious drama there.
I’ve never heard of “The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings” before, but I will definitely check it out.
Well, be sure to report back in, I suspect Rich may be drunk. REALLY drunk.
That’s irrelevant, fogs. Drunk or not, they’re real.
Fogs,
Great “Tossin”….
So many choices- all for different reasons
Let me begin with The Bad News Bears- I wish all little league coaches drank beer, cleaned pools and told players to take a pitch for the team- Buttermaker- easily one of the greatest characters of all time.
Slapshot- No shortage of classic lines or scenes
If Documentaries count Hoop Dreams is the one…Whoa- it easily says more about our country, our values and our cities than it does about basketball.
The original Longest Yard…Burt Reynolds at his finest – “History”
But, I have to say, in the end, I am a sucker for Jerry Maguire-For me though its not the romance- its all about Cuba Gooding Jr. / Rod Tidwell and his brother TP- “Your militant TP, but I love you…” I can’t tell you how many people I’ve told- “Those the are the A,B,C’s of me.”
Ok. Good post.
Here we go. Amen on Buttermaker. AWESOME character. (God, I just imdb’ed it to get the correct spelling on Matthau and wound up on the Billy Bob Thorton remake. I feel skeevy now!)
Slapshot. Absolutely. Longest Yard, absolutely. “The Mean Machine” is my favorite Fantasy Football team name ever, and I beat Gawle to it this year, he was pissed. LOL.
Jerry Maguire is a Crowe flick. So I’m a fan. And Gooding’s great. But I can’t watch it too often, its all about the cute kid and the romance and the *click* ooh… Pawn Stars is on!
And lastly.
I’m just gonna say it. I’ve never seen Hoop Dreams. The joys of movie blogging man, exposing my weaknesses in public. Its one of my “ashamed to say I havent seen it movies”. Maybe a topic for next week?
Ashamed I haven’t seen movies!!!!! Totally should be your next one….. I already have a post ready!
Done and Done!
The Fighter. Hands down my favorite boxing movie. I loved it, but really appreciated it when I watched the “extras” in the DVD. The making of that movie was as interesting as the movie itself. Wahlberg is great, and Christian Bale was phenomonal. Not many people have seen this movie, but everyone I have recommended it to loved it. It’s also a true story.
Wanna hear something funny?
I really WANT to see this movie, and its on Netflix right now… I have it in my streaming queue.
But in an ultimate stroke of irony, my movie Blogging has been interfering with my movie Watching. Not even kidding, I get around to way fewer flicks than when I started this.
Maybe this post will push me over the edge on it though and I’ll catch it this weekend. We’ll see. I mean, Bale won an Oscar, I feel ashamed to admit I didn’t check it out immediately on DVD!
I’m so not a sports fan, but I LOVE Miracle & Coach Carter. Sports themed or not, they are among my favorites!
Coach Carter is one I havent seen. But I’m right there with you on “Miracle”. I love the scene where the coach makes them skate “suicides” until they answer that they play for the USA. Awesome movie.
Guilty pleasure: The Cutting Edge– “toe pick”
Good grief! I should have acknowledged “The Cutting Ede” up front!
I’m just laughing cause I missed replying to Andra’s comment yesterday and then I read this one, so its back to back Cutting Edge comments 
!
I’ll toss one more onto the pile. Just got finished watching “Hard Times”, starring Charles Bronson as a bare-knuckle street boxer and James Coburn as his promoter. I’ll do a full write-up on my own site after I’ve slept a bit, but suffice to say, a very enjoyable picture.
Yup. Never seen that one either!
As a huge fan of family and baseball it has to be Field of Dreams.
However, Rocky still manages to motivate me.
Love me some Rocky. The first movie is egnuinely excellent, and then the rest are purs cheesy goodness.
Well, except for 5, which is an atrocity, but…
Football: The Longest Yard, We are Marshall, North Dallas Forty
Baseball: Bull Durham, The Natural, Major League
Basketball: Hoosiers
Hockey: Slapshot, Mighty Ducks, Miracle
Boxing: Rocky, Raging Bull, Cinderella Man
Martial Arts: RedBelt, Karate Kid, Enter the Dragon
Olympics: Chariots of Fire
I’m sure there are more, but that’s all I can think of right now.
Oh, the Karate Kid… I didn’t even think of martial arts in this context, but you’re right. That’s absolutely a sports film, and an enjoyable one at that.
[Scooby Doo Scooby voice] Red Relt? [/Scooby Doo Scooby voice]
highly recommended. Stars Chiwetel Ejiofor (The Operative from Serenity), and directed by David Mamet.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1012804/
[Scooby Doo Scooby voice] Ravid Ramet? [/Scooby Doo Scooby voice]
Dude, seriously. A martial arts film by David Mamet and I missed it? What the hell?
I suck. Seriously. Just go away everyone… LOL
You must have named all the sports movies ever made!
LOL. Yeah he did.
I should give him a prize or something.
Welcome to the blog Gelfster, hope you didn’t expect not to get your chops busted now and again!
[Scooby Doo Voice]Rops rusted?[/Scooby Doo Voice]
Seriously though… At least I’ve seen a Martial Arts film by David Mamet.
HAHHHAAA!!
Oh, THAT”S good. THAT was a good one.
I’m laughing over here, seriously.
Seconded.
Although this may get lost amidst all the lost chatter….and without taking anything away from all the aforementioned greats I wanted to mention one of my faves: Everybodys Hero. Babe Ruth plays so well as a cartoon.
Is that the Yankees cartoon they did?
Did that get into release, or DVD or something?
How can I get at that?
Its an older, generally unnoticed one. We have a copy.
Cool. I will soon snag it from you.