My terrific ten of sports movies
May 23rd, 2008, 3:00 pm · Post a Comment · posted by phayes
I caught the new Indiana Jones flick on opening night - it’s one of the top four Indiana Jones movies I’ve ever seen. Heading home from the cinema, I started thinking about my favorites sports movies. There are a lot of good ones – and plenty of not-so-good ones. Who can forget William Bendix as Babe Ruth? Or what about “Chariots of Fire,” my pick for the best ever treatment for insomnia.
As for the good sports movies, I wrote down my favorites, then tried to whittle down the list to a top ten. That meant I had to leave off some really good ones. The ones that came up just shy of the list included “Pride of the Yankees,” “Eight Men Out,” “One on One,” “The Natural,” “Brian’s Song” and “Bad News Bears” (both versions, Walter Matthau and Billy Bob Thornton).
Here goes - my terrific ten:
10. “The Longest Yard” 1974 – Burt Reynolds, football, prison guard and rough talk. This one makes the remake with Adam Sandler look wimpy. It’s one of the great guy movies of all time.
9. “Caddyshack” 1980 – This one has so many famous lines, I can’t list them all here. Chevy Chase, Rodney Dangerfield, Ted Knight and who can forget Bill Murray as greenskeeper Carl Spackler and his war on gophers?
8. “Bull Durham” 1988 – This movie may not make you love baseball, but it will make you love Susan Sarandon.
7. “Rudy” 1993 – Even people who hate Notre Dame love this one. A heart-warming underdog tale. Makes Dan Devine look satanic.
6. “Rocky” 1976 – Just the mention of this one gets the familiar soundtrack music rolling through my head. I liked all the Rocky flicks – well, maybe not No. 5 – but the original is the best.
5. “Cinderella Man” 2005 – This true tale of supposedly washed-up boxer Irish-American James Braddock and his comeback is a fantastic picture. It’s also a good look at life in the Depression that gives this Baby Boomer pause to appreciate my parents.
4. “Victory!” 1981 – I know, I know. This one doesn’t make too many great movie lists, but I like it. It’s about soccer and beating Nazis – two of my favorite themes. The story line: A group of Ally POWs plays a team of Germans in an exhibition soccer match in Nazi a public relations move. There are some great real-life soccer players in this one, including Pele (“You give me de ball – I do dese, dese, dese - goal.”). Sylvester Stallone plays the lone American (he’s the goalie, since he’s the only guy who knows the escape plan). Kind of an unbelievable premise, but what the heck - it’s a movie.
3. “A League of Their Own” 1992 – This one gets better every time I see it. It’s about professional women’s baseball during WWII and stars Tom Hanks, Gina Davis and ….. Madonna – woo hoo. It gave us “There’s no crying in baseball.” Part of this one was filmed in Evansville, Ind. – and my cousin’s somewhere in the crowd in the game scenes – but I still like this one anyway.
2. “Hoosiers” 1986 – This is one to watch anytime you’ve got an athlete in the house with a big game coming up. Every time Gene Hackman says, “I love you guys” at the end of this flick, I get a lump in my throat. Even non-sports fans love this one, but for people who’ve ever played a team sport, it’s special.
1. “Field of Dreams” 1989 – This one was easy. It’s pure fantasy, but it’s about the love affair we have with baseball in this country. Kevin Costner builds a baseball field out of a patch of his corn field and Shoeless Joe Jackson and some other dead ball players come out and play – including Costner’s now-deceased father. It’s a warm and funny movie about baseball – and families. When my son was 10, he and I went to Dyersville, Iowa where the movie was filmed. We played catch and I hit some grounders to him on that very infield carved out of the cornfield next to the same farm house.
It was heaven.
