Karoline Herfurth is stunning in the lead role. This was a young woman who was so alone yet felt the weight of the world on her shoulders. Understandably, she is conflicted – should she go for gold to show up the regime, or should she refuse to represent her country which she so despises?
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Hoopla Factor: Continue reading Berlin ’36
It’s astounding seeing close up what these guys get up to in the ring, and even stranger to see all the blokes in the dressing room afterwards, the best of mates. It really is a bizarre little community, but they share a surprisingly solid bond.
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Hoopla Factor: Continue reading The Wrestler
It is hard to see how Myers can continue to get his films greenlit yet a quick look on IMDb suggests he has several in the works. It seems audiences will be ‘lucky’ enough to see/hear him for a bit longer still, even though his films continue to get excrementally worse.
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Hoopla Factor: Continue reading The Love Guru
One more ‘return to the dollar bets matches to recoup losses and start over’ sequence and most of the audience would be shaking their heads with disbelief. Huck climbs and then falls so often, it just doesn’t matter if it happens again, as there is never a concern he won’t make it to the big match.
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Hoopla Factor: Continue reading Lucky You
A more cynical modern audience will still be prepared to accept the overly sentimental speeches and emotionally manipulative ‘big moments’. This is no small achievement, as there are several sequences that are about as subtle as the use of ‘Gonna Fly Now’ throughout the soundtrack to guide our appreciation.
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Hoopla Factor: Continue reading Rocky Balboa
In what seems a fairly cynical attempt to win American sport-lovers over to the world game, the FIFA-sanctioned and script-approved film Goal! fails in almost all aspects of filmmaking, but in spite of that is moderately enjoyable for those interested Continue reading Goal!
I haven’t read Fever Pitch (though it’s on the list) and I haven’t seen the 1997 adaptation that featured Colin Firth, so I’m not in a position to compare the two films. In isolation, however, The Perfect Catch was a Continue reading The Perfect Catch
Telling the story of the USA Men’s Quad Rugby (aka Murderball) team and their quest to win the 2002 World Championships and the 2004 Paralympics, Murderball gives us a rapid introduction to the difficulties faced by people with these injuries. Continue reading Murderball
Coach Carter is yet another addition to the motivational sports movie with a message genre, that unfortunately is far too long and self-important to be a good film. What makes a compelling real-life story does not necessarily make a good Continue reading Coach Carter
The Football Factory is the story of a bunch of losers, who do loser-type things like drink hard, use hard drugs, and beat each other up for fun. Where is the appeal? It’s not as if England has an image Continue reading The Football Factory