A-List: Movies Featuring Smaller Sports
By Jason Dean
August 9, 2004
After a long, long hiatus, I am attempting to get back into the A-List habit. It’s been so long that an introduction is probably in order. I’m Jason Dean (Greetings and Salutations…) and the Box Office Prophets have been kind enough to let me hang around and make the occasional contribution. I tried to have a regular feature but rough memory tells me I was doing that perhaps as much as a year ago. That feature was and will hopefully be this column: The A-List - an offering of movies on a topic. Sometimes these lists are indeed a "Best Of" or "A-List", other times the column will simply center around movies that are thematically related.
In the meantime, there have been several topics for lists, but no corresponding columns. Scratch that; there have been no columns from me. There were A-Lists contributed by other staff members of Box Office Prophets and I’d be remiss if I didn’t thank them for contributing where they could. Anyway, one of the topics that I kept meaning to do was sports movies, but with a twist. This list centers around movies that feature non-mainstream sports.
I kicked around the idea of including movies such as Victory and Bend It Like Beckham knowing full well that it would guarantee feedback from BOP’s non-US based readers saying I had trivialized the world’s most popular sport. Trust me when I say the opinion that soccer is non-mainstream sport is a defendable position when writing from the United States.
However, I grew up playing soccer, was watching the World Cup back when the final was in Los Angeles and have put on a list of life goals that I would like to see a football match in England. Sometimes I do live up to accusations that I’ll watch any sport - I'll watch the Mexican league (it’s all about intonation in the commentary) and I’ve also watched enough Fox Sports World to realize that football is a huge deal around the world. I guess it’s possible that FSW just doesn’t have any other programming, either.
In the end, I can’t really call soccer a minor sport, though the whole point of this little exercise was indeed to mention Victory. I saw Victory at a theater when I was around 14-years-old, and in reflection it was everything bad that a U.S. studio soccer movie was going to be while at the same time giving glorious highlights surrounding the skills of international players. There’s still the disbelief that Sly Stallone could be any type of keeper, not to mention the original goaltender going above and beyond in taking one for the team. Additionally, we have the complete delight of a highlight move of a player somehow taking a backheel-type dribble and flipping it over his own shoulder in order to get past the defender.
Now that I have covered a movie that falls short of the qualifications, I'll move on to films that really do meet the list requirements for this week.
The Big Lebowski (Bowling)
"All The Dude ever wanted was his rug back." If you haven’t seen The Big Lebowski, you probably should. There’s just no simple way to summarize this film, but significant parts of the movie take in place in a classic bowling alley (sadly no longer there) and it perfectly captures the feeling of late-night bowling for those scenes. Past that, The Big Lebowski is a funny, offbeat movie - in the Cohen Brothers' fashion - and features a a great movie character in The Dude.
Cool Runnings (Bobsledding)
Feel the rhythm! Feel the rhyme! Get on up, its bobsled time! COOL RUNNINGS! Based on the ever lovable but nearly inept first Jamaican bobsled team, Cool Runnings hearkens back to a time where Disney could make a profitable family movie that wasn’t completely unwatchable by those over the age of double digits. Besides, any movie where the “stars” include Leon and Doug E Doug (those are actor’s names, not the characters as Doug E Doug is playing a fellow named Sanka Coffie) has to be worth a mention. Actually, the movie is quite a bit of fun and even if it does have the over-the-top, winning-while-losing type finish, I still end up watching this one when it shows up on one of the 500 cable channels. “Ya dead, mon?” If we’re talking about my interest in this movie, not a chance; Sanka and I will finish this one every time right along with Derice.
Running Brave (Distance Running)
So that’s what the Beast (as in Disney’s animated film) looks like in real life…
Running Brave tells the story of Billy Mills, who pretty much out of nowhere won the gold medal in the 10,000 meters at the 1964 Olympic Games in Tokyo. Robbie Benson does an excellent job as Billy Mills as we follow him through his initial training and college days as well as the problems he faces as a Native American. The race sequence is particularly well done, blending movie footage with archive footage.
Oxford Blues (Rowing)
Rob Lowe has the leading role in a nearly by-the-numbers, fish-out-of-water, mid-'80s rom-com-drama. Lowe manages to play quite the ugly American in his pursuit of Lady Victoria Wingate (as portrayed by a glorious Amanda Pays). Well, that’s after he cons/hustles/ stalks his way into Oxford during his pursuit. I don’t think that you’d find a happy movie that could open quite the way that Oxford Blues does. Lowe’s character has the requisite clippings up in his locker and is tracking Victoria's every move in the press, and then proceeds to forge his transfer into Oxford to be near his Lady. I suppose he takes a side quest to sleep his way to the funds for his education but it’s still a means to an end. It's a typical brash-American-vs.-proper-Brits, I-vs.-team, stealing-the-girl, lessons-are-learned, Ally Sheedy-ends-up-with-the-guy, '80s flick. It seems to be on cable more than I would expect - probably on Lifetime, Romance, and WE for all I know - but did I mention that Amanda Pays is in it?
Rounders (Poker)
I realize that Poker is currently all the pop culture rage but Rounders is just too good a movie to leave out. It's perhaps not quite so good as to completely overcome the double whammy character/actor combo of whiny girlfriend/Gretchen Mol, but still one of the great movies. When it was released back in the late '90s, Poker was something that was on at one in the morning on ESPN, broadcast with the worst production values to boot. Rounders takes us into the world of the semi-pro card players and just lets us follow. Matt Damon gives nearly a perfect performance and Edward Norton is similarly great as the reckless best friend in need of saving. How good is this movie? Good enough that John Malkovich’s almost cartoon-like portrayal of Teddy KGB just adds to the proceedings.
Karate Kid (Karate)
Wax on. Wax off. Wax on. Wax off.
Sweep the leg!
Can't you just hear the pitch? It’ll be a teenage Rocky but at the end, get this, he wins! Yes, it really was that simplistic but it was also that satisfying.
Karate Kid 2 (Karate)
“I am a man who would fight for your honor.”
Ok, well maybe that’s a bit much but KK2 makes the list because Tamlyn Tomita was found on the UCLA campus before making her debut as Kumiko.
I'd like to close the list with movies about sports that were once niche quality but have now grown so much in popularity that they don't quite qualify..
Cutting Edge (Ice Skating)
"Toe pick."
Since NBC doesn't have any sports, they seem to show ice skating all the time.
Point Break (Extreme Sports)
“I am an FBI agent.”
Uh, have you seen the size of the X-Games?
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