Sports

2000 – Bring It On

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Bring It On
  • IMDb: link

“I am a choreographer.  That’s what I do.  You are cheerleaders.  Cheerleaders are dancers who have gone retarded.  What you do is a tiny, pathetic subset of dancing.  I will attempt to turn your robotic routines into poetry, written with the human body.  Follow me, or perish, sweater monkeys.”
 

bring-it-on-posterReleased on or around this date 15 years ago, here’s a look back at 2015’s Bring It On. Torrance Shipman (Kirsten Dunst) gets her dream when she becomes the captain of the Fighting Toros cheerleading squad, only to find her world go downhill faster than a cheerleader on the football captain.

On her first day one of her teammates is injured (Bianca Kajlich) causing a mad search for a replacement.  Torreance, against the wishes of most of her teammates, chooses new transfer, punk girl Missy (Eliza Dushku), who has the gymnastic background but not the usual cheer spirit.

Torreance’s world gets even crazier when Missy informs her that the award-winning cheers the Toros are using were stolen by the former captain of the Toros (Lindsay Sloane) from a nearby urban high school (led by Gabrielle Union).  An attempt to use a choreographer (Ian Roberts) to create the team a new routine blows up in her face, and her cheating and unsupportive college boyfriend (Richard Hillman) destroys he confidence and prevents her from acting on her feelings for Missy’s brother Cliff (Jesse Bradford).

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The Replacements

/ / Home Video
  • Title: The Replacements
  • IMDb: link

The ReplacementsDespite being nearly old enough to drive (the film was released in theaters in 2000), The Replacements hadn’t been available on Blu-ray until now. Based very loosely on the 1987 NFL strike, the script by Vince McKewin centered around a ragtag group of replacement players for the Washington Sentinels (a fictional stand-in for the Redskins). Keanu Reeves stars as college star and NFL bust Shane Falco who is given a second chance by Jimmy McGinty (Gene Hackman) who assembles his team from a hodgepodge of unknowns.

Playing on various underdog themes The Replacements isn’t that far removed from a number of sports movies (most notable Necessary Roughness which follows a very similar plot at the college level). Joining Reeves on the football field are Jon Favreau (as the character most likely to kill someone on the field), Orlando Jones (as the bigmouth wide receiver), Faizon Love, Michael Jace, Michael Taliferro, David Denman, and Rhys Ifans.

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Draft Day

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Draft Day
  • IMDB: link

Draft DaySet over the course of a single day, Draft Day offers the opportunity for sports-film go-to-guy Kevin Costner (now a little too long in the tooth to star as an actual player) to star as the general manager of the Cleveland Browns on the team’s biggest day of the year. Fighting the recent death of his father, an aggressive new head coach (Denis Leary), an owner (Frank Langella) demanding a “big splash,” his own beliefs on the right move and the player he wants to draft (Chadwick Boseman), and the news that his not-so-secret girlfriend (Jennifer Garner) is pregnant, Sonny Weaver Jr. (Costner) will struggle through the day to do what he believes is best for the team.

The script by Scott Rothman and Rajiv Joseph along with the framing of cinematographer Eric Steelberg captures the pressure, size, and scale of the moment Sonny finds himself in the middle of when he makes a questionable deal to trade for the number-one pick to draft “a sure thing” in quarterback Bo Callahan (Josh Pence). Although I think the script does falter a bit in Sonny’s final moves, straining believably, the story director Ivan Reitman sets out to tell is enganging, well-paced, and a hell of a good time.

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2004 – Million Dollar Baby

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Million Dollar Baby
  • IMDB: link

Million Dollar BabyNo matter how many times I’ve seen the film, there’s a moment in Million Dollar Baby that hits me like a jab straight to the gut, far harder than any thrown inside the ring in this film about boxing, life, death, and balancing the consequences of all three. Even ten years later with the movie now available in a new Tenth Anniversary Blu-ray release I find myself reluctant to give away the twist for those who have not yet seen the film.

The movie is never about what you think it’s about. While borrowing aspects of your run-of-the-mill sports film, the script by Paul Haggis travels a winding road of subtle and abrupt turns, much like life. Earning near universal praise, Million Dollar Baby took home Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director for Clint Eastwood, Best Actress for Hillary Swank, and Best Supporting Actor for Morgan Freeman. The film has aged well and, along with Sideways, The Incredibles, and Before Sunset, it remains one of my favorite films of 2004.

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42

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: 42
  • IMDB: link

42Written and directed by Brian Helgeland, 42 chronicles the struggle and rise of Jackie Robinson (Chadwick Boseman) as Major League Baseball’s first African American player. Although a bit formulaic (it seems we’ve got several similar racially-themed sports movies over the past decade or so with The Express, Pride, and Remember the Titans), Helgeland successfully delivers an emotional and uplifting tale that’s more concerned with the historical importance of Robinson’s ascension to the majors than the any specific game of baseball in which he played.

In a straightforward story like this that doesn’t dig too deep into the hidden recesses and personal life of its main character to offer new insights not already available to the general pubic much of the success or failure is going to rely on the performances to carry the film. Here Helgeland makes terrific choices as Boseman (who coincidentally played Floyd Little in the similarly-themed The Express) carries the film with the ease Robinson swung a bat or caught a fly ball.

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