A recent issue of Entertainment Weekly (I write it off as a business expense) listed what it considered the Top 30 Sports DVDs. Using "DVD" as a qualifer instead of Top 30 Sports "Movies" is pretty meaningless, since a good number of the titles listed have nothing included in the DVD to merit the distinction (#11 - Pride of the Yankees, has no special features, for example). They do, however, mention some sports flicks that have yet to receive the DVD treatment, only one of which (Gentleman Jim) really deserves it.
Unless you were a 14 year-old girl in 1984, in which case I'll allow some righteous indignation over the exclusion of Oxford Blues.
You know the drill: first, I mock their list, then I submit mine for your comments. Play ball.
Here's EW's List, with a few choice asides:
1. Raging Bull
2. Caddyshack - One of two golf movies on the list. Surprisingly, the other one isn't The Legend of Bagger Vance.
3. Hoosiers
4. Rocky - Remember when Sylvester Stallone was, like, taken seriously? Me either, but I'm old. Even so, I don't have many arguments with the list to this point.
5. Bull Durham - A fine, fine film, but I don't know that it deserves to be the highest ranking baseball movie on here.
6. Million Dollar Baby - Uh, no. The bullshit ending, at least bumps this out of the Top 20.
7. Breaking Away - What, no love for American Flyers? Or are we that afraid of a too Costner-heavy list?
8. The Bad News Bears
9. Friday Night Lights - Right. Look at the next two movies on this list and see if this really belongs here.
10. Slap Shot
11. The Pride of the Yankees
12. Kingpin - God help me, I do love it so. "Can you get sick drinkin' piss? Even if it's your own?" Bill Murray should be in every movie.
13. The Set-Up - Scorsese's inspiration for Raging Bull. I'd like to lie and say I've seen this, but...well.
14. North Dallas Forty - This hasn't aged well, probably because today's NFL fans would be shocked if all their favorite players did was pop pills and drink. Its depiction of the league's win at all costs mentality, however, is still dead on.
15. Eight Men Out - Great baseball movie; nostalgic without being heavy-handed, sentimental without being maudlin. On of John Sayles' higher points.
16. Brian's Song - I didn't see this until I was in college, and - having already seen James Caan die over and over again in multiple Godfather viewings, it didn't quite have the same effect.
17. Field of Dreams - I try to balance my opinion of this between my love of James Earl Jones' and Burt Lancaster's characters and my abject hatred of the '60s lovefest taking place. Or maybe it's because my memories of playing catch with my dad are relatively angst-free. And he's still alive.
18. White Men Can't Jump - What, this is the best basketball movie they could come up with after Hoosiers? Why not Teen Wolf?
19. Fat City
20. Heaven Can Wait - Is this even a football movie? Really? The ending is all right, but I can't believe it comes in this high while another *cough* Longest Yard *cough* is nowhere to be seen as of yet.
21. The Rookie - Cheese, yes, but effective cheese.
22. Cinderella Man - Man, there are a lot of boxing movies on this.
23. The Freshman - Harold Lloyd invented most of the sports movie cliches we still see today.
24. Rocky III - As I said in my review of Cinderella Man, the similarities between it and Rocky's 3rd effort are frightening. Clubber Lang would've slaughtered Max Baer, however.
25. The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings - Never saw it, in spite of numerous late night airings on Channel 13.
26. Love & Basketball
27. Better Off Dead - Wow, that's a reach. Much as I love this movie, it's about as sports-related as Say Anything (which at least featured Cusack actually doing his own sports work)
28. Tin Cup
29. The Longest Yard - #29? The ranking is bad enough, the fact that the terminally unfunny Tin Cup beat it is all the evidence you need to prove that EW's writers are utter fatheads.
30. Bend It Like Beckham - Parminder Nagra is cute and all, but Victory combined soccer with Nazis. Take that, Keira Knightley.
EW also lists documentaries separately (which I won't do):
Dogtown and Z-Boys
Ken Burns' Baseball
The Endless Summer
Murderball
Pumping Iron
Olympia
Hoop Dreams
Ring of Fire: The Emile Griffith Story
Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson
When We Were KingsTwo of these (at least) are better than half the so-called DVDs on EW's list.
Now for mine, which - in the interest of reader boredom - only goes to 20. Dissect as you will:
1. Hooisers
2. Do You Believe in Miracles? The Story of the 1980 U.S. Hockey Team - Oh shut up. I've probably seen this a dozen times, and I still get choked up at the end.
3. Raging Bull - I switched this with Hoosiers mostly just to be a pain. This is a great movie.
4. Slap Shot - I like hockey.
5. Hoop Dreams - Watched part of it again this weekend, still one of the best movies, sports or no, I've seen.
6. The Longest Yard
7. Caddyshack
8. The Bad News Bears
9. Rocky
10. Eight Men Out
11. Kingpin
12. When We Were Kings
13. Bull Durham
14. Riding Giants
15. Murderball - I have four functioning limbs, and I think these guys would kill me if I ever tried to play against them. And not just because I'm a lousy rugby player.
16. North Dallas Forty
17. Field of Dreams - Oh, fine. That scene when Moonlight steps off the field gets me every time. But Shoeless Joe was still a lefty, dammit.
18. The Pride of the Yankees
19. Dogtown and Z-Boys
20. Enter: Zombie King - Hey, had to have one none of you have heard of. And it's hard, nay, impossible to go wrong with Plato-spouting Mexican wrestlers and zombies.Grievously, I could find no place on the list for Over the Top, Hot Dog...The Movie, or Surf Nazis Must Die.
Robot Jox is a better boxing movie than all the boxing movies on the list.
Bill Murray or no, bowling is not a sport.
Will I get laughed out of town for adding The Natural?
many thanks for the props for 'Hoop Dreams'
that movie is an absolute classic
I HATE Field Of Dreams. It has to be the schmalziest, cheesiest, paint-by-numbers bore-fest ever commited to film. If for any reason, this movie is to be hated based purely on the awful acting of Amy Madigan (although, in her defense, Meryl Streep couldn't have made any of her lines sound like anything but t-shirt slogan jibberish written by a guy who just sucked all the bongwater out of the carpet).
Just hideous...
Can't believe 'Step Into Liquid' wasn't included in their documentary films. Or 'Point Break' or in the main list (say what you want about Reeves' other movies, but this was an entertaining action film worthy of supplanting at least 'Tin Cup' or perhaps 'Kingpin'). Because surfing, unlike bowling, is a sport. People get hurt/killed all the time doing it, which is the true test of a real sport: how injured can you get while doing something that requires both skill and athleticism? Maybe if bowlers had to contend with poisonous snakes in the lanes or random snipers the way surfers contend with sharks and the risk of drowning, *then* bowling would be more of a sport.
And while I greatly respect the the skill, dedication, and athletic finesse required to play golf, it is and always will be the Martin Prince of sports.
If you include Kingpin as a bowling movie, you should include The Big Lebowski. You could even say it's about the kind of sports that the average guy plays, rather than some big competition and a buildup to a championship. Sports as a pastime, or even a passion. And it's funnier than Kingpin too.
If things covered on ESPN qualify as sports, then let's go the poker route and add "Rounders" with Matt Damon and Edward Norton.
And those of you who think Field of Dreams sucks, or who do not shed a tear, you have no heart. Period.
I'd include Requiem for a Heavyweight (Quinn, Rooney and Gleason) and Jim Thorpe, All American (sentimental but still good).
How about Endless Summer, Fight Club or League of their Own?
If Rounders is in, there should be room for The Hustler.
I'm just glad they put BREAKING AWAY at #7.....I've become obsessed with that movie and have watched it 6 times this month. Yeah, I got problems.
Bill Murray or no, bowling is not a sport.
Neither's golf, but we still call Caddyshack a sports movie.
Will I get laughed out of town for adding The Natural?
Just as long as you don't add Major League 2.
If you include Kingpin as a bowling movie, you should include The Big Lebowski.
I see your reasoning, but I'm don't think Lebowski is enough of a bowling flick.
If things covered on ESPN qualify as sports, then let's go the poker route and add "Rounders" with Matt Damon and Edward Norton.
Way to open the door for all those competitive eating movies, Jess.
How about Endless Summer
Ooh, good choice.
Fight Club
Too homoerotic.
or League of their Own?
Not homoerotic enough.
If Rounders is in, there should be room for The Hustler.
Hustler made their list of "Are They Sports?" films, including Bring It On, The Cincinnati Kid, and Best In Show.
The Natural should not be included on the sole basis of its ending being a complete 180 from the book.
and, btw, a 'remake' of sorts of Hot Dog: The Movie is coming out in December, I believe. Unfortunately, for the life of me, I cannot remember the title.
I can't believe EW ignored Mexico's finest cinematic exports. What, no love for Wrestling Women vs the Aztec Mummy, or any of the El Santo canon? (Granted, you could've filled the entire Top 30 with nothing but his flicks, but that's not the point.)
Big ups for paying tribute via Enter: Zombie King.
No love for American Flyers?
Or maybe I'm just a dweeb.