Movie Review: **** Coach Carter (2005)

 Coach Carter (Samuel Jackson) takes a position as basketball coach even though he knows it is a tough neighborhood and the team has n9t had much success.  He sets some conditions for the players, 2.3 GPA and attend classes and sit in the front and wear a tie on game day.  They actually find a great deal of success on the court, but when the progress reports come to the coach, he realizes most of the team is not fulfilling the conditions of the contract.  He locks the gym and suspends games.  The forfeit a few games as a result; and the community has a conniption.  They go to the school board who overrules the coach and says games will restart.   Coach Carter chooses to resign.  The issue is important to him as too many kids do not go on to colege in Richmond, California where this story takes place.  However the players stivck with him.  They bring their grades up and get back to basketball.  This movie provides some exciting play.  They lose to the best team in the state in the playoffs by a last-second basket.

Samuel Jackson is very good.  Channing Tatum and Rick Gonzalez play basket ball players.  Robert Ri'chard plays Coach carter's son and als basketball player.  

In Theaters: Run the Race (2019)

Run the Race This is a Christian themed movie produced by Tim Tebow.  It is a track and field and football movie as well.  The turning point in the movie is when the main character injures his knee in a backyard scuffle.  He was hoping to play in front of football scouts and earn a scholarship so as to get our of his small town.  Instead his brother takes up the flame in track and field.  His brother has had seizures after a football accident.  He can’t play football, but he can run.  However things take another twist just before the state track meet.  Tanner Stine and Evan Hofer play the brothers.

Movie Review: ***^Secretariat (2010)

Secretariat  This is a horse racing movie about a classic horse, and was the first Triple Crown winner in 25 years.  This movie focuses on horse ownership.  Penny Chenery (Diane Lane) won the horse based on a coin flip.  Lucien Lauren (John Malkovich) trained the horse.  Eddie Sweat (Nelsan Ellis) maintained the stables.  Most often  Jack Tweedy (Dylan Walsh) was the jockey.  The focus of this movie is very nice, and they really play on the rivalry with Sham, a horse from a rival stable.  I get excited even when I know the outcome.

Movie Review: ****Trouble with the Curve (2012)

****Trouble With the Curve  Clint Eastwood and Amy Adams portray a father and daughter combo which is very fascinating.  Mickey (Adams) has grown  up around baseball, as her father, Gus, is a scout.  However at a young age Gus sent her away, and Mickey has struggled with the rejection.  This year Mickey goes on a scouting trip with him because of his failing health.  On the road the run into a player previously scouted by Gus, Johnny (Justin Timberlake) with whom Gus rekindles his friendship and Mickey starts a relationship.  They are scouting a player who is a great high school player.  However, a good batting average with lots of homeruns is not always what it seems.  Mickey meanwhile scouts out a prospective pitcher on their trips.  John Goodman portrays Gus’ boss.

Movie Review: ***^ Creed II

***^ Creed II  (2018)  This is an excellent movie if you like the Rocky (Sylvester Stallone) movies.  This has the same feel and the same tension, especially of Rocky III.  In this movie, it is the son, Viktor Drago (Florian Munteanu)  of the boxer, Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren)  who killed Apollo Creed in the ring, who is now taking on Creed’s son (Michael B. Jordan).  In the first match, Creed is badly beaten and injured; but escapes with a victory when Viktor hits him after Creed is down and time is called by the referee.  However there has to be a rematch.  Rocky comes in to manage.  I new style and a new toughness is needed; which is found in the Nevada desert.  But will it be enough?

**** Movie Review: Invincible (2006)

Invincible:  This is a crazy good football movie.  This is the story of Vince Papale (Mark Wahlberg), a sandlot football player, who when the invitation came to tryout for the Philadelphia Eagles, takes the opportunity.  He was down on his luck, and the Eagles had not been good for some years.  The brought in a new coach, Dick Vermeil (Greg Kinnear), who had the idea of the try out.  This was mostly a publicity stunt, but Papale stuck, based on his speed, and his guts.  This movie talks of the struggle it is to play in the NFL; but also of self-confidence.  He meets a new girl, a New York Giants fan, Janet (Elizabeth Banks).  The movie ends after the first season, but Papale actually played three seasons for the Eagles before retiring due to a shoulder injury.  He actually played semi-pro football for a couple years before the try out.  He did not play college football, but participated in track and field.

Movie Review: ***^42 (2013)

This film is the story of Jackie Robinson (Chadwick Boseman) as the first Black player to play major league baseball.  42 is the number Robinson wore throughout his career.  The owner of the Dodgers, Branch Rickey (Harrison Ford) was looking for a Black player to join the Dodger's organization.  A sports writer suggested Jackie Robinson.  Rickey, according to the film, did this because he was tired of the racism of major league baseball.  Of course there were economic issues as well.  Bringing the black community to the ball park would be good for revenues.  His first year Robinson played with the Toronto Royals, the Dodger's triple A ball club.  This film tells of his success that year, and then the subsequent year with the Dodgers as a rookie.  Robinson had to face serious racial discrimination, at first form his own teammates, who signed a petition not to play if Robinson played, and then from coaches and players on other teams.  This racist vitriol was most poignant from the Philadelphia manager.  Robinson for his part had to learn to keep his place, until he won people over.  Then we could better influence others, and others would sometimes defend him, and he could defend himself.  Robinson proved himself with his bat, base stealing, base running and play in the field.  The Dodgers made it to the World Series his rookie year.
The next year, more teams had black players.  After the ice had been broken, a team was foolish not to draw from this talent pool for his team.  Check out my review of a book about Jackie Robinson with this link.  And here is a blog looking at the veracity of this storytelling of this movie.

Harrison Ford does a good job.  I could hardly recognize him in this character of a baseball owner.

Movie Review: ****^ Brian's Song

This is a good movie.  The relationship between Gale Sayers (Billy De Williams) and Brian Piccolo (James Caan) a black man and a white man who roomed together, when that was not kosher, is very poignant.  These two men played for the Chicago Bears, and competed for the same position, and then supported each other and became good friends, is what drama is about.  The actually started together for a time.  The relationship was tested with the illness of Piccolo.
Until this movie came out, I had no idea of the relationship, or even who Brian Piccolo was.  I had seen Gale Sayers in highlight films,  but did not know this story.  Cancer is no one's friend.  It takes too many of us.
This movie tore my heart out.  I highly recommend it. 

Movie Review: ****^The Blind Side (2009)

For this movie Sandra Bullock won the Oscar for best actress.  In watching the movie you can see why.  This movie tells the early story of Michael Oher (Quinton Aaron), and NFL football player.  Through his youth he was in and out of foster care as his mother had a drug problem.  He would generally run away from home.  However he did get a scholarship to a Catholic school, based on his size.  He was going to sleep outside the gym one evening, when Leigh Anne Tuohy (Sandra Bullock) invited him home to spend the night with her family.  She then invited him for Thanksgiving.  Over the objection of some of her friends, and neighbors, he becomes a part of her family.
He initially struggles at football, because he doesn't want to hurt anyone.  However, Tuohy takes him aside, and explains how he has to protect his back side.  He overcomes his fear, and becomes an all-American football player, recruited by many colleges.  However he cannot take a scholarship to a major school without raising his grades.  A tutor is hired, (Kathy Bates) who likes Mississippi.  His new parents also went there.  He chooses Mississippi but not without NCAA investigation.  He has to get some things strait in his mind, and goes home, to birth neighborhood.  He has a run-in with a relative.  Tuohy comes looking for him, and this individual threatens her son.  She starts to walk away, then turns around and lets him know she is packing and she has her son's blind side.  It is a cool seen.  Oher passes his NCAA interview as he says he wants to go to Mississippi because it is his family school.

Movie Review: ***** Hoosiers

Hoosiers is one of my favorite shows.  It came out in 1986.  It is a movie about a small town basketball team.  It is fictional, but loosely based on the story of Milan High School, 1952 and their state championship run.  In small towns, basketball can be the only show in town, and is followed by everyone.  At the same time, a person's whole life can be tied up with those few years of their high school playing years.  Coach Norman Dale (Gene Hackman) is coming back to the coaching profession, after a twelve year hiatus.  His last coaching was at the university level, and he was suspended for punching one of his players.  He had spent ten years in the navy.  He teaches fundamentals, starting with basics, and insisting the players follow what he says.  However, by the end of the year, he is listening to the opinion of his players, but is still the coach.  Dennis Hooper was nominated in a supportive role for his role as the assistant coach, Shooter.  His son plays on the team.  He has a drinking problem.  Even so he assists.  The pressure gets to him and he relapses.  He is in the hospital as the team plays for the state championship.  Shooter's reaction to the game as he listens on the radio are just classic.  I highly recommend this movie.

Movie Review: ****Bang the Drum Slowly,

  I enjoyed this movie more than I thought I would. It is a Paramount film from 1973, which I watched through Netflix DVD.  It stars Robert De Niro and Michael Moriarty.  It is about two ball players, working through the inevitable death of one.  The catcher, who has always been a journeymen has cancer and Hodgkin's disease.  The pitcher, is a star, and insists he stay on the team as part of his contract.  The coach is left with a mystery, and finally uncovers it.  The actor, Vincent Gardenia, who portrays the coach won an Oscar.  But the story behind this is the friendship between the two main characters, and the reaction after the year is over and they have won the pennant, but the catcher ends up in the hospital after the clinching game, and passes away during the off season.  He is almost forgotten at the end.  The song "Streets of Loredo is featured, being sung by another catcher.

We beat the drum slowly and played the fife lowly,
And bitterly wept as we bore him along.
For we loved our comrade, so brave, young and handsome,

My only complaint is the season had teams from both leagues, which made it less realistic.  But of course it was fiction.