I've been away a long time--trying to get the heck out of the 1920s on my other blog--the darn movie diary book. But I decided to get back into the "Rating Game" in our local paper with "Best Football Movies." And while Sunday is behind us, and it is no longer Bosstime, I figured I'd toss a Hail Mary and see who nabs it.“Three Little Pigskins” (1934)
Pan-handling Three Stooges are mistaken for the “three horsemen of Boulder Dam” and promptly dismantle college football beyond all recognition. Academic highlight: Larry woos Lucille Ball in Pig Latin.
Bend It Like Beckham (2002)Football, British-style, as a young Sikh defies her parents to play on a women’s soccer team. Maybe too easy in its mixture of feel-good sports comeback, grrl-power assertion, cross-cultural bonding, and love-won-and-lost subplot, but it’s an enjoyable hodgepodge, with more action in any five-minute stretch than twenty soccer matches.
Friday Night Lights (2004)
With Billy Bob Thornton in complete control of his character, and country star Tim McGraw as a father who peaked not when his son was born but when he received that high school championship ring, this is the Hoosiers of football movies—and that’s saying a lot. As much about the punishing pressure to win as it is about the nobility of playing, Friday Night Lights gives us a coach and team whose “heart is full.”
