Hey Sports Fans

There aren’t many sports I don’t enjoy watching. It doesn’t matter if it’s snooker, darts, golf or Rugby; chances are I will have, at some point in my life, shouted at the TV while watching it. So it’s a bit of a shame for me that, while there are lots of good sports movies, there really aren’t that many sports that make good films.

For example, there are fewer things that make me happier than sitting and watching a good Test Match. Five days of cricket that, in all likelihood, will end in a draw is a beautiful thing to watch. However, I really can’t see anyone making a good cricket movie. I think Bollywood has tried on a few occasions, but they always fill any gaps in excitement with a good song and dance, so I don’t think that really counts.

Football (Soccer for any Americans out there) has potential, but has never really fulfilled it. There are many British males who will point to Escape to Victory as an example of a great football film. However, people only think that because it’s got so many great players in it. Unfortunately the great dramatic ending is spoilt by Hollywood insisting that Sylvester Stallone is the hero at the end of the match. It would be fine if he wasn't the bloody goalkeeper!

Unsurprisingly American sports tend to translate to celluloid pretty well. I suppose this is because it’s much easier to build the tension with a high scoring game that can so often be decided in the last five seconds. American Football, Basketball and Baseball all provide perfect popcorn fodder, even if you’re telling a true story.

Of course this sort of blog post usually results in me giving my top ten sports movies of all time, but when I started to pull one together I realised I had some trouble.

The first dilemma – documentaries. I love When We Were Kings and I would probably include Hoop Dreams as well, but for some reason it doesn’t seem right. To me these are documentaries first and sports films second, so they’re out.

Then there are the films that pretend to be sports movies, but actually aren’t. Caddyshack isn’t really a golf movie is it? Surely it’s a comedy. But if that’s the case then I would have to reconsider White Men Can’t Jump. The Hustler pretends to be a film about pool, but it isn’t really.

Eventually I came to realise that this is one of the hardest genres to qualify for some reason. I think I can easily throw in some of my favourites like Rocky, Any Given Sunday, Remember the Titans, Varsity Blues (at this point you may notice a bias towards American Football movies). At the same time I can exclude ones I hate like A League of Their Own and Raging Bull (I feel my dislike of DeNiro is well enough established now that I don’t have to explain this one). However, this doesn’t make the top ten much easier to fill.

In the end I realised that being a sports fan and a movie fan maybe doesn’t automatically qualify me as the best person to pick good sports movies. This moment of clarity came to me as I was trying to justify why I would rather have Rookie of the Year in my top 10 than Field of Dreams.

Public Enemies

I wouldn't say that I dislike Michael Mann, or even that he's overrated, but I certainly wouldn't describe myself as a fan. I loved the Last of the Mohicans but Heat really didn't do it for me and the less said about Miami Vice the better.

However, he is very good at directing action. Whereas 'Bayhem' takes the wall of sound approach of throwing everything at the audience without letting them take a breath, Mann's approach is far more measured and focused, which I prefer.

That's one of the reasons why I'm really looking forward to seeing Public Enemies, the new film about the FBI's attempts to take down notorious gangsters John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson and Pretty Boy Floyd.

The fact that Johnny Depp is playing Dillinger certainly helped to raise my interest, but I think Mann's style will be very well suited to prohibition era America - there's just something very cool about the Tommy Gun.

Michael Marshall Smith

In the past I made comments about no one reading my blog, only to be surprised to discover that some people actually were! It now appears that this number is growing (can't wait to hit double figures). I even have one person officially 'following' Films and Things - thanks James!

Once you get over the ego boost of such an event, which can take a while, you realise there are some real advantages to getting involved in this whole blogosphere thing (sorry, I know it's a crap word).

For example: as soon as you read the blog of someone who's reading your blog, you start to look at other people's blogs who read their blog but who have probably not seen your blog yet. Still with me? Good.

Killing time (that would be more effectively spent doing some actual work) by reading random people's blogs means that you sometimes come across great little finds like this interview with Michael Marshall Smith, one of my favourite authors.

The interview is well worth a read, whether you're familiar with Smith's work or not. Plus it includes a really amusing rant about Richard Dawkins, which is worth the admission fee alone.



P.S. A quick message to Phil over at the Live for Films blog (in case you're reading) - Any chance you can get Michael to send me a signed copy of The Servants?...

Go on, I'll be your best mate!