Sports Movie Reviews | Picturenose

DVD Movie Review: Goon (2011)

Feb

2013

High Goon A football hooligan is a spectator who initiates fights in the stands against other belligerents. A hockey hooligan, or goon, is a team’s enforcer paid to intimidate and kick your cul around the rink. Mark my words: Michael Dowse‘s Goon (2011) will be a cult classic for years to come.

DVD Movie Review: Mike Bassett: England Manager (2001)

Oct

2012

Footie ‘funanza’! A tour-de-force of football movie magic – over the course of 89 minutes of screen time, there are many hilarious scenes that England fans can truly relate to. Mike Bassett is the manager of Norwich City and, having won a minor cup, is catapulted into the top job, because no-one else wants it!

Goal! (2005)

Jul

2012

Back of the net? Footie and the flicks have, down the years, had a relationship best described as lacklustre. Let’s face it, a game between Accrington Stanley and Crawley Town has more passion (and certainly more grass-roots realism) than the alleged soccer in movies such as Escape to Victory (1981) or When Saturday Comes (1996) ...

Ten Favourite Sports Movies 10

May

2012

This sporting life So here we go with our personal favourites in the field of sports movies (see what I did there?) It’s not an ordered ‘top ten’, nor is it a definitive list of the best ten ever made, before we get the now-customary emails and comments saying ‘you suck’. You’re still welcome to ...

The Color of Money (1986)

Nov

2011

Rack ‘em! I wanted to talk a little about Martin Scorsese‘s The Color of Money (1986), having already dealt with its predecessor, Robert Rossen‘s The Hustler (1961).

When We Were Kings (1996)

Sep

2011

Just a knockout I am very grateful to my friend and New Europe colleague Andy Carling for many things, but the most recent of these would have to be his recommendation that I sit down and enjoy an evening with Messrs Muhammad Ali, George Foreman and Leon Gast, who is the director of the quite ...

Invictus (2009)

Feb

2010

A worthy try Certainly, he’s a director in vogue. Clint Eastwood has made a remarkable transition over the years from the spaghetti-western, moody-strong-silent type and amoral urban avengers that characterized his earlier roles, as well as the broad (though thrilling) sweeps of his first directorial efforts, such as Play Misty For Me (1970) and High ...

The Damned United (2009)

Oct

2009

Not bad, young man… Wouldn’t you know it? Colin was recently complaining about the relative dearth of really good films concerning the beautiful game and, while he was coming more from the hooligan-culture side of things, the same could be said of movies about football itself.

Resurrecting the Champ (2008)

Aug

2009

Punch drunk Film critic-turned-director Rod Lurie (The Contender (2000) and TV series Commander in Chief (2005)) offers up a deliberate, sober film with good performances that packs a surprisingly solid emotional wallop. Erik Kernan Jr. (Josh Hartnett) plays a writer who’s coasting on the reputation of his famous-sportscaster father, writing so-so stories for a Denver ...

The Wrestler (2008) 2

Feb

2009

But the fighter still remains… Gerald Loftus returns with his thoughts on Darren Aronofsky’s Oscar-touted extravaganza… Somewhere back in the late 1980s and early 90s, around the time of Saddam Hussein’s transformation from “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” to plain old bad guy, the professional wrestling world liked to use guys dressed up ...

Rocky Balboa (2006)

Jul

2008

Punching out Thirty-two years have now passed since Rocky first went the distance with Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) in 1976. Rocky, the story of Sylvester Stallone’s likeable no-hoper, written by Stallone and directed by John G. Avildsen, took the Best Picture Oscar and thus was a legend, and of course a franchise, born.