the other day, i was flipping through my 15 channels at like 2 a.m. trying to find something to keep me awake long enough to write a 12-page paper about the environment. this was a virtually insurmountable task, considering how i ran out of fresh material around page 4, lost track of how much coffee i'd drunk by page 8 and was blasting AC/DC by page 11. we all know how that goes.
anyway, the movie i ended up watching was 'invincible,' mainly because it was the only thing that wasn't an infomercial or 'cold case.' 'invincible' is this really awful mark wahlberg sports movie about some has-been quarterback who finally gets his shot in the NFL, and it's inspirational to the point of ridiculousness. i thought it's just like pretty much every other inspirational movie ever made, and then i thought about the inspirational movie genre as a whole.
has anyone else ever noticed that the vast majority of these insipid inspirational "we shall overcome" movies deal with sports as a major theme? they're nearly exclusively centered around either sports or cancer, sometimes both. 'field of dreams,' anyone? 'the karate kid,' 'rocky,' 'rudy,' 'ali,' 'miracle,' 'we are marshall,' 'a league of their own,' 'the rookie,' 'air bud,' 'bull durham,' 'hoop dreams...' i could go on. these movies span just about every sport... there's even that movie about the jamaican bobsled team. are there sports movies that don't have an underlying inspirational theme?
even though i really hate those sappy, over-the-top "make your dreams come true" movies, i have learned almost everything i know about sports from watching them. there's always that climactic, pivotal moment toward the end of the movie during the final game where you all of a sudden see like an entire game because they're drawing out the suspense of the plot. of course, there's never any real question as to who's going to win because these movies are wildly predictable, but they have to explain the rules of the game a little bit so that everyone understands how and why the good guys won.
there are the rudimentary things like the rules of hockey, learned from 'miracle.' there's the strategy of baseball, learned from 'angels in the outfield,' 'eight men out,' 'major league,' the list goes on. i know all about soccer, basketball, golf, football and even boxing from these movies. i even know some of the rules of the more obscure sports like rugby (in 'invictus'), bobsledding (in 'cool runnings'), cycling (in 'breaking away'), chess (in 'searching for bobby fischer'), pool (in 'the hustler') and more. it's kind of great, actually.
movies like 'raging bull' always end with a good message, but they're generally depressing tear-jerkers. theoretically, sports don't always have to be depressing. in fact, i'd say most sports are anything but depressing. but even the sports comedies end up being a little heavy on the disingenuous "we can do it" emphasis, what with all the overcoming obstacles and the learning to believe in oneself. not that believing in yourself is bad, but is it too much to ask for more 'caddyshack' and less 'hoosiers?'
on the other hand, i could just go watch espn.
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