SPORTS MOVIE DAY

Pride

I read the reviews of this movie… to be honest, I wasn’t too thrilled. “African-American swim team” isn’t a phrase that’s going to make me rush into the theater. I recently saw the trailer, however, and my jaw literally dropped. “Almost completely naked, totally ripped, glistening wet black-man team” IS something that gets me to the cinema. It really didn’t disappoint me. Pride is getting bad reviews mainly for being a standard Hollywood uplifting underdog sports movie. And it is that, to be sure, but I thought that it captured the time and place extremely well. The beaded-up balls of sweat on faces, the afro puffs, the grungy graffiti-covered buildings, the crowded busses… everything was very evocative of a different, long-gone world. And if the movie is rote and predictable… so what, it was entertaining enough.

Blades of Glory

Oh my god, this movie is gut-bustingly funny! I don’t need to say much more about it, I know you’ll all see it. All I’m going to say is that Jon Heder more than keeps up with Will Ferrell, and was maybe even funnier than him, which is pretty impressive. And although a lot of the film would seem on the surface to be taking pot-shots at both the sport of ice skating and gay people, it’s all good-natured… I never felt that they were reaching too far for any of the laughs, which is a pretty common flaw of modern comedies. Anyway, see it, and have fun – I’ll probably see it again in the theater.