Flick of The Day: Mystery, Alaska

Sport is one of those subjects which is perfectly suited to the big screen, full of natural drama and high and lows which lend themselves to the cinematic arts. Some sports are of course more suited then others with Boxing being the most overly mined since the days of silent cinema. As noted in our review of When Saturday Comes, a good rule of thumb is that the less sporting action on screen, the better the film works as a piece of drama or comedy. The most successful sporting dramas have been those which dealt with more obscure sports or aspects of sport such as Chariots of Fire, Field of Dreams and This Sporting Life. In this vein then, is this obscure enough ice hockey drama, Mystery Alaska, which never received a cinematic release on this side of the bond and yet is strangely compelling and today's flick of the day.

Mystery Alaska

Starring Russell Crowe, as a Sheriff in a small town in Alaska devoted to its ice hockey team above all other considerations. Every Saturday, they play off against each other in their "Saturday Game". After 13 years on the team, Crowe's John Biebe is dropped in favour of a younger player however after a magazine article highlights their prowess and leads to a challenge match against the much vaunted New York Rangers, John is called back to coach the team and defend the town's honour. John's fellow townsfolk are rounded out by a fine supporting cast including the always entertaining Colm Meaney as the Mayor and a remarkably restrained Burt Reynolds as the Judge. 

While by no means a classic, there is much to enjoy here with some fine turns from the ensemble cast. This is perhaps the real flaw of the film, there are so many characters and treads to the storyline that we never really get to see anyone in much detail. There is a brief interlude about Meaney's philandering wife, another section with a player on trial, Crowe's worries about his wife's wandering eye, all too brief. However the film is held together by the classic tale of the underdog. It's David v  Goliath on a frozen pond.

Donna Biebe: Every ex-player turned coach says that they prefer coaching over playing. Why would they all say that?
John Biebe: Because they can't play.

All in all, the film makes the best of what it has going for it. A fine cast make the best of a limited script with Crowe being his reliable action man self and Meaney batting it straight as the Mayor. Shot on location in Alaska, there is some fine scenery on show and while the film is guilty of the usual Hollywood portrayal of small towns, it is at least a flattering one rather than some Deliverance parody. And yes that is Mike Myers in a blink and you will miss it cameo role and yes Little Richard does sing the national anthem. Draw your own conclusions.

Flick of The Day: Jerry Maguire

Tom Cruise has had a storied career both on and off the screen, playing roles as diverse as a disabled Vietnam vet in Born on the 4th of July, an Irish peasant in Far and Away, lawyers, racing drivers, fighter pilots and secret agents. Up until recently he was untouchable at the box office, delivering consistent profits for everyone. However perhaps his best roles have been those very few where he has pushed himself as an actor such as today's flick of the day, Jerry Maguire, a potent mixture of comedy, romance and the vacuous nature of the corporate world.

Jerry Maguire

Written and directed by Cameron Crowe, a flick of the day favourite with Singles, Say Anything and the great  Almost Famous, this is a tale of a self centred sports agent, Jerry Maguire played by Tom Cruise, who having sold his soul decides to grow a heart with terrible consequences for his career. After writing a preaching memo about the future of his agency in the dead of night, he soon finds himself out of work, single and with a solitary client. This is the egotistical big mouth football star Rod Tidwell played by a career best Cuba Gooding Jr. In an oft parodied scene, he requests Jerry to show him the money. Jerry's only other support is an idealistic single mother Dorothy Boyd played by Renee Zellweger who follows Jerry out of the agency because she believes in him. Jerry has to try and put his life back together while doing the best for Rod and becoming romantically entangled with Dorothy. Along the way he learns how to be a better man then he ever was when on top of the world.

The real selling point for this movie is its heart. Jerry falls hard, his wife leaves him and his friends abandon him and it is only through this callous betrayal that he learns something about himself. It is an unusually nuanced performance from Cruise, giving Maguire a soulful edge. All round the cast is excellent though. Cuba Gooding Jr is as good as he has ever been as the always over the top Tidwell, the kind of irritating whiny professional sportsman we have becomes used to seeing. Zellweger makes the most of her girl next door role as the single mother who goes against her practical nature to help a man she believes in and harbours secret feelings for.

Jerry Maguire: I'm finished, I'm fucked. Twenty-four hours ago, man, I was hot! Now... I'm a cautionary tale. You see this jacket I'm wearing, you like it? Because I don't really need it. Because I'm cloaked in failure! I lost the number one draft picked the night before the draft! Why? Let's recap: Because a hockey player's kid made me feel like a superficial jerk. I ate two slices of bad pizza, went to bed and grew a conscience! 

 Rod Tidwell: Well, boo-fucking-hoo

Crowe's script perfectly juggles the different aspects of its story from the romance between Jerry and Dorothy to the drama of the ups and downs of professional football.

Special mention has to go to young Jonathan Lipnicki as Dorothy's son Ray. He steals almost all of the scenes he is in and there is a real spark to the conversations he has with a lonely Jerry. 

Jerry Maguire: The fuckin zoo is closed, Ray. 

Ray: You said fuck. 

Jerry Maguire: Uh... yeah... I... 

Ray: Don't worry. I won't tell.

As the film moves toward a feel good and heartfelt resolution, we are left with the believe that Jerry has learned to be a better person. After all, his only real crime was to tell the truth and look where it gets him. It's a telling example of how vicious the modern world is for the individual who steps out of the corporate line.

Ultimately, the film was a massive success for all involved giving Cuba Gooding Jr his only Oscar win and yet another nomination for Cruise. A fine film, it takes a different look at the world of professional sports and the lives of the people involved.  The ending is neither trite nor overly sentimental and it makes the best of its constituent parts. I define anyone not to find the final climax compelling viewing.

Flick of The Day: Friday Night Lights

Sport, as we have noted before in our reviews of Fever Pitch and Senna, contains all the basic elements of great drama. There is the necessary conflict in that there can only be one winner in a game. There is the full gamut of human emotion from the heartbreaking tragedy of Aryton Senna's death to the elation of Arsenal's winning season in Fever Pitch. It is something which brings out the obsessive in us all. Today's flick of the day, Friday Night Lights, attempts to document this obsession in the form of a small town football team in West Texas.

Friday Night Lights

Odessa, Texas 1988. The home of the Permian High School Panthers, a football team setting out on the road to a State Championship. From the early days of pre season training to the bitter finale, the film attempts to document the entire season in a town where football is the only game and where second place is not acceptable. The obsessive nature of the townsfolk is scary at times as it threatens to weight down the student athletes. The young cast and the small town people are well sketched. There is the star player who will supposedly carry the team to glory, Boobie Miles played by Derek Luke. The tough quarterback with a hard family life, Mike played by Lucas Black of Fast and the Furious fame. The abusive and domineering father played by a surprisingly good Tim McGraw and above all the world weary head coach played by a career best Billy Bob Thornton,

The first thing that must be said is that the film transcends its sport. I have little or no knowledge of American Football and yet I found it very compelling. Ultimately this is a tale of the power of hope and the dangers of obsession. You would have to a heart of stone not to feel a little sympathy for the team at their lowest point. They go through everything together as a team and undoubtedly come out at the end as better people because of it.

Coach Gary Gaines: [half-time speech] I want you to take a moment, and I want you to look each other in the eyes. I want you to put each other in your hearts forever because forever is about to happen here in just a few minutes. I want you to close your eyes, and I want you to think about Boobie Miles, who is your brother. And he would die to be out there in that field with you tonight. And I want you to put that in your hearts. Boys my heart is full. My heart is full.

Thornton is near perfect as the coach under an immense pressure from the various grandees around town to deliver a title. He inhabits the role to a degree I have not seen in his other work. Lucas Black also gives a fine performance as the taciturn quarterback who is torn between looking after himself and looking after his ill mother. Tim McGraw is also excellent as a deeply flawed father to one of the players, in a compelling and intense performance.

All in all, this is an enjoyable and compelling film, making the most of a great real life story adapted from a 1990 bestseller by American journalist H.G Bissinger. There are some fine performances from a decent all round cast and it manages to get to the heart of the dangerous obsession fans have for their teams to the detriment of the rest of their lives. Well worth a look.

Flick of The Day: When Saturday Comes

Sport and football in particular is something you would imagine naturally lends itself to the big screen. It is replete with action, drama and twist endings. It is then a wonder that there have been so few great films about football, if any. Generally the rule appears to be the less actual sport played on screen, the more likely the film is to succeed as drama. Though the recent Goal! Trilogy managed to fail on both counts. In general, the Venn diagram between skilled footballers and talented actors has a very small intersection. It is a pleasure then to report a very decent film about the game and today's flick of the day, When Saturday Comes

When Saturday Comes [Region 2]

Starring a young Sean Bean, an actor who has for so long been typecast as a bad guy in American movies and now earning long overdue plaudits in HBO's Game of Thrones, this is the story of a talented young footballer called Jimmy Muir. Muir is given two choices when he leaves school, either work in  a factory or down a coal mine though he harbours dreams of playing professionally. Fast forward a few years and Jimmy is working for a brewery while playing at an amateur level. He lives at home with his parents including his overbearing drunk of a father and an impressionable younger brother.Sheffield is a hard industrial town and the film pulls no punches in documenting Jimmy's life. By chance, Jimmy is spotted by Ken Jackson played by the late great Pete Postlethwaite,  a talent scout for the local big club, Sheffield United. Jimmy has one last chance to redeem his life and perhaps make up for lost time.

Bean shines as the hidden talent desperate for a chance to shine. Perhaps something that sets this apart from so many other rags to riches sports dramas is the emphasis on working class life in a grubby industrial city which gives it a feeling of authenticity. If anything, this is revelled in too much with every second person an alcoholic with a gambling problem or a housewife broken by life. It is possible to thrive in this environment and writer/director Maria Giese ladles the school of hard knocks too heavily. That said, there is much to enjoy and Postlethwaite and Emily Lloyd excel in their supporting roles. Lloyd in particular makes you wonder what might have been. At one time, she was a promising talent who starred in films with Brad Pitt and Bruce Willis. Her career has been blighted by mental illness over the past twenty years however and she hasn't acted in a feature since 2008. A talent all the same though.

All in all, a worthy addition to the genre and an enjoyable film. Bean and Postlethwaite deliver strong performances and but for some heavy handed direction, could have been so much more. Well worth a look.

Flick of The Day: Senna

The documentary film has long been a difficult cinemagoer. A trip to the cinema is by definition a wish to be entertained not lectured. However in recent years, thanks to a gaggle of truly superb documentaries such as American: The Bill Hicks Story, Touching the Void and Anvil, a documentary is now a seriously entertaining and compelling proposition. Today's flick of the day is a recent arrival in cinemas that delivers on all counts, Senna.

senna (2 Dvd) Italian Import

Told by the man himself in his own words, Senna is the life story of Ayrton Senna, the Brazilian Formula 1 racing driver who came from Brazil and conquered the world of Motorsport, winning 3 world titles before his life was tragically cut short in a crash at the San Marino Grand Prix in 1994. The film begins as Senna moves to Europe for the first time in 1978 as Go-Kart champion in search of a bigger stage. Before long he is in the highest form of the sport, Formula 1, joining the struggling Toleman team in 1984. It quickly becomes apparent that Ayrton is a special talent, in an early race at Monaco he guides his car to second place in the rain and is hot on the heels of the leader and soon to be nemesis Alain Prost when the race is stopped at Prost's behest because of the rain. 

The relationship between the two is central to the film. Initially grudgingly respectful, this rapidly spirals into enmity when the two becomes team mates for Mclaren in 1988. At 1989 Japanese Grand Prix, Prost drives Senna off the circuit knowing it will guarantee him a World title before Senna returns the favour at the same Grand Prix in 1990. Their duelling and bitter rivalry drives the film forward but in truth Prost is not the villain of the piece. This falls to Jean-Marie Balestre, the man in charge of Formula 1 and who at various points seems to favour his countryman Prost much to the irritation of Senna. The level of political chicanery and outright corruption is shocking at times. 

However most shocking of course is the danger that was involved in the sport at this time. With cars going faster and faster on circuits not built for it and safety regulations that are laughably lax, tragedy was inevitable. The film builds to its climax in this vain with the San Marino Grand Prix in May 1994. A cursed weekend, it began with a horrid crash for driver Rubens Barrichello from which he emerges unscathed, before Austrian driver Roland Ratzenberger is killed on Saturday. We see Ayrton's reaction to all of this, obviously unsettled he decides to race on Sunday wearing an Austrian flag under his suit in honour of Ratzenberger. As Senna entered the high-speed Tamburello corner on lap 6, the car left the track at high speed, hitting the concrete retaining wall. He was just 34 when he died.

The true strength of the movie is the wealth of footage they make use of, enabling Senna to tell his own story. Almost everything seems to have been documented from drivers briefings prior to races to behind the scenes discussions and shocking footage of the aftermath of crashes. The accident suffered by driver Martin Donnelly is particularly difficult to watch. Not only is everything documented, the various camera men took great care to shoot with an eye for cinematography and it gives even the smallest of a scenes a cinematic feeling. Ultimately, this is not the story of why Senna was a great racing driver but why he was a great man, it is a film that is watchable even by somebody with no interest in the sport.

It is a profoundly moving story all the same. Having battled against the blatant cheating of his main rival and the inane bureaucracy of his sport, to be cut down in his prime by a car that was fatally flawed is a bad end. By the time this occurs, you feel you have the measure of the man and how he lived his life. Director Asif Kapadia has created a compelling and ultimately tragic documentary. You really must see it.

Flick of The Day: Fever Pitch

Before Colin Firth became the actor du jour in Hollywood with A Single Man and The Kings Speech, he was a jobbing British Thespian combining TV roles and theatre with the odd  feature thrown in for good measure including some fine work as the definitive Mr Darcy in Pride & Prejudice for the BBC and starred in today's film, Fever Pitch.

Fever Pitch

A very loose adaptation of Nick Hornby's best selling account of his life as an Arsenal fan. Hornby fictionalised his story into an account of Arsenal's 1989 title chasing season, creating the character of Paul Ashworth, ably played by Firth, a teacher at a North London comprehensive school. The film opens with the school year as a new teacher joins the staff, Sarah Hughes played by Ruth Gemmell. Initially appalled with Paul's obsession with all things Arsenal, they soon become an item. From extended flashbacks to Paul's childhood in the 60's and 70's, we begin to see the root of Paul's obsession. How his divorced father tried to use football as a means of making a connection with an increasingly disaffected Paul and how it gradually grew into the most important thing in his life above all else including his work and personal relationships. There are some fine supporting performances from the likes of Neil Pearson as Paul's dad and Mark Strong as Paul's best friend.

The film is different enough to the book to stand on its own feet and be judged accordingly. As such it is a fine account of the obsessiveness of football fans, capturing the raw spirit and passion of fandom. Firth is excellent, giving an understated performance. It is at its best in these scenes, including an excellent scene showing the madness of the terraces set to The Who's "Baba O'Reilly" climaxing in the Hillsborough disaster that in many ways changed football in England forever. 

All in all, this is an excellent film, funny, wise and true. It captures the nature of obsession, and is one of the best accounts of sport I've come across. It also has one of the great climaxes, with Paul and Sarah's relationship reaching a critical juncture as Arsenal are within touching distance of the title. In and ending so theatrical, you couldn't make it up, Arsenal must beat Liverpool 2 nil in the final game of the season to win the title. Its well worth a look if you get the chance.