BEST OF THE BEST?
On the list of best sports movies, you won’t believe what made the cut
Mar 25, 2021, 12:57 pm
Rocky won best picture in 1973. Photo by Getty Images.
Is Bill O'Brien going full Rocky IV before our eyes?
What is your favorite sports movie ever? Mine is Slap Shot, with Caddyshack a close second. I've watched them probably 20 times, and each time they get stupider and funnier.
Maybe you've got an idea for a sports movie that's even funnier, more dramatic, or pulls at your heartstrings.
Time is running out for writers to enter their original movie scripts for the Houston International Sports Film Festival's "Screenplay Competition."
The festival, scheduled for June 3-6, is looking for "stories that go beyond the field and show the relationship between sports and life." Judges include producer, director and writer Angelo Pizzo (Hoosiers and Rudy) and writer Brad Gunn (Disney's Invincible). Details of the film festival, including where to send your screenplay, are available at eventhorizonfilms.com. The deadline is April 25.
This will be the first year for the Houston International Sports Film Festival. Winners of the screenplay competition will receive autographed film scripts, professional consultations and tickets to sports events.
I'm a big fan of sports movies, they're practically the only films I watch besides comedies and gangster movies. The festival got me thinking, what are the Top 10 most successful sports movies ever made? The answer is tricky because when you ask the Internet, the list is not only debatable, frankly all 10 have little to do with sports.
To start the argument, the No. 1 biggest money-making sports movie is Furious 7. Released in 2015, the film took in $1.5 billion at the worldwide box office. No. 2 is The Fate of the Furious ($1.23 billion), No. 3 is Fast & Furious 6 ($788 million), No. 4 is Hobbs & Shaw ($759 million), and No. 5 is Forrest Gump ($677 million).
To say these are Top 5 is to consider illegal street racing, the background of Fast & Furious movies, a sport. OK, maybe that's true in Houston (hundreds of cars impounded this month), but generally speaking, an activity isn't a sport if it's 3 a.m. and you can go to jail for doing it. Forrest Gump does have a few sports scenes, like college football, ping-pong and running, but they're not really instrumental to the story.
The rest of the Top 10 is even sillier. No. 6 is Fast Five ($626 million), followed by Cars 2 ($562 million), Cars ($462 million), Cars 3 ($383 million), and Fast & Furious ($363 million).
The Cars movies are cartoons. To say they're about motor racing is to consider Alvin and the Chipmunks one of the greatest rock bands in history.
Also high on the list of most successful sports movies: Gladiator (gladiatorial combat), Casino Royale (gambling), Ready Player One (esports), Slumdog Millionaire (game show), and Saturday Night Fever (dancing). None of them is a sport, and unless you're dining at Medieval Times, gladiatorial combat may be illegal. However, the roast chicken at Medieval Times rivals Costco birds for juiciness.
Sticking with real sports, the Top 5 films are: Karate Kid ($359 million), Enter the Dragon ($350 million), The Blind Side ($309 million), Rocky IV ($300 million), and Rocky III ($270 million).
Sports movies, like Rodney Dangerfield, don't get no respect. They rarely get mentioned at the Academy Awards. In nearly 100 years of Oscars, only three sports movies have won for Best Picture: Rocky (1973), Chariots of Fire (1981) and Million Dollar Baby (2004).
Only three actors have won Best Actor for a sports movie: Robert DeNiro (Raging Bull), Paul Newman (The Color of Money), and Wallace Beery (The Champ).
Only two actresses have won a sporty Best Actress award: Sandra Bullock (The Blind Side) and Hilary Swank (Million Dollar Baby). More important, Swank was judged "Hot" in a "Hot or Not Hot" contest on The Office with Michael Scott casting the deciding vote.
Technically, the sports movie with the most Oscar nominations is Gladiator with 12 nods. The actual sports movie with the most nominations is Pride of the Yankees (1942) with Gary Cooper portraying the Iron Horse. The real-life Babe Ruth has a cameo in the movie. It's a sad biopic, keep a hankie handy. The top bawler sports film, though, has to be Brian's Song, about the inspiring friendship of Chicago Bears legend Gale Sayers and cancer-stricken running back Brian Piccolo.
If you consider hunting to be a sport (I don't), the saddest movie is Bambi, especially the scene where Bambi's mother is murdered by an unnamed "Man." I saw this movie as a kid and it still gets to me.
According to Rotten Tomatoes, the real people's choice awards, the most beloved sports movies ever is The Wrestler (2008), with Mickey Rourke playing a down and out, aging pro wrestler beset with drug, alcohol and health problems, sort of based on the life and near death of Jake "the Snake" Roberts.
True story: one time I took my son Andrew backstage to meet the wrestlers. Snake was holding court, entertaining young wrestlers with stories of the good old days. Before he got into one of his wilder, crazier tales, politically incorrect Roberts squinted with bleary eyes at Andrew, who was 8 at the time, and asked, "Wait, are you a (little person) or a kid?"
I'm not sure if he was serious. I'm 90 percent he was.
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Alex Bregman couldn’t hold back the smile when he was asked who might have had the biggest impact on his decision to sign with the Boston Red Sox.
“My favorite player Dustin Pedroia,” Bregman said of the club's former second baseman and two-time World Series champion.
“He reached out a few times this offseason and talked about how special it was to be a part of the Boston Red Sox,” Bregman said Sunday. “It was really cool to be able to talk to him as well as so many other former players here in Boston and current players on the team as well.”
A day after Bregman's $120 million, three-year contract was announced, he sat at a 25-minute news conference between his agent, Scott Boras, and Boston Chief Baseball Officer Craig Breslow. Manager Alex Cora, who gave Bregman a hug after he handed the infielder his No. 2 jersey, also was at the table along with team president Sam Kennedy.
Breslow and Cora wouldn't say whether Bregman would move to play second base, Pedroia's position, or remain at third — a position manned by Rafael Devers since July 2017.
A few players, Jarren Duran and Rob Refsnyder among them, and coaches stood behind the seated reporters to listen.
Bregman gets a $5 million signing bonus, a $35 million salary this season and $40 million in each of the following two years, with some of the money deferred, and he can opt out after the 2025 and 2026 seasons to become a free agent again.
Asked why he agreed to the shorter contract with opt outs, he leaned forward to the microphone in front of him and replied: “I just think I believe in my abilities.”
Originally selected by Boston in the 29th round of the 2012 amateur draft, Bregman attended LSU before the Houston Astros picked him second overall in 2015. His family history with the Red Sox goes back further.
“My dad grew up sitting on Ted Williams’ lap,” he said.
MLB.com said Stan Bregman, the player's grandfather, was a lawyer who represented the Washington Senators and negotiated Williams' deal to become manager.
Boston has missed the playoffs in five of the last six seasons and had avoided signing the highest-profile free agents. Boras said a conversation with Red Sox controlling owner John Henry showed ownership’s desire to get back to winning.
“I think it was after Soto signed,’’ Boras said, citing the record contract he negotiated for Juan Soto with the Mets. “We had a discussion. I could tell knowing John back with the Marlins and such, he had a real onus about ‘we need to do things differently than what we’ve done before.’
“This is a point and time where I believe Red Sox ownership was hungry for championship play and exhausted with what had happened the last five, six years.”
Called the “perfect fit” by Breslow, the 30-year-old Bregman joined the Red Sox after winning two World Series titles and reaching the playoffs in eight consecutive seasons with Houston.
“I’ve been fortunate enough to be in the playoffs the first eight years of my career, and I plan on continuing to do that here,” he said in his opening remarks. “I’m a winning player and this is a winning organization.”
Coming off an 81-81 season, the Red Sox acquired left-hander Garrett Crochet from the White Sox and signed fellow pitchers Walker Buehler, Patrick Sandoval, Aroldis Chapman and Justin Wilson during the offseason.
After the pitching moves, they found a right-handed bat, too.
“As the offseason progressed it just became clearer and clearer that Alex was the perfect fit for what we were trying to accomplish,” Breslow said.
Bregman ranks first among players with at least 75 career plate appearances in Fenway Park with an OPS of 1.240.
“He fits like a glove for our organization,” Kennedy said.