Bill Simmons discusses the sports movies of 09 – We need your vote

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I came across a column ESPN’s Bill Simmons wrote this week and figured it was only fitting to share it with all of you fans of film. His discussion focused on the sports films of the past year – a couple that will go down as the defining titles – and a few smaller movies he enjoyed much more.
Let’s start by taking a look at the two titles that will most likely be remembered as the pair of title contenders for the sports movie crown of the year: “Invictus” and “The Blind Side.” Simmons’ writing dug into the faulty casting and simple plot of “Invictus” pretty hard, most notably the far-fetched role of Matt Damon as 6-foot-3 South African rugby legend Francois Pienaar.

As one of the most inspiring sports events of the 20th century, Nelson Mandela gets out of prison, wins the presidency of South Africa, then throws his support behind the country’s national rugby team (the Springboks, an almost entirely white team that South African blacks always had hated), hoping the team might succeed in its 1995 Cup and heal some of his country’s seemingly irreparable racial wounds.

So how did director Clint Eastwood screw it up? In Simmons opinion, it was the failure to build the movie around the story of the rugby team, rather than focusing on Morgan Freeman as Nelson Madela. The reasoning? Freeman drew the financial backing to make the film a reality – it’s not like this was a story Hollywood just heard about – so getting him as the lead got the money in the bank.

The other big sports movie of the year fared much better to the critique of Simmons. He clearly enjoyed “The Blind Side” better – and as he referenced, so did the rest of America. The film was “based on a true story” and has a strong premise: wealthy, white Memphis family adopts a homeless, black kid, and with their urging he takes up football and becomes a top college prospect.

As previously mentioned, these two may be the most recognizable or bigger box office winners, but in Simmons opinion, three others were much better.
“Big Fan” – Patton Oswalt plays a 35-year-old parking attendant who lives at home with his mother and is the self-described world s biggest New York Giants fan, spending his off hours calling local sports-radio stations where he rants in support of his beloved team. It’s a great movie that touches on the obsession American’s have with “their team” and a film all fellow die-hards can relate to – just hopefully not quite to this extent.

“The Damned United” – The true story of Brian Clough, an accomplished English soccer manager in the ’60s and ’70s who feuded with Leeds United (the Manchester United of that era) before improbably taking Leeds over, then botching the job so badly that they fired him after 44 days. It’s a famous English soccer saga that means nothing in America, but as Simmons puts it, “Imagine Belichick taking over the Colts from Dungy this past summer and then getting fired in Week 6, and you have an idea of how loony this episode was. I wouldn’t call it a soccer flick as much as a movie about how hubris can bring anyone down.”

“Sugar” – The story of story about a young Dominican man who comes to the U.S. to play baseball, Simmons calls it “one of the 20 or 25 best sports movies ever. Deeply affecting. Brilliantly executed. Brought me into a world I never knew. Made me rethink every notion I had about professional baseball and especially the experiences of Dominican players to the degree that I am still re-evaluating my feelings about every Latino player who cheated during the steroids era.”

So, there you have it sports and movie fans, five films from the past year that were built on the common Hollywood theme of creating movies based on the mega-business of sports. We need your take on these, do you go with the big ticket titles, or are you leaning towards Simmons’ corner with the smaller films? Place your vote and let’s determine the winner.
For a great read, here is the entire Bill Simmons’ column:
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/091231

“Invictus”