Super Wellman Bowl

 Super Wellman Bowl

Hello, happy Super Sunday, and welcome to Cinema Wellman where it is currently 8 degrees outside! I am your host David, and today we’re going to be talking about some of our favorite football movies along with a mention of some others that we think are absolutely dreadful.

You’ll even learn which football movie I was called “Un-American” for not liking!

So let’s start the pre-game! Grab an adult beverage and a snack and settle in for 15 football movies making up our Super Wellman Bowl schedule today!

Today’s “big game” is between the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks, and even if you don’t have a horse in this race (or your horse was humanely put down after Week 6), it’s a big day for sports fans, music fans, and advertisers.

Only two of today’s films even feature the “Super Bowl” since the NFL is super protective about that copyrighted phrase and their savage lawyers will eviscerate you if you try to sell TVs or chicken wings using it!

The gambling platforms don’t even get to use it, which is saying something!

The 10 football films we’re going to speak highly of in some way or another break down as follows; two high school football movies, two college football movies, three NFL sanctioned pro football movies, three movies that are supposed to be the “pros,” but the NFL didn’t want ANYTHING to do with, and one prison football movie.

If you were doing the math as I went along, you’ll understand that that went to 11, and I’ll explain that a bit later since I lumped two of them together.

The 5 football movies we’re here to pan include high school, college, the “pros,” and an embarrassing piece of NFL sanctioned Philadelphia Eagles bullshit propaganda.

Let’s start with the swill part of this pigfest!

I’m not going to go through the usual year/rating/run-time/IMDb rating/director for these movies because, if you really want to put yourself through watching them, I’m sure you’ll find all that information on your own. 

When I began this project, I immediately thought of some football films that I despised and I was thinking, There was one football movie with Al Pacino as a coach I hated, or was he the head of a gambling organization?

Turns out that they were TWO different movies and I hated them both!

They are Any Given Sunday and Two for the Money and they are both awful.

As is Jerry Maguire in my opinion. Tom Cruise’s overused (and stupid) catch phrase from this movie “Show me the money!” is almost as obnoxious as that time he danced on Oprah’s couch.

It is no secret in my family that I’m not a fan of Notre Dame. I have two first cousins who went there, and I love them very much. It’s a great university, I just don’t support their football team, and it’s been the source of some family humor for years.

One day at Grandma Lou’s Sunday Dinner (most likely), the discussion turned to the movie Rudy, which I, of course, soundly trashed without ever seeing. I dismissed it as a Notre Dame fairy tale, which is when my Aunt Mary Ann made a comment along the lines of, “Anyone who doesn’t like the movie Rudy is un-American!”

I love you, Aunt Mary Ann, and love that line. One of your best.

I will next trash another movie I haven’t seen, which is odd, but necessary in this case.

My hatred of Philadelphia, their sports teams, and their fans is no secret. When I had the misfortune of living in southern Jersey for eight years, that hatred only grew exponentially.

I also have no use for Marky Mark Wahlberg (with or without the Funky Bunch), so when my school, Chestnut Ridge Middle School, decided to show the Eagles propaganda film Invincible, I had to quickly think of how to avoid it.

You may be familiar with a rule of mine that I finish every movie I’ve ever started watching, so I had my TA watch the kids for the first 15 minutes of the movie.

Problem solved.

I also took two breaks during it because teachers came to the door and asked if I needed a break. I never did this, and always stayed with my kids.

On that day, I took two breaks. 

Anything to avoid that propaganda.

And our last film to land in the pigswill pit today is Varsity Blues.

This one was just screened last week, and it gets worse every time I think about it.

Here are just a few bulleted gripes:

*The “script” seems more like a wish list of things to see written by a horny 7th grade boy.

*Ali Larter sporting a whipped cream bikini to snare the new QB was quite a move for a high school girl. Girls at my high school may have been as advanced, but I was so clueless, it didn’t really matter. 

*A female sex education teacher asks a classroom filled with high school boys if they know any slang terms for an erection - like that would ever happen in any school in any place at any time - and her subplot gets worse…more on that later.

*The head coach, played by Jon Voight (who I despise), is DESPICABLE!! This is the stereotyped hard-nosed, belligerent, abusive coach who only has his job because he “gets results.” And all that horseshit.

*One of the players, played by Scott Caan, steals a police car and gets naked with three high school girls while joyriding around town, and nothing is done at all. So dumb.

*One of the high school boys was played by a 30 year old man.

*A group of players go to a gentlemen’s club where one of the performers is, wow, what a shocker ... ..their super hot sex-ed teacher, who then has drinks with them and they all promise never to say anything to anyone about this. That deal would have been broken before they even left the club.

*This was just idiotic, misogynistic, toxic masculinity - Texas style.

Gross.

Alright, enough of that trash, let’s move on to some football movies that we think are worth your time. These films will be presented in order from high school to college to prison to the “kind of” pros to the NFL pros. And we’ll be starting with…

Remember The Titans (2000)

PG/113 min/IMDb: 7.8/directed by Boaz Yakin

IMDb: “In 1971, Virginia high school football was everything to the people of Alexandria, but when the school board was forced to integrate an all-Black school with an all-white one, the foundation of football’s tradition was put to the test.”

Remember the Titans is one of four films on this list (4 ½ if you count The Replacements) that is based on a true story.

And like many of the true stories on today’s list, Remember the Titans is about a lot more than football.

I was only 9 in 1971, but I remember what a volatile issue race was in the United States at the time. Unfortunately something “we” still have an issue with.

What coach Herman Boone did at that high school was an amazing feat that was accomplished on the football field, but had a rippling effect on the entire school, the community, and the town itself.

The script was originally very R rated and filled with profanities. Kudos to Disney (you may want to record that part!) for asking producer Jerry “Kaboom” Bruckheimer to remove the cursing in order to create a good family film.

I really don’t see it working the other way, so that was a sound decision.

As was casting Denzel as Coach Boone.

Can’t go wrong with Denzel.

Next up is a high school football movie starring a 21-year-old Tom Cruise which is when I actually still liked Tom Cruise’s movies.

All the Right Moves (1983)

R/91 min/IMDb: 6.0/directed by Michael Chapman

IMDb: “An ambitious young football star is trapped in a dying mill town - unless his gridiron skills can win him a way out.”

This male version of Flashdance substitutes steelworker for welder and football for dancing.

I grew up in a place called Vail’s Gate, New York, and not only was it NOT a mill town, but it also wasn’t even a TOWN, it was a “hamlet!” So I had no connections with these young people trying to escape their fates and realizing very few escape.

I’ll take the hamlet!

Craig T. Nelson plays Cruise’s coach, and while he’s not pure evil like Jon Voight in Varsity Blues, he’s still a major asshole with a massive ego and a god complex, and I have a feeling that there are a TON of football coaches out there that fit that bill. 

I love that director Michael Chapman wanted Cruise and co-star Lea Thompson to try to remember what high school was like, so he sent them undercover to separate high schools. NARCS!

Cruise was spotted after a day because someone recognized him from Taps (1981), but Lea Thompson went to school for FOUR DAYS! She supposedly even got caught smoking.

Nice job, Leah!

Next up is another of our true stories, and a movie I just screened for this project.

We Are Marshall (2006)

PG/131 min/IMDb: 7.1/directed by McG

IMDb: “When a plane crash claims the lives of members of the Marshall University football team and some of its fans, the team’s new coach and his surviving players try to keep the football program alive.”

I remember this tragic event happening, but I never knew the story of how the Marshall University football program was rebuilt until I saw We Are Marshall.

Once again this is a football movie that’s about a lot more than football.

This one is about loss, grieving, and hope. Among other things.

When tragedy happens in life, we’re often confused about what to do next. What should we do? How do we show respect? When is it okay to “move on?”

The problem is, there are no simple answers to any of these questions, and we all do things like grieving in our own ways at our own paces.

This crash claimed the lives of 37 players, 8 coaches, 25 boosters, and 5 members of the crew.

Since this was the team’s only charter flight of the season, several prominent citizens were on board including a city councilman, a state legislator, and four of the city’s six doctors.

Seventy children lost one parent in the crash, an additional 18 were orphaned.

When you break it down like that, you can see how this crash didn’t just affect Marshall’s football team.

Ian McShane, Kate Mara, Anthony Mackie, Matthew Fox, the great David Strathairn, and Andrew’s friend Matthew McConaughey are all part of this inspirational film that includes football.

Next is another new screening for me, and another true story.

The Express (2008)

PG/130 min/IMDb: 7.2/directed by Gary Fleder

IMDb: “A drama based on the life of college football hero Ernie Davis, the first African American to win the Heisman Trophy.”

This true account of Ernie Davis was all new to me.

I knew his name, but I had no idea of his story, so I’m very happy I chose to screen it for this episode.

Once again, this is a football movie that’s about a lot more than football, and once again, this time it’s about race.

The Express, sadly, also shares something in common with another film on today’s list, and that’s Brian’s Song.

I really enjoyed this film, and it is definitely a story worth telling. 

Next up is our prison movie, and it’s the original The Longest Yard starring Burt Reynolds.

If you prefer the remake starring Adam Sandler, it’s all good with me.

The Longest Yard (1974)

R/121 min/IMDb: 7.1/directed by Robert Aldrich

IMDb: “A sadistic warden asks a former pro quarterback, now serving time in his prison, to put together a team of inmates to take on (and get pummeled by) the guards.”

We love football movies, we love prison movies, so we certainly love a football prison movie!

The sadistic warden is played by Eddie “Green Acres” Albert, and the hairdo on his secretary, played by Bernadette Peters, is one of the funniest bits in the film.

The cast is great, you root for the convicts to beat the guards, it’s mostly all good fun. 

Mostly.

Next up are two “pro” football movies that weren’t sanctioned by the NFL for the obvious reason that they depicted pro football in an unflattering light, so to speak.

In other words, too close to the truth at the time. 

Semi-Tough (1977)

R/108 min/IMDb: 5.9/directed by Michael Ritchie

IMDb: “A three-way friendship between two free-spirited professional football players and the owner’s daughter becomes compromised when two of them become romantically involved.”

AND

North Dallas Forty (1979)

R/119 min/IMDb: 6.9/directed by Ted Kotcheff

IMDb: “A satire of American professional football in which a veteran pass-catchers' individuality and refusal to become part of the team family are bitterly resented by his disciplinarian coaches.”

I have to admit that I chose not to re-screen either of these late 70s football movies because I was afraid of how badly they have aged, mainly in how women are treated in them.

I’d rather I have the memory I have of them and not revisit, but they are excellent football movies which is why we’re here.

The casts of both are amazing; Burt Reynolds, Kris Kristofferson, Jill Clayburgh, Nick Nolte, Charles Durning, and even John Caveman Matuszak!

And characters named; Shake Tiller, Billy Clyde Puckett, Big Ed Bookman, Puddin, Hose Manning, Jo Bob Priddy, and O.W. Shaddock.

The behavior is very bad all around, which makes me understand why the NFL didn’t want any part of either of these.

They also didn’t want any part of…

The Replacements (2000)

PG-13/118 min/IMDb: 6.6/directed by Howard Deutch

IMDb: “During a pro football strike, the owners hire substitute players.”

Also new to me for this project, and it ended up being a lot of fun.

Although not directly based on the 1987 NFL players strike, it certainly follows the story of the Washington team in 1987 now known as the Commanders.

There are too many connections to real life and the movie for this to not be the case, but also no way the NFL wanted to sanction this.

Training and practice took place at Glen Burnie High School in Glen Burnie, MD which is also the current home of many people I love!

Shout out to my Glen Burnie people!

I decided to watch this because of Keanu Reeves (2nd movie where he plays a former OSU QB!), and because it was a Gene Hackman film I had not seen.

Both were fun to watch, and zero surprise, Reeves had nice things to say about Hackman after his passing.

This was also the final film of friend of Cinema Wellman, Jack Warden, who is also part of TWO more movies on today’s list!

He plays Washington’s team owner and has the line of the film while watching his replacement team practice; “I’ve seen monkey shit fights at the zoo that were more organized than this.” 

That line reminded me of my teaching career. 

Three movies to go today, and I wasn’t sure if the next one was a football movie or a disaster movie (that episode is in the works!), but I wanted to quickly mention it today.

Black Sunday (1977)

R/143 min/IMDb: 6.8/directed by John Frankenheimer

IMDb: “When a Black September terrorist group begins a plot to carry out a massive terrorist attack in the United States, an Israeli commando works with the FBI to identify the target and conspirators and prevent the plan from succeeding.”

So, THIS was one of the movies the NFL actually sanctioned?

A movie about a terrorist attack at the Super Bowl?!

Turns out then Miami Dolphins owner Joe Robbie got the NFL to allow extensive filming at a REAL Super Bowl along with the use of copyrighted team names and logos. 

Movie cameras used in filming were disguised as TV cameras with CBS logos.

Go figure.

Well, Robert Shaw is the bad guy which automatically makes this worth watching.

And this film was also the film debut of Kristy McNichol? Nice!

Next up is a film that I remember sobbing and sobbing and sobbing…

Brian’s Song (1971)

TVM/73 min/IMDb: 7.5/directed by Buzz Kulik

IMDb: “Based on the real-life friendship between Chicago Bears teammates Brian Piccolo and Gayle Sayers and the bond that was strengthened when Piccolo discovers that he has a fatal disease.”

This TV film won five Emmy Awards including one for Jack Warden playing Bears owner George Halas.

Brian’s Song is more about love than it is football, and it probably taught me, at a very early age, that it was okay for guys to love each other, and say it. I love my male friends, and I tell them that. It’s not a big deal. 

One more football film to mention today before I let you get to your snacks, and it ALSO features an Oscar nominated performance by Jack Warden!

Heaven Can Wait (1978)

PG/101 min/IMDb: 6.9/directed by Warren Beatty & Buck Henry

IMDb: “A Los Angeles Rams quarterback, accidentally taken away from his body by an overanxious angel before he was meant to die, returns to life in the body of a recently murdered millionaire.”

I love this movie so much, and I’ve loved it since the very first time I saw it. 

I’ve spoken about it before here, so I won’t say much other than the cast of this film is absolutely amazing and each and every one of them turns in a standout performance; Warren Beatty, James Mason, Jack Warden, Charles Grodin, Dyan Cannon, Buck Henry, Vincent Gardenia, and Julie Christie, who I absolutely adore. 

This movie is so much fun on so many levels, and you kind of forget football is involved after a while.

And it’s a remake!

In case you were wondering why I didn’t share any of the outcomes of the big games shown in these films, it’s because I didn’t want to spoil anything you hadn’t already seen.

I will tell you that the teams we’re following in these films have a 12-2, so you DON’T always win in the end. 

Even in the movies. 

Well, that is a wrap from Cinema Wellman and our Wellman Bowl special!

We hope you enjoy the game, the commercials, the halftime show, the snacks, and the beverages, and we hope the team you're supporting today wins.

I plan on skipping this one and screening Two Minute Warning and Black Sunday instead.

We have a bunch of episodes planned, but we’re not exactly sure what we have for you next, but we hope you’re here for it anyway. 

Until then, take care.