Sucker
I am a sucker for sports movies. I can't take romantic comedy (unless it's done well which it hasn't been in this country since around 1945 but that's another story) but give me a movie where the underdog trains and trains and finally gets his or her shot at the big time and I'll cry almost every time. They don't even have to win-I think I can easily win an argument that says Rocky is a better movie than Rocky II. The point of Rocky was that he got his chance and even though he lost, he lost honorably and never quit. The fact that Rocky came out in the 70's just about guaranteed that he would NOT win the match-but that was easily rectified once the 80's rolled around.
Which brings me to the documentary I watched last weekend. I saw the movie Miracle, the story of the US Olympic hockey team in 1980. You know...the game where they beat the Russians in a Cold War match-up in tiny Lake Placid New York. The story of a group of college-age kids who beat the best team in the world seemed made for a movie 20 years later (although a made-for-tv movie followed not long after the game) but I wondered at the time what the impetus for this movie was. It was 20 years later. And yes, that game has been named the best sports moment of the 20th century but it was still 20 years ago.
And then I watched Do You Believe In Miracles-the Story of the US Olympic Hockey Team. I only ran across it because i was looking through Liev Schreiber's listing at the IMDB and saw that he had done the narration for this movie-and that i had never heard of it, even though it was made in 2001. Once I put it in realized why-it was made for HBO-which I don't have. It was easy to see where everything in Miracle came from-the rivalry between Boston and Minnesota-it's in there. The Brooksisms ("you don't have enough talent to win on talent alone")-they're in there too. And it's all real. There are interviews with Jack O'Callahan-voted first to drop the gloves and Jim Craig who kept them in the game and always put them in a position to win. Herb Brooks is there-the man who wasn't afraid to be hated. In fact, he wanted them to hate him, so they would forget that they hated each other. There's even Vladislav Tretiak, who in 1980 was the best-looking guy I had ever seen in my life. He was gorgeous, even if he was an evil commie bastard, who now runs goalie training camps in Canada. Everyone who loves hockey and was at age where they could remember a hockey game when this game was played, remembers this game and where and when they heard that that the US had won and this documentary does a great job of bringing you back to the place and time-and yes, I cried at the end.
Sucker.
Which brings me to the documentary I watched last weekend. I saw the movie Miracle, the story of the US Olympic hockey team in 1980. You know...the game where they beat the Russians in a Cold War match-up in tiny Lake Placid New York. The story of a group of college-age kids who beat the best team in the world seemed made for a movie 20 years later (although a made-for-tv movie followed not long after the game) but I wondered at the time what the impetus for this movie was. It was 20 years later. And yes, that game has been named the best sports moment of the 20th century but it was still 20 years ago.
And then I watched Do You Believe In Miracles-the Story of the US Olympic Hockey Team. I only ran across it because i was looking through Liev Schreiber's listing at the IMDB and saw that he had done the narration for this movie-and that i had never heard of it, even though it was made in 2001. Once I put it in realized why-it was made for HBO-which I don't have. It was easy to see where everything in Miracle came from-the rivalry between Boston and Minnesota-it's in there. The Brooksisms ("you don't have enough talent to win on talent alone")-they're in there too. And it's all real. There are interviews with Jack O'Callahan-voted first to drop the gloves and Jim Craig who kept them in the game and always put them in a position to win. Herb Brooks is there-the man who wasn't afraid to be hated. In fact, he wanted them to hate him, so they would forget that they hated each other. There's even Vladislav Tretiak, who in 1980 was the best-looking guy I had ever seen in my life. He was gorgeous, even if he was an evil commie bastard, who now runs goalie training camps in Canada. Everyone who loves hockey and was at age where they could remember a hockey game when this game was played, remembers this game and where and when they heard that that the US had won and this documentary does a great job of bringing you back to the place and time-and yes, I cried at the end.
Sucker.
posted by SHbookworm at 3:00 PM
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