Sports Movie Showdown (Football Edition)

Recently, Danye and I have been having heated discussions in an effort to find out what is the best sports movie of all-time. We came to the conclusion that it is friggin impossible to pick just one movie, so we've decided that the only way to find out the definitive best sports movie of all-time would be to let the fans of the Weave decide. That's right, you the reader are going to be able to vote on which sports movies give you the most goose-bumps or which movies make you not afraid to cry like a little bitch in front of all your boys. To make things easier, we’re going to start out by breaking the movies down into categories so that we can get a winner from each. The categories are Football, Basketball, Baseball, Hockey, Boxing & Other. Each week I will be breaking down the top candidates for each sport, then fans of the Weave will get a chance to vote on our Facebook page for which of the movies deserves the title of best in show. The week following the vote, the winner of that category will be revealed and so on and so forth. Once we have selected a winner from each category, the movies that won will face off in a battle (online vote) to be King of Kings. If a movie that you love is not on the list, feel free to bitch about it in the comment section. We begin this ongoing series with a short discussion of the nominees for Best Football Movie.

Brian's Song

I made this selection purely out of the fact that this movie is a sure fire way to make men shed a tear. It is the true story of Brian Piccalo, running back for the Chicago bears, and his relationship with his star counterpart, Gale Sayers. Starring the bad-ass James Caan and Billy Dee-Williams (otherwise known as Lando Calrissean- the black guy from Star Wars that's not Samuel L Jackson). The story rips your heart out of your chest as you watch these two strong competitors deal with Piccalo's diagnoses and eventual death due to cancer. If you don't get a true emotional response from watching this movie it either means that you’re in a coma or you're the reincarnation of Saddam Hussein.

  

Varsity Blues

VB makes the list because of its absolutely awesome description of what it’s like to play football for a big high school program in Texas. From Tweeter steeling cop cars to the chick with the whip cream bikini, this movie delivers on every young football players dream of what playing in high school should be like. My personal favorite is when the whole team discovers that the hot teacher who has been teaching them sex ed is actually a stripper at the local watering hole. Sometimes dreams do come true.

Remember the Titans

This movie single handedly taught me everything I know about the civil rights movement and race relations during the 60's. I mean it left out the part of extreme bigotry, hate and violence, but hey, I got the gist of it. It’s an amazing (semi) true story about how one of the first integrated high schools in the south put together an amazing football team and reached the promised land by working together and settling their racial differences. Regardless of the true outcome of the team, this movie still gets you jacked up for the ultimate team sport, even with the cutesy Disney spin put on the entire movie to make it more dramatic. Hereare some of the differences from Denzel’s team to the actual team.

RUDY

The ultimate underdog story that made every young kid believe that they could suit up for Notre Dame. So thanks, Rudy, for letting all of us down in the end. Yea I mean it’s a little unrealistic and I found that out the hard way. I actually believed that the guy who played the chubby hobbit could actually play for one of the most storied college football programs ever. So to my surprise, I got denied to play football by D-III powerhouse Western Connecticut, because they don't take offensive line man under 6 ft. To add insult to injury they asked me if I wanted to film the team. Assholes. Anyway it doesn't take away from the feeling you get when all the star players on the Notre Dame team walk into coach Dan Devine's office and lay down their jerseys in order to get Rudy a chance to play in his final game of eligibility. 

The Little Giants

This pick is here simply for the fact that Danye and Myself love the annexation of Puerto Rico. It holds a nostalgic part of my childhood for the fact it came out in 1995 right around when I started playing little league football and oddly enough my first team was named The Giants. Every kid who grew up playing Pop Warner at this time thought it was a good idea to put Alka Seltzer in their mouths to try for some intimidation. Little did we realize that the part when Johnny's Dad comes to the final game to see him score a touchdown, that his dad definatly wasn't always away on business but he had another family and son who probably was way more talented than Johnny ever was. The craziest part is that the Carolina Panthers actually used the annexation of Puerto Rico this past season and scored a touchdown. Who knew Cam Newton was such a Rick Moranis fan?

The Longest Yard

The 6th and final film up for voting is The Longest Yard. Why was it picked? Because it’s the ultimate story of the bad guys who are really the good guys beating the good guys that are assholes. If you didn’t catch that it’s a story about how a bunch of rowdy inmates follow a porn-stache clad Burt Reynolds against the guards that give them shit every day. Two cool notes about this movie- Burt Reynolds actually played college football at Florida State before becoming an actor and he also used to eat lunch with the actual inmates at the prison the film was shot at. Please don't compare this one to the Adam Sandler remake. I don't hate that movie, but it pales in comparison because the original is such a classic.

Honorable Mentions

Friday Night Lights

That's the only reason this movie didn't make the cut is because it’s too similar to Varsity Blues and they would take votes away from each other. It’s a much more realistic look at what it was like to play for a program like Permian in the 80's. My favorite part of this whole movie is the fact that they don't win in the end. It makes the whole movie believable and makes you wonder how good of a player Booby Miles could have really been.

Any Given Sunday

Well for starters it stars Al Pacino as a alcoholic head football coach of a professional Miami football team called the Sharks. Jamie Foxx plays the new school style of athlete and even has a rap song that I desperately want to find but can’t find called "Steaming Willy Beaman".  I mean it’s just a bad ass movie. It has Jim Brown as a lunatic defensive coordinator, Lawrence Taylor plays an ageing line backer fighting through concussions in order to make his bonus money. At one point this movie gets so crazy and indicates that some professional football players may participate in some lewd behavior, highlighted by LL Cool J doing blow off of some chicks boobies. Man were they way off with that one. No one in the NFL acts that way now. 

The Program

This is the poster child movie for anyone wondering how crazy a college football program could be. From Steroid use to players getting fucked up to coaches cheating and everything in between. But there is not a scene in any other football movie that gets me more jacked up to play than the practice scene set to Welcome to the Jungle. It gives me a Gridiron hard on.

So that concludes the first list of movies in our search to find the Ultimate Sports Movie. A vote will be held on the 2 Man Weave's Facebook Fan Page starting on Wednesday 1/3 and will be up for one week. After that the votes will be tallied and the winner of the football bracket will be reveled along with an article breaking down the next bracket- Basketball. So please go out and pick a winner.


-Miggs