Saturday Six – Football Movies

Welcome to the Saturday Six, where each week I let you get to know me a bit better with the help of a list. Any idiot can do a Top 5 list, which is why I kicked it up a notch to a Top 6. This week’s topic: Football movies

So the Superbowl was last weekend. Being from Philly, the land of the epic choke, I’ve never been a big football fan because we pretty much always sucked. But I’d jump on the bandwagon in a minute when we were winning. I used to be pretty big into fantasy football, but I had to take a step back, because it’s a lot of work to have a successful team, and I realized I was watching games for teams I don’t care about just to keep tabs on my players, and that’s not really fun. Plus even with all the work researching who to play and who to pull, I still sucked at it and always was last in my league. My mom thought football was too violent and I’d get hurt, so I never got to play as a kid. So how do you enjoy football when you don’t watch the games or actually play?

Movies. That’s how. There are a ton of great movies that feature football. Here’s a list of some of my favorites.

1. Angus – I’m sure you expected the other James Van Der Beek football film, but I’m picking this one instead, because I fucking love the shit out of this movie and will praise it at any opportunity. Sure, it’s not directly about football, but it plays a big part in defining Angus’ character since he is mercifully mocked by the rest of his teammates, including a pre-Dawson’s Creek Van Der Beek, a pre-Unhappily Ever After and Entourage Kevin Connolly, and a post-Ghost Dad but pre-Saved By The Bell: The New Class Salim Grant. While he is just a “fat kid who’s good at science and fair at football”, in the end he ends up getting the girl, a post-Jurassic Park Ariana Richards. Plus it’s got George C. Scott and Kathy Bates. And a pre-American Pie Chris Owen too. Even though the original short story by Chris Crutcher was better, and it tends to drag in the middle act, it’s still a fantastic coming of age comedy that I cannot recommend enough. And Green Day wrote a song for the soundtrack. They never do that!

 



2. The Replacements – This is another movie that I inexplicably love, even though it’s incredibly cliched despite being loosely based on the 1987 NFL strike. It’s one of the few movies besides The Matrix that Keanu Reeves is any good in. The cast is an amazing ensemble, from Reeves, to Gene Hackman, Jon Favreau, Orlando Jones, Rhys Ifans, Faizon Love, and David Denman (Roy from The Office). It manages just the right mix of comedy (like the “I Will Survive” dance or “What are you afraid of?” “Spiders”), drama, and romance. They even managed to get both Pat Summerall and John Madden to do the game commentary. It’s all around my favorite film that is legitimately about football. I even own a Shane Falco jersey because I’m that kind of nerd about this movie.

 



3. Necessary Roughness – This film is basically a 90’s version of The Replacements. Or The Replacements is a remake of this. Either way, both are great ensemble pieces about a team that has to rebuild from scratch. But here the ensemble has Scott Bakula, Robert Loggia, Jason Bateman, Sinbad, Larry Miller, and Kathy Ireland. Kathy Ireland was a big get back then. See, before the internet, which literally made porn available everywhere, people waited dutifully each year for the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition to mail soft core erotica straight to their doors, and Kathy Ireland was their most popular model. Now we just know her for her clothing collection at K-Mart.

 



4. The Garbage Picking Field Goal Kicking Philadelphia Phenomenon – This one is mostly for the name, and the insanity of the premise. Plus, hey, Tony Danza! Danza is a trashman with a garbage truck so shitty, he has to kick the back of it to get the compactor to close. Years of doing this have made him an incredibly good kicker. One day he gets so pissed off at being a trashman, he kicks a water jug in frustration and it sails far across the dump. The dump which just so happens to be the scouting location for a new stadium, which explains why the Eagles’ coach is there to see this amazing kick and offer him a spot on the team. Yeah. All of that sounds exactly like things the Eagles would be doing. This movie is basically Invincible, but with Tony Danza as Mark Walburg. Also, he’s a trashman.

 



5. The Waterboy – Adam Sandler at his most Sandler-iest. This is not a good movie by any stretch of the imagination, but if you like Adam Sandler films, you could do much worse. I really just like that The Big Show is in it as Captain Insano. Plus, 16 year old me thoroughly enjoyed Fairuza Balk in pretty much her only major film besides The Craft and Return to Oz

 



6. Black Sunday – I caught this as a “Million Dollar Movie” when I was a kid and just loved the concept of “use the Goodyear Blimp to blow up the Superbowl”. I’m sure it was an influence on Michael Scott’s Threat Level Midnight on The Office. Looking back on it now though, man, this movie is fucked up. The blimp pilot is a Vietnam vet with PTSD who gets in bed with a bunch of Palestinian terrorists. As a child, that all went over my head. I was more concerned with “Hey look, it’s the real Goodyear blimp at the real Super Bowl! ” than the parallels to the 1972 Munich Olympic games. Using the real blimps at a real Superbowl is an amazing accomplishment technically. Plus, the film is directed by John Frankenheimer, produced by Robert Evans, scored by John Williams, and based on the only non Hannibal Lecter book by Thomas Harris. So yeah, it’s pure 70’s, but it’s a pretty good action thriller. Sort of a “Die Hard with a blimp.”

 

JohnScott is the proud owner of a life size replica Captain Kirk Chair. He is a hoarder of Comic Books, Transformers, and Star Trek action figures. He attended Space Camp as an adult. He has taken vacations to the closing of the Star Trek Experience and the final night Shuttle launch. He has been known to yell at his television when the kids can't put together the damn statue in the Shrine of the Silver Monkey. When not writing for InsufficientScotty, he is a Software Engineer for a major healthcare communications company. You can Email or follow on Twitter @NotEnoughScotty or Facebook