The problem with a story like this is that it's almost too perfect. It tends to break out of the boundaries of the typical sports movie, and undermine those easy cliches that are so reassuring to sports fans. The Olympics have fostered a cult of excellence in which athletes become superhuman, and victories are measured in a tenth of a second. If a bunch of guys can get there by practicing in a bobsled with wheels, nothing is sacred. "Cool Runnings" could have been a subversive movie, then - undermining the carefully-controlled imagery of the Olympics, which are only marginally less a retail business than, say, the Chicago Bulls. But the movie has no such ambition. Although the Jamaican bobsled team broke all the rules, the movie is content
There can be no question that sport and athletes seem to be considered less than worthy subjects for writers of serious fiction, an odd fact considering how deeply ingrained in North American culture sport is, and how obviously and passionately North Americans care about it as participants and spectators. In this society of diverse peoples of greatly varying interests, tastes, and beliefs, no experience is as universal as playing or watching sports, and so it is simply perplexing how little adult fiction is written on the subject, not to mention how lightly regarded that little which is written seems to be. It should all be quite to the contrary; that our fascination and familiarity with sport makes it a most advantageous subject for the skilled writer of fiction is amply demonstrated by Mark Harris.
The film that interested me for this assignment was “Boyz n the Hood”. The movie was about a Los Angeles neighborhood expanding of drug and gang culture, with increasingly tragic results. It was about how one teen had family support to guide him on the right path in life regarding the social problems around him. The other two teens in the film wasn’t as fortunate and fell into the social problems of drugs, violence, and gangs; where one ended up dead.
Sex, love, depression, guilt, trust, all are topics presented in this remarkably well written and performed drama. The Flick, a 2014 Pulitzer Prize winning drama by Annie Baker, serves to provide a social commentary which will leave the audience deep in thought well after the curtain closes. Emporia State Universities Production of this masterpiece was a masterpiece in itself, from the stunningly genuine portrayal of the characters of Avery and Rose, to the realism found within the set, every aspect of the production was superb.
I am writing a film review on the 1976, classic movie Rocky. In this review I will explore the main character Rocky, along with secondary characters Adrian, Pauley, and Mick. I will compare Rocky’s self-concept and self-esteem to the secondary characters. Identify whether the characters are nourishing or noxious individuals. Finally, we will describe how the main character is perceived by other characters.
We all know or have heard of the racing sport NASCAR. Cars race around a track in close quarters for 500 miles, at an average speed of 200 miles per hours, for an average race length of three and a half hours with pit stops and caution laps. Most NASCAR fans consider the drivers athletes for enduring such high intensity races, but what most people don’t understand is that there are other athletes on the track that do not get recognized as athletes. What I am talking about are the NASCAR Pit Crew’s; they are athletes just like the diver and they train as hard as diver, but Pit Crew Challenges get looked over as a sport. Let’s face it, most people watch NASCAR races to see amazing crashes, but they also watch to see how fast the pit crew teams
The film that I saw during my History & Philosophy of Sports class was The Real Olympics which was released on August 3rd, 2004 by the PBS Video studio This film was about ancient history in how the games were played. In reality,” The Real Olympics sets out to demythologize the legendary sporting event by comparing and contrasting the ancient Greek games with their modern-day counterpart through archival footage and dramatic reenactments” (Real Olympics). This film that the instructor chose to show had a lot of significance to what he taught in the class specifically regarding to Greek athletes. Relating to the Greek’s character, it said during the film,” Winning is everything, losing did not matter.” Winning is the number one reason they
Gender and the portrayal of gender roles in a film is an intriguing topic. It is interesting to uncover the way women have been idealized in our films, which mirrors the sentiments of the society of that period in time. Consequently, the thesis of this essay is a feminist approach that seeks to compare and contrast the gender roles of two films. The selected films are A few Good Men and Some Like it Hot.
1980. Warner Bros. Directed by Stanley Kubrick. Music by Wendy Carlos and Rcachel Elkind. Cinematography by John Alcott. Editing by Ray Lovejoy. With Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Danny Lloyd.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower was brought to screen in 2012 by author and director Stephen Chbosky. The movie is about a 15 year old adolescent named Charlie who is beginning high school with a little more baggage than the normal freshman. The viewer quickly discovers that Charlie’s best friend, Michael, committed suicide during May of their 8th grade school year and the viewer later learns that Charlie’s aunt Helen molested him as a child. Charlie begins school determined to make some new friends and is befriended by step siblings Patrick and Sam during the first week of school. The movie spans for Charlie’s entire freshman year and shows the struggles he has with relationships, bullying, risky behaviors, as well remnants from his past trauma. He has a lot in common with Sam and falls in love with her, but accidentally ends up in a relationship with another one of the members of their clique, Mary Elizabeth. His relationship with her ends poorly and he is exiled from the clique for a few weeks. Upon the school year ending, Charlie is faced with the harsh reality that his group of friends, including his love Sam, are all seniors and are all going on to college. Charlie has a mental breakdown, but is able to reconcile many of his past struggles with the help of a doctor and the support from his parents and siblings. The movie ends with Sam and Patrick coming
‘Our interest in the parallels between the adaptation inter-texts is further enhanced by consideration of their marked differences in textual form,’
Our athletes are looked at as heroes and in our dark and painful world we love superheroes. So what’s better in our world than real life superheroes, nothing. This is why they are given special treatment just like how men of God were back in the day when Religion was the opiate of the
This movie accurately portrays the events leading up to the game and how the underdog, The United States Men’s National Hockey Team, overcame a lack of talent, size, and experience to win an Olympic Gold Medal. Legendary head coach, Herb Brooks, coached and conditioned his inexperienced team to play fast and tough on the arena. The teams known lack of experience caused them to be majorly overlooked. There was low expectations for the team leading up to the Olympic tournament. To make matters even worse, the American team suffered a 10-3 loss during an exhibition game in New York City against the USSR, who had won the previous four gold medals in ice hockey. The team’s motivation shifted completely during their first game of the tournament when they made an upset comeback against Sweden in the final 30 seconds of the game. Following this game, the team played the rest of the tournament with an impressive record of 4-0-1. The “miracle on ice” as they say, mostly stems from the semifinals, where Team USA played Russia. Surprisingly, the young team managed to hold their own throughout the game, and before they knew it, they were winning. With 10 minutes remaining in the game, the American team found themselves in the lead. They knew the only way they could hold their lead was through relentless effort and
Watching the Olympics is like watching amazing physical feats unfold before your eyes. Bars are set, limits are broken, and every person who got there has a story of perseverance and dedication, but the one which appealed most to me was the story of Usain Bolt.
Modern Day Olympics are a huge tradition that sweeps the screens of televisions across the world. Competitors take the arena with uniforms that dawn their countries colors and designs that are meant to resemble their designated flag. For months the news is centered around the games; the preparation, the athletes, and of course the competition. Countries aren 't obsessed, they are inspired and full of pride seeing athletes from their country compete and show their incredible skill. This tradition dates back to ancient Greece where the games began. Tony Perrottet writes about the traditions of the ancient game in his book The Naked Olympics.
Sport and politics have been interlinked from the very beginning. In Allen Guttmann’s (2002) insight into Olympic history, the founder of the modern Olympics which took place in Athens in 1896 was the Frenchman, Baron de Coubertin. Angered by the French defeat to the Prussians, he went about looking for ways to get back pride in the French army and state. He seen how Muscular Christianity had had a profound effect in England with Thomas Arnold and decided to adopt some of these principles, and this influenced him into founding the modern Olympics in 1896 (Guttmann, 2002). This proves that politics has been linked with sport from its origin and that the statement is inherently flawed. In more recent times this statement can be shown to be flawed just as much.