top 3 fav. sports movies

To be honest,
while I like sports,
for some reason, sports flix usually don't do it for me.
So out of curiosity,
I decided to try my hand at this subject,
and these are what I've come up with as my faves so far (though there are quite a few famous ones that I still have yet to see: The Natural, Friday Night Lights, Miracle, Pride Of The Yankees, etc).

10. Rocky II
While this movie couldn't match the spontaneous quality of it's predessor, back when this came out, it was still rare for a sequel to reach the level of both box-office & financial success that this one did. The romance between the Rock & Adrian flows wonderfully into it's next level as two people trying to form a unity based on each other's distinct personalities. Carl Withers is not forgetten as Apollo Creed as this installment enters deeper into the life of the champ who's titleship comes into question. And even Mickey manages to surprise us by revealing some of the heart that seemed hopelessly buried beneath his years-long thick crust of curmudgeon hide.
As a follow up, the plot in Rocky's 2nd. crack at the worldbelt felt like an natural extension of the story that had begun in the first film & not just as a sequel out to cash in on the success of that initial effort.

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9. Major League
Yet another story of a team of misfits & losers banding together to form a winning world series team.
But what separates this one from the rest is that this is the only baseball movie franchise that exeplifies the idea of what a baseball movie should be by featuring Mr. Baseball himself, Bob Uecker.

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8. Fields Of Dreams
Speaking as a guy, we all know why this movie makes such a connection with the male species. Because we all wish we could play ball with our dad back during his prime.

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7. Bull Durham
Speaking as a guy, we all know why this movie makes such a connection with the male species. Because we all wish we could ball with Susan Sarandon back during her prime.

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6. Bad News Bears
The escapist fantasy of innocence that baseball tends to provide kids comes colliding with the realism of crushed spirits that tends to come with adulthood.
Oh, but with a slant of humor, of course.

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5. Raging Bull
For me,
Raging Bull comes off more as a character study than a sports film. But with it's emphasis on the brutality of the sport during it's boxing scenes & just the over-all quality of the film, how can I not include Scorcese's classic on this list of favorites?

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4. Hoop Dreams
A quality documentary that follows the detailed ups & downs that can come from trying to move up in the world of basketball. Here, the process is captured by following the real lives of two promising high school players as they try to reach for the promise that their favorite sport can potentially offer.

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3. Million Dollar Baby
The chemistry that results from Clint Eastwood's & Morgan Freeman's presence in this movie epitomizes the main thing I like about Million Dollar Baby. These are two seasoned actors so comfortable in their craft, that they both simply move in this film with a flowing ease of two veterans of their field who are just willing to allow the emotion of the story & the naturalness & trust of each other's acting ability to drive the momentum of this movie. And their chemistry of friendship, as cliche as it sounds, truly belies on the phrase of that "indescribable something" & yet, it's so tangible that the much younger yet equally talented Hilary Swank can't help but to follow suit in doing. It all leads to an overall performance from the trio that makes this a film whose power stems not from the boxing themes that one would usually expect from a boxing flick, but more from the emotions that weave & tie the characters together & allows the plot to unfold at it's own volition. In the end, it seems almost overkill to describe Million Dollar Baby as anything other than a boxing film that focuses on the female contingent of the sport directed by & starring Eastwood, along with Hillary Swank & Morgan Freeman.
Or in other words, this is a film that had me at "Mo Cuishle".

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2. A League Of Their Pwn
In a game mostly associated with male players, it's ironic that a film which focuses on the women's first professional entry into the sport, would be the one that, for me, truly captures the feeling which best reflects of why this sport is truly an American pasttime: that the purpose of a game is, no matter how the global scale of political events may be turbulently transpiring, we can all just escape for a little while by catching a ballgame. And hopefully, in the end, return into the real world with our spirits a little bit higher & our perspectives a little bit clearer. Because, as we all know by now,
there is no crying in baseball.

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1. Rocky
While I tend to agree with the general consensus that this movie shouldn't have beat out other films like All The President's Men or Taxi Driver for the Best Picture Oscar, I still consider it my favorite of the this particular year.
One of the reasons is just the nostalgic connection I have to this film. I remember watching this first installment of the Italian Stallion series as a child, & even at an age when I believed the female sex to be rife with cooties, just adoring the love story between the two "loser" types of Adrian & the original Rock. And this was probably the first movie I ever watched that literally hand me jumping up & down at the end.
Rocky's plot just seemed to be able to pull at all the right heart-strings for me, that even to this day I still feel a slight jitter in my chest whenever I watch this flick.
Either that,
or maybe I've just developed a life-long heart murmur.
I dunno.

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