Citizen Rules...Cinemaesque Chat-n-Review

You seem to be quite the John Candy fan, Citizen. I'm just now noticing this or am I imagining this.

I'm pretty positive you will at least like it and might very well love it. I thought it was an intelligent drama comedy.

Nope you're not imaging it, John Candy is my favorite comic actor from the last 40 years. There's no one else quite like him. I'm watching every single film that he had a significant role in and I've seen and reviewed a lot of them.

I will be watching these John Candy films in the next month or two:

Armed and Dangerous (1986)
Brewster's Millions (1985)
Wagons East (1994)
Once Upon a Crime (1992)
Tunnel Vision (1976)
Really Weird Tales (1987)

Liked Brewster's Millions, you know that's a remake, right? Never heard of Tunnel Vision or Really Weird Tales.

I didn't know Brewster's Millions was a remake until I went looking for the movie and found two versions of it. I'll have to watch the original too. I never heard of Tunnel Vision or Really Weird Tales, but I think Really Weird Tales was picked up and redone as a TV series in the 80s or 90s.

Director: Steve James
Writers: Steve James, Eugene Corr
Cast: Jared Leto, R. Lee Ermey, Ed O'Neill
Genre: Biography Sports Drama

1997's Prefontaine is a potent bio-pic movie about the all too short life of an Olympic hopeful runner from Oregon, Steve Prefontaine. Director/writer Steve James captures the all out drive that makes Steve go. Prefontaine was a student who loved sports but was too small to succeed at baseball and football. When Steve tries running, his all out style of competition begins to set him apart from the other high school athletes.

Director/writer Steve James nicely weaves the story of an athlete who from an early age dreamed of going to the Olympics. Told in semi-documentary style the film is effective at getting the viewer engaged into Steve's story. I found the movie gripping and compelling...and I'm not really into sports movies, but his one was just that good.

Jared Leto is Steve James, according to what I read, when the real life sister meet Jared during the filming of the movie she burst into tears, as Jared reminded her so much of her brother. Jared does an awesome job of portraying the mind set of a cocky, determined athlete who has to deal with the terrorist attack at the Munich Olympic games, among other set backs.

R. Lee Ermey is his tough coach, Bill Bowerman. Ermey owns his role and is a big part of why this movie is so engaging. As an interesting side note, in the movie we see the coach making shoes for Steve Prefontaine by using a waffle iron. Latter we found out that the coach was a co founder of Nike shoes.

A fascinating personal tale of an athletes meteoric rise to fame.

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Prefontaine - pretty good for a prequel, but I liked the original "Fontaine" better.

(Waiting for the upcoming sequel Postfontaine!)

Ha!

Have you seen it? There is another film about Steve Prefontaine, Without Limits (1998). I guess I will be watching that one too.

I thought I saw Prefontaine, but that movie doesn't sound familiar. The movie that I saw was about a one-legged runner, and I think it was on HBO about 30 years ago. (I just looked it up, and the movie that I saw was about Terry Fox.)

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Is Hubby a fan of sports movies? If so give him Prefontaine to watch. I really liked it.

No, he isn't even a fan of sports. He only watches the NY Mets games because I do.

Yea, I'm not a sports fan either, so I can relate. I've never seen a baseball game on TV before and I've only seen one football game on TV when I was in Jr high.

I only watch baseball. Years ago, I was almost on a jury for a kid who was suing his school when he got hurt in a football game, but I told them that I thought football was barbaric, and he deserved to get hurt. For some reason, they didn't want me on the jury after that.

Ha! Yup I guess that would get you off of jury duty pretty fast.

I haven't seen it. I'm surprised Jared Leto is in it... I didn't think he was around in 1997 (that's 20 years ago). I thought he was a much younger actor.
I'm behind the times, but I have to tell you, I never heard of him before all the hoopla about him playing the Joker in the Suicide Squad movie.

That was one of the reasons I realized that I was thinking of the wrong movie. I knew that Jared Leto wasn't in the movie that I thought this was.

If you haven't seen him anything else, I would recommend watching him in Chapter 27 (2007). He plays Mark David Chapman, the guy who killed John Lennon. The movie is only okay, but Leto is excellent as Chapman.

I liked Without Limits. Haven't seen Prefontaine. Maybe one is enough?

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I liked Prefontaine.

I can relate, Citizen...never been into sports, or watching sports on TV, but for some reason, I love movies about sports.

Glad to here someone liked Without Limits, I will be watching that one, fairly soon.

I use to play baseball and soccer with my friends when we were kids, but I never liked watching spectator sports. I love the Olympics, thought sadly without any TV service I haven't seen them in a while. I'm hit or miss with sports movies, if they are good, then they work for me!

No thanks. I wouldn't give Chapman, or a movie about him two seconds of my time.