Can we get a great inspirational sports movie, please?

I'm afraid to say that the days of the great inspirational sports movie,

like Gus



or The Kid from Left Field



are truly over.

It seems that the new inspirational sports movies, like Pride, Glory Road, Remember the Titans, Friday Night Lights, and Invincible all share the same indelible traits,

a progagonist (or protagonists) must defeat meanies and unseemly odds in order to have a great game and then live the rest of their lives in happiness.

It's as if monkeys hand copied Bull Durham and Hoosiers, stuck them into Microsoft Word '94 and chucked out a script into the eager hands of Hollywood filmmakers.

There is no worse offender to this than McG's latest Opus: We are Marshall.



Now, let me start by saying that the tragedy that inspired this movie is terrible, and my respect goes out to the families, friends, and students affected by this.

All I'm saying is that the construction and execution of the filmed version is absolutely deplorable.

I watched four minutes of it at work the other day, and that four minutes was:

1) Wide shot of the coach (Matthew McConaughey) celebrating with the team after the big game. (I only hope that Gene Hackman was waiting outside the locker room for a beat down.)

2) Medium shot of the other dude (Matthew Fox) sitting alone in the room, albeit in slow motion, taking all of this in while crappy music plays in the background.

3) The same crappy music playing over a wide crane shot of the gravestones.

Someone has to reinvent the wheel on this genre, and it's not going to be me. Please step up, someone.

I have plenty of respect for McG, too. The guy seems likeable, he directed the pilot episode of Chuck, and that means something in America.

He knows a lot about and appreciates good martial arts movies, despite being the director of Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle.

I just would hate to die and have those 3 movies on my headstone.

I know he's got a good movie in him, it's just not in the sports genre.

I just want my four minutes back.

While we're on the subject, here are three wonderful inspirational sports movies.

One is the classic Lloyd Kaufmann directed softball movie, SqueezePlay:



Another is the Sorority Sisters against-all-odds classic, H.O.T.S.



Then, of course, is the Jack Hill masterpiece: Swinging Cheerleaders.



This is probably the only movie I've ever seen that has a warehouse fight with cheerleading in it.





The best sports movies, ever, though, are the Olympic Gymnastic sports movies:



1) Goldengirl, with Susan Anton



2) American Anthem, with Mitch Gaylord



3) And Gymkata,the greatest gymnastics movie/action movie/sports movie/movie movie ever made!

Maybe I will direct the next Gymkata movie.