Year: 2014
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Well done but little soccer in ‘The Boys in Company C’ (1978)
The Boys in Company C was one of the first films to portray the senselessness of the Vietnam War. It’s a war movie and not a soccer movie by any means. But, to borrow a phrase from Susan Jeffords, this film asks if a soccer game is a “thing worth dying for”.
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Stories collide in flamboyant ‘Kickoff’ (2010)
Kickoff is about the first game of the season for a man who puts together a 5-man gay team for a Sunday league. He wants his players to act manly like footballers, but instead this flamboyant, very buff crew is far out in left field.
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‘La Copa de los Sueños’ (2007) a low-budget futbol film
La Copa de los Sueños, or The Cup of Dreams, or Soccer Dreams is a low-budget soccer film. Shot in Tijuana, the orphans in a children’s home enter a tournament in order to win enough money to pay for the house mom’s brain tumor surgery.
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Yes, it exists — ‘World Cup Car Soccer’ (2006)
World Cup Car Soccer is a car soccer movie. This is not like Herbie, though. This DVD is JDM Option International Volume 26 and includes a “world championship” of two Japanese teams of 5 cars each playing car soccer (aka Jidousha soccer). I could only watch about 10 minutes of the 75 minute recording, as…
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‘The Other Half’ (2006) one long joke
The Other Half is a long drawn-out joke. An England fan plans a honeymoon in Portugal so that he can sneak off to England’s three Euro 2004 games. The complication is that his American wife doesn’t even know he’s a soccer fan, and her father has paid for the honeymoon.
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Understanding the ‘Lesbians of Buenos Aires’ (2004)
Lesbianas de Buenos Aires is not really a soccer movie. Neither is it a movie that Howard Sterns would salivate over. It is a documentary of interviews of several unrelated 30ish lesbians.
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‘Big Brother Trouble’ (2000) good soccer but not entertaining
Big Brother Trouble is a terribly boring kids movie from Hemisphere Entertainment. An 11 year old boy is infatuated with his new 16 year old neighbor, but he becomes outraged that she is attracted to his big brother, a star soccer player.
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A young footballing Gary Oldman in ‘The Firm’ (1989)
The Firm was an episode of a BBC TV series in 1989. A young 30ish Gary Oldman stars as Bexie — a middle class father, real estate agent, weekend soccer player, and the boss of a hooligan gang.
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‘Pele O’Rey’ (1962) a collection of Pelé goals
O Rei Pelé, or Pelé the King, is a good resource, showing Pelé’s life and many goals. As I didn’t become a soccer fan until 1999, I had never seen Pele play except for in the movie Victory.
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‘Heleno’ (2011) an art film mostly off the pitch
Information about Brazilian great Heleno De Freitas is scanty when compared to Garrincha or Pelé. He was born in 1920 and predated Brazil’s success on the world stage. Heleno won no trophies for his club Botafogo, he played in no World Cups, and so there is no film of his play.
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‘Peloteros’ (2006) a family-unfriendly macho mess
While the DVD title is Street Soccer, Peloteros means ball players, or in this context, footballers. The movie is a coming of age summer tale of six boys in a poor Peruvian neighborhood who enter a tournament to compete against older and semi-pro players.
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‘Sixty Six’ (2006) a miserable tale of Bar Mitzvah woe
Sixty Six is director Paul Weiland’s autobiographical tale of woe about how his Bar Mitzvah was ruined by the nearby England vs Germany WC 1966 Final. In his own words, “It is a very cruel movie”, and he believes it is humorous. But after the boy pins all his self-worth on having a party to…
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‘Sexy Soccer’ (2004) is soft core
Billed as an “erotic comedy”, Sexy Soccer is a Hong Kong soft core pornfilm (original title = Sing gum zhook kao). I was surprised that it was rentable on Netflix, but I guess the erotica is about as revealing as the usual fare on HBO.
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‘The Football Factory’ (2004) makes war without weapons
I almost never watch war movies or dramas, but watching the 2004 British movie The Football Factory was like watching a war movie without weapons.
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‘Kick ‘N Rush’ (2003) egregious coming of age tale
I know I’m in for a bad night when a movie starts off with a masturbation scene. Kick ‘N Rush keeps moving very very slowly down that path and doesn’t get any better.
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‘Just 4 Kicks’ (2002) is deplora-ball times two
Just For Kicks is possibly the worst kids soccer movie ever made. The problem is not the classic underdog plot. The story is nonsensical, and the acting by the Sprouse twins is as wooden as a pair of goal posts.
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‘Home Team’ (1999) is Steve Guttenberg’s Mighty Ducks
Steve Guttenberg is well known for his successful movie franchises, and maybe that’s why he decided to star in his second soccer movie, Home Team. He also has done charity work for foster children, and in this family film, such kids help his character find redemption. The story is pretty much Mighty Ducks on a…
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‘A Major Inconvenience’ (1999) is not a frothy cougar film
A Major Inconvenience follows virginal young Frenchman Laurent, who puts all his energy into soccer. He has a chance to join the pros and thereby elevate his family from their welfare-level existence. But his focus is waylaid by an affair with the mother of the opponent who broke his nose.
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Review: ‘El penalti más largo del mundo’ (2005)
The Longest Penalty Kick in the World is a Spanish film that is so horribly boring I had to keep rewinding to watch the parts I had dozed through.
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‘Eleven Men Out’ (2005) is not like Iceland at all
Eleven Men Out is not really a soccer movie. It has 30 seconds of soccer and a lot of sexuality, mostly gay (rated R). As a character says, there is not much else to do in Iceland. A top player comes out of the closet, switches to a team that has some gays, the straights…
