Author: MJ-A
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‘Copa 71’ (2023) preserves the history we did not know
A benefit of having Serena Williams as an executive on your movie is that your film gets a lot of attention, and in this case, a lot of movie reviews. The reviews for Copa 71 are all quite glowing, and I certainly agree this sports documentary is important for showing a piece of female football…
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Colombian fun and fandom in ‘Maximum Penalty 2’ (2024)
La Pena Máxima 2 follows the 2001 iconic Colombian comedy of futbol obsession. The first film was written by Dago Garcia, who produced this not quite a sequel and devised it with different characters. I have not seen the original, but this film shows the high production quality of Colombian films and the charm of…
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In Guinea, a small boy triumphs with ‘The Golden Ball’ (1994)
The Ballon d’Or is an annual award in the shape of a golden soccer ball that recognizes the best footballer in the world. In the village of Makono in Guinea, boys imagine that such a golden ball is magical and will bring great fortune. But when a kind doctor gives Bandian a real soccer ball…
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‘Crazy for Football’ (2017) – a cure for psychosis?
Psychiatrist Santo Rullo had always wanted to coach football, and his opportunity came when the Italian Federation helped him take a team to Osaka, Japan. The team consisted of psychiatric patients, who competed in the 2016 Futsal World Cup for people with mental disability, a joint project with several Japanese psychiatrists.
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‘In Oranje’ (2004) is a fine family film if you ignore the poisonings
In Oranje is a fantasy ghost film that, at over 20 years old, is both timeless and refreshing. It deftly combines tragedy, grief, resilience, fantasy, family, and passion for the game. If I were going to host a football film festival, I would choose this as an inspirational example of storytelling — except for the…
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‘Dear England’ is a play to experience (2025)
My husband and I went to England on a bucket list trip. In American parlance, a bucket list is a list of things to do before you die, and we’re getting pretty old. So in Mar-2025, we went to London to attend two Premier League games and Leeds vs Milwall. If we had a free…
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‘Back in Action’ (2025) is watchable but not a soccer movie
The title Back in Action is a double-entendre. Not only is the action comedy about a pair of retired spies unwillingly forced back into duty, but it also marks the return of Cameron Diaz to the screen after a 10 year absence.
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Football builds community in ‘Las Leonas’ (2022)
Las Leonas is an 8v8 tournament in Rome, where 6 recreational-level womens teams give their all on a small soccer pitch. They are almost all immigrants in Italy, and are mostly from South America. These women in the 30s and 40s play football on their only day off in the week. It gives them community…
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A struggle to play ‘Home Games’ in Kyiv (2018)
The documentary Home Games (Домашні ігри) follows a young woman in 2016 while she struggles to take care of her 6 and 7 year old siblings while pursuing a path to professional football in the Ukraine. Football has been Alina Shilova’s only escape from the poverty of her daily life, and her dream is to…
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Notes: Best and Worst Soccer Movies in 2024
Last year, 2023, I reviewed 47 films/series. It turns out, that was the end of the Golden Age of Streaming. Hollywood is now in a depression, with the entertainment industry having lost 15% of its jobs.
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![My New Favorite Futbolista (2022) [a review]](https://soccermoviemom.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/my-new-favorite-futbolista-thumbnail.png)
My New Favorite Futbolista (2022) [a review]
My New Favorite Futbolista is an 8-episode TV series that you can only watch on PeacockTV. Ahead of WC 2022, it profiles inspiring footballers and their off-field commitments where they advocate for change or support important causes.
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‘Zizou the Great’ (2009) a footballer film with no football
Condolences to you if you subscribed to Peacock or Apple TV just to watch Zizou the Great: The Zinedine Zidane Story, an unauthorized Australian documentary about one of the greatest French players. This documentary is so unauthorized that it has absolutely no match footage. If you watch the trailer, that is pretty much the entire…
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‘The Match’ (2020) may have missed its goal
This World War 2 drama sat in my Amazon watchlist for a very long time, as I am reluctant to watch dramas that I know can only have a sad ending. It is after all, based on a true story that was borrowed for the derivative but famous 1981 film Victory. But The Match is…
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When love of football lands you in jail – ‘The Football Aficionado’ (2022)
When a sport is global, modern parts of the world have decided that societal rules of anti-discrimination should apply to all countries. Thus, FIFA has the power to ban nations from the World Cup if their federations allow homophobic or racist chants in stadiums or preclude women from attending games. While FIFA has this power,…
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‘#SeAcabó’ (2024) is a diary of champions
Whether you remember this Netflix documentary as #SeAcabó: Diario de las campeonas or as the English title It’s All Over: The kiss that changed Spanish football, you should remember one thing. These women rose as one above president Luis Rubiales of the Spanish Federation and his underlings. And if you want to see how the…
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‘Greener Grass’ (2019) a lauded absurdist nightmare
I normally don’t research a film before watching it. But I did, and I found an amazing number of reviews praising the 2019 feature film Greener Grass as gloriously twisted, absurdist, surreal, demented, satirical, hilariously deadpan, weird, hysterical and a surprise hit at Sundance.
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Review: ‘An Invisible Victim – The Eliza Samudio Case’ (2024)
Categorized as a True Crime film, the Brazilian documentary A Vítima Invisível: O Caso Eliza Samúdio is really more of a tragedy. A story like this makes me wonder if victims will ever receive justice. Or will celebrities always be able to get away with their crimes, even murder?
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‘Punto Rojo’ (2021) breathes cinema
Sometimes when I am looking for a football film to watch, I just get lucky and come across an entertaining movie by accident. I found this DVD at the San Mateo County library! Punto Rojo is an Argentine thriller that grips you and drags you through a ton of brutal fighting with a touch of…
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A happy ‘Christmas in Notting Hill’ (2023)
Last Christmas, I was disappointed that I saw half of Christmas in Notting Hill on the Hallmark Channel but could never manage to find it in a schedule so that I could watch the rest of it. And then it disappeared for a whole year, until it showed up recently on Netflix. I’ll never understand…
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What if Jerry Maguire were a Japanese ‘Old Rookie’ (2022)
I found this 10-episode Japanese TV series on Netflix, where its English title was changed from Old Rookie to the inexplicable The Old Dog, New Tricks? Perhaps Netflix added the question mark to the title to let us know that they didn’t really know what to do with the show. That’s a shame. It deserves…
