SoccerMovieMom

Over 500 reviews

Author: MJ-A

  • ‘Boisko Bezdomnych’ (2008): a Homeless World Cup drama

    ‘Boisko Bezdomnych’ (2008): a Homeless World Cup drama

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    Sometimes a drama can reveal more about society’s problems than can a documentary. From its Amazon Prime description, it might not catch your eye that, unlike all the other movies on this topic, Boisko Bezdomnych is a dramatic feature film. The idea for the film arose from a Polish team going to the Homeless World Cup.

  • Was ‘Open Up to Me’ (2013) ahead of its time?

    Was ‘Open Up to Me’ (2013) ahead of its time?

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    Open Up to Me is a bit of a mind-bending movie that explores issues of sexuality. I consider it a football film even though the soccer connection is a little weak, as the football provides the normalcy in the story.

  • A Walkman can’t save ‘All the Freckles in the World’ (2019)

    A Walkman can’t save ‘All the Freckles in the World’ (2019)

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    As a kids movie, there are a lot of reasons to dislike Yibran Asuad’s All the Freckles in the World. Take your pick: sexualization of 13 year olds, a teacher-student sexual relationship, a sexist affront to women, and last but not least, very little soccer despite a tenuous link to the Mexican National Team at…

  • Oscar-nominated ‘Nefta Football Club’ (2018)

    Oscar-nominated ‘Nefta Football Club’ (2018)

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    Nefta Football Club stands out as being the second*** soccer movie to win an Oscar nomination (that I know of). Nominated in the 2020 Best Live Action Short Film category, Writer-Director Yves Piat has created a visually stunning and engaging short that leads to a whimsical but virtual punch line. 

  • Notes: Best and Worst soccer movies in 2019

    Notes: Best and Worst soccer movies in 2019

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    2019 was a Womens World Cup year, but unlike with the Men’s side, few producers timed their theatrical releases to the tournament. However, interest in football films and soccer movies continues to grow rapidly, so that my list of movies to watch grows much faster than the movies that are available to me. My watchlist…

  • ‘Lost in Africa’ (2010) doesn’t flinch

    ‘Lost in Africa’ (2010) doesn’t flinch

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    Behind the benign title of Lost in Africa is a thriller that embodies every mother’s worst nightmare: her child vanishes. It’s not really a soccer movie as much as it is a reflection of the hard and dangerous life in Kiera, a Kenyan shanty town. 

  • Derby Days Berlin (2019) will make you a fan

    Derby Days Berlin (2019) will make you a fan

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    You might expect that as a reviewer of soccer movies, I would be well aware of COPA90, a company that claims to be “The world’s largest independent football media business”, delivering stories on “football like you’ve never seen it before”. I knew the name, but I hadn’t looked at their content until I watched Derby…

  • Soccer transforms homelessness in ‘Zebras’ (2016)

    Soccer transforms homelessness in ‘Zebras’ (2016)

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    While the title Zebras may confuse you, this documentary is about 9 Argentine boys who represent their country in the Apr-2014 Street Child World Cup in Rio de Janeiro. The boys live together in La Casita, a home that takes children off the streets of Buenos Aires. By participating in the tournament, the boys experience…

  • ‘Soccer in the City’ (2019) is soccer for good

    ‘Soccer in the City’ (2019) is soccer for good

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    The message of Soccer in the City is important: that at $1,500 to $5,500 per year, the pay-to-play model excludes low-income children. American soccer doesn’t reach inner city kids, who could be untapped potential to help win World Cups. In his feature-length debut, Director Michael Holstein shows urban efforts bearing fruit in DC, the Bronx, and…

  • The story you never heard about ‘The Team That Never Played’ (2010)

    The story you never heard about ‘The Team That Never Played’ (2010)

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    If you are looking for a great idea for a soccer movie, you should buy the rights to this 10 year old documentary The Team That Never Played. Gather up the players interviewed by Writer-Director Greg Appel and fill out their stories while they can still be recalled. This is history that deserves to be…

  • Shakhtar Donetsk is ‘The Other Chelsea’ (2010)

    Shakhtar Donetsk is ‘The Other Chelsea’ (2010)

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    Although The Other Chelsea is 10 years old, it is a valuable film to watch in the context of today’s impeachment inquiry of Donald Trump. First-time Writer-Director Jakob Preuss lays out the struggling lives of coal miners in Donetsk and compares them to Kolya, a young rising local politician and businessman who drives a Lexus and…

  • More romance and less soccer in ‘See You Soon’ (2019)

    More romance and less soccer in ‘See You Soon’ (2019)

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    See You Soon (До скорой встречи) is a beguiling romance that combines fairy tale, travelogue, and a little bit of soccer. Can America have a male soccer star who is a recognizable face worldwide but plays in the USA? To American hearts still aching from the failure to qualify in T&T, it feels like a fantasy.

  • ‘Foul Play’ (2017) – it’s easy to fix matches in Indonesia

    ‘Foul Play’ (2017) – it’s easy to fix matches in Indonesia

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    Director Suridh Hassan put together this documentary about corruption in Southeast Asian football, mostly covering Indonesia. He follows the season of UK manager Simon McMenemy, who coaches Indonesian side Mitrar Kukar FC. He also conducts interviews with a youth coach, a physio, and a journalist who explain how easy and pervasive match fixing is in…

  • Amazon Prime soccer movies not worth your time

    Amazon Prime soccer movies not worth your time

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    In the big battle for your streaming attention, Amazon Prime has licensed quite a few independent international movies related to football (soccer). I find less than half of these foreign films are OK, and the rest can be quite laborious to watch. Rather than bail water in a sinking ship, I don’t want to spend…

  • Suffer life without football in ‘Beinball’ (2014)

    Suffer life without football in ‘Beinball’ (2014)

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    What would life be like if there were no such thing as football or soccer? The amusing but dark short Beinball shows us what happens to a middle-aged office worker whose only joy is the beautiful game.

  • ‘Britt-Marie was Here’ (2019) solves problems

    ‘Britt-Marie was Here’ (2019) solves problems

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    A light-hearted pleasant comedy, Britt-Marie was Here (Britt-Marie var här) is the tale of a 63 year old homemaker who has dedicated her life to being dutiful — cleaning, tidying, and completing to do lists that keep her house ultra organized. To her, baking soda solves all problems. The one problem it can’t solve is…

  • Only watch ‘Maradona’ (2019) for the football

    Only watch ‘Maradona’ (2019) for the football

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    Before there was Messi, there was Maradona. Asif Kapadia’s Diego Maradona is an extraordinary football film in its collection of Maradona’s greatest hits: his passes and shots as well as the violence perpetrated upon him by opponents. In extensive footage, time and time again Maradona throws off tackles like a dog shaking off raindrops. There…

  • ‘Sunakali’ (2014) Empowers Nepali women through football

    ‘Sunakali’ (2014) Empowers Nepali women through football

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    Writer-Director Bhojraj Bhat is a journalist and filmmaker who assembled Sunakali without really knowing what the story was until he had accumulated a lot of footage. And so for the viewer, he unfolds the lives of girls in Mugu, a remote Himalayan district in Nepal, much as he might have discovered himself.

  • ‘Coach’ (2019) is 25 minutes of inspiration

    ‘Coach’ (2019) is 25 minutes of inspiration

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    Sport Psychologist Courtney Carroll Levinsohn found out that SFSU coach Tracy Hamm was working on her UEFA A-license. Only 1% of such coaching licenses are held by women. Why not put this story on the screen and thereby normalize it? The result is Coach, 25 minutes of inspiration that tell women and girls, you can…

  • ‘Diamantino’ (2018): A satire or just randomly disturbing?

    ‘Diamantino’ (2018): A satire or just randomly disturbing?

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    Great expectations make a heavy burden. After Diamantino’s smashing 2018 premiere at Cannes, I eagerly looked forward to it for over a year. It is now available to rent/purchase on iTunes and Amazon, but the typical football film and soccer movie fan may end up wanting to reverse the last 90 minutes of their lives.