Author: MJ-A
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Football is medicine for ‘The Other Kids’ (2016)
First-time Director Pablo de la Chica initially set out to make a documentary about the young Ugandan players who had a chance to visit FC Barcelona in 2007. While investigating, de la Chica found Mubiru Reagan playing soccer in a garbage dump near the Mandela National Stadium. The landfill is heavy with the toxic smell…
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Review: ‘The Streets Don’t Lie’ (2017)
The Streets Don’t Lie is a 3-episode mini-series from the 2017 season of Red Bull TV. Each 27-minute episode follows former French International Djibril Cissé as he travels to London, Berlin, and Paris. In each city, he interviews 3 candidates, from which he selects one player to train with a Red Bull academy for one…
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Style and skill in ‘Concrete Football’ (2016)
After the USMNT debacle of failing to qualify for WC 2018, Americans are arguing how to create the best players in the world. Polemists should watch Ballon sur Bitume. Directors Jesse Adang and Syrine Boulanouar show how, in France, some of the most skilled players are rising from small playing fields in the hood.
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More FIFA corruption in ‘The March of the White Elephants’ (2015)
In The March of the White Elephants, Director Craig Tanner continues the work he began with his first film, exposing the societal insanity of spending billions on stadiums for a one month soccer party.
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The bad guys win in ‘Forever Pure’ (2016)
As told to Director Maya Zinshtein, what goes on in a stadium is not just a mirror of society, but indicates the direction society is going. Forever Pure is a uniquely panoptic film of soccer and society. We see that football clubs can be a toy for oligarchs, a tool for politicians, a burning torch…
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Review: ‘Como no te voy a Querer’ (2008)
This teen melodrama about a working class family in Mexico City is both hard to watch and hard to stop watching. The story is a well-crafted, methodical train wreck of the bad decisions people make to derail their own lives.
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‘Monkey in the Middle’ (2014) has one redeeming grace
This film is a reason to hate Canada—for producing a movie that is such a chore to watch. Monkey in the Middle—or as it’s titled on Netflix, It’s a Zoo in Here—has one redeeming grace. Graham Zusi (known as Saint Zusi to Mexico fans) is the inspiration when the main character takes a free kick.
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Clever story but poor animation in ‘K-9 World Cup’ (2016)
A movie about dogs and soccer should be a winner—the most popular topics on the internet, right? K-9 World Cup is indeed a very clever story which made me chuckle throughout. A coach has one month to recruit and train the MexiCanine National Team for the Canine World Cup.
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‘The Nation Holds Its Breath’ (2016) in Ireland’s first World Cup
In 1990, a young Irishman’s anticipation of his child’s birth coincides with the breathless anticipation of his nation as it competes in the World Cup for the first time.
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Romanian corruption in ‘Craiova versus Craiova’ (2016)
What is the most extraordinary aspect of the documentary Craiova versus Craiova? It’s not that 2 teams claimed to be the same club and then played each other in the Romanian Second Division. What’s amazing is that this excellent film was created by a student as his senior journalism project at a Brazilian university. Director…
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Could ‘George Best: All by Himself’ (2016) happen today?
Director Daniel Gordon brings different insights to his @ESPN3030 George Best movie, but is the story even relevant today? Players now are too valuable to let fail.
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Notes: New front page for soccermoviemom
Many wordpress pundits tell you that to draw visitors, you need a compelling front page, also known as a landing page or home page. I was using the default wordpress home page of the most recent posts. It turned out that to create an attractive static front page, I had to transition from the WordPress…
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Only watch ‘Hotshot’ (1987) to enjoy Pelé
To describe Bill King’s Hotshot in the vernacular of the 1980s, most of the time, this is a hokey soccer movie. But Hotshot is still worth watching, if only for the 20 minutes that Pelé is on-screen.
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The poverty around WC 2010 is ‘Meanwhile in Mamelodi’ (2011)
During the month the 2010 World Cup is played in South Africa, Director Benjamin Kahlmeyer shows the life that goes on, meanwhile, in the impoverished township of Mamelodi. The township is only 16 miles from Loftus Stadium, but residents’ interaction is mostly limited to buying noisy vuvuzuelas and enjoying Bafana Bafana’s games on small black…
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Turkish fans under oppression in ‘Ayaktakimi’ (2015)
In Turkey, Supporters Groups are the real fans, and everyone else is just a spectator. Filmmakers Naz Gündogdu and Friedemann Pitschak have documented a life that Americans have not yet experienced: being a fan in the face of political oppression.
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Being ‘Men in The Arena’ (2017) helps exit Somalia
Men in the Arena comes to your screen in the time of the xenophobic Trump Administration. It took over 3 years for Writer-Director J.R. Biersmith to deliver his tale of 2 young Somalian footballers, whose steadfast friendship and soccer skills are crucial in bringing them to the USA.
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Is biopic ‘For the Glory’ (2012) more fiction than fact?
I have mixed feelings about the faith-based film For the Glory. Realtors Chris and Katherine Craddock wrote this screenplay about their fellow church member Kurt Kuykendall. His faith helped him overcome a privileged but difficult upbringing.
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‘Wonderkid’ (2016) has a wondrous film production
For a guy taking his first steps in creating a film, Director Rhys Chapman made all the right moves. He strategically took Wonderkid from awareness campaign, to fund raising, through a 5-day shoot, and then to fruition. All along, his mission was to educate viewers by portraying homophobia and the need to counter it by…
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‘Win!’ (2016) is a good documentary and not an infomercial
Last week, the NYCFC documentary Win! showed up on the NY Yankees YES cable channel. I reluctantly did my duty, because after all, who wants to watch a movie with an exclamation point in the title?
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![[Review] ‘Les Bleus: Une Autre Histoire de France’ (2016)](https://soccermoviemom.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/les-bleus.jpg)
[Review] ‘Les Bleus: Une Autre Histoire de France’ (2016)
Les Bleus: Another History of France maps the French football team performance with the nation’s social struggles from 1996-2016. But does the film convey an implicit bias? It is unique in that it does not whitewash the team’s history, and it leaves much to think about.
