Reviews of soccer movies and football films
Soccer, football, and Fußball movies meant to be funny
Nefta Football Club stands out as being the only 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.
Continue reading “First soccer movie nominated for an Oscar: ‘Nefta Football Club’ (2018)”
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.
Continue reading “Suffer life without football in ‘Beinball’ (2014)”
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 when she comes face-to-face with her stricken husband’s mistress at the side of his hospital bed.
Continue reading “Like baking soda, ‘Britt-Marie was Here’ (2019) solves problems”
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.
Continue reading “‘Diamantino’ (2018): A satire or just randomly disturbing?”
It’s hard to believe that in Sep-2018, two movies were released with the title Funke. This review is about the Nigerian feature film directed by Filmboyz Yemi Morafa and Friday Nwagwu. The other film is a documentary on Los Angeles restauranteur Evan Funke.
Continue reading “‘Funke!’ (2018) is an Interesting view of Nigerian life”
You’re probably too young to have seen Some Like it Hot, an iconic 1959 comedy starring Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, and Jack Lemmon. In defiance of the film industry’s Hays Code, the film flirted with topics of homosexuality and cross-dressing.
Continue reading “‘Kicking Out Shoshana’ (2014) is as cute as Some Like it Hot”
Comme des Garçons is the first feature film from Writer-Director Julien Hallard, and it is quite an achievement. Also known as Let the Girls Play, this soccer movie is cute, smart, and well worth watching. While it takes a number of liberties with the true story of the renaissance of women’s football in France, it does so to create a feel-good film with carefully crafted and entertaining contours.
Continue reading “‘Comme des Garçons’ (2018) – changing mentality”
As a low budget mockumentary, Seaside Town is a cute demo of what you can do with £12,000 and 155 enthusiastic participants from the local community. Director Warren Dudley and the producers wanted to put their hometown on the map. The result, Seaside Town, was originally a web series of six 12-minute episodes, but you can watch it on Amazon Prime as a 57-minute movie with the title My English American Adventure.
As viewers, we sort of expect that a mockumentary will play out, as Bob Balaban has described, like “spending time with a bunch of really funny and totally harmless mental patients.” Christopher Guest set a very high bar for mockumentary, and I have no doubt that, when Writer-Director Gary Sinyor outlined his plan for United We Fall, he hoped his football comedy would reach similar heights of hilarity.
Continue reading “Where did ‘United We Fall’ (2014) go wrong?”
Who knew that soccer hooligan movies are a genre? And that they have been so successful that 2014 was a good time for someone to spoof them? The Hooligan Factory sat in my Amazon Prime watchlist for quite awhile because I assumed it was just another hooligan movie.
Continue reading “‘The Hooligan Factory’ (2014): Who knew hooligans were so funny?”