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Comedy Drama Strong Sexuality

‘Go Now’ (1995) is a tearful slide into multiple sclerosis

I came upon this old BBC TV movie by chance on Amazon Prime. By the description, it didn’t seem like a soccer movie, but it turns out that the first 30 minutes deliver trope after trope of non-league football from the touchline in 1990s Bristol, England.

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Drama Strong Sexuality

‘Ultras’ (2020) sex nudity language smoking and mindless threatening

When this Netflix original first pops up on your TV, the upper left corner warns “sex, nudity, language, smoking”. That warning is also an able synopsis of this Italian hooligan movie.

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Documentary Strong Sexuality

‘Kaiser’ (2018) perpetuates a lad’s fantasy

Imagine you’re at WC 2014 in Brazil, and you hear this great story about a legendary local lothario. Known as Kaiser, Carlos Henrique Raposo pretended to be a pro footballer and lived the life for over 20 years. He slept with thousands of women, conning the ladies, owners, and coaches, while cleverly avoiding ever getting on the pitch. 

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Comedy Strong Sexuality

‘The Hooligan Factory’ (2014) – hooligans are funny?

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.

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Comedy Strong Sexuality

‘The Magnificent Eleven’ (2012) dancing nude footie

Asked what The Magnificent Eleven is about, actor Robert Vaughn boiled it down to: “Dancing footie players, nude.” This film is a little more than that, but it does put that nudie footie player thing front and center quite a bit. Or front and to the side. Or mostly, flabby rear end in the clubhouse shower, the locker room, the team bus, the pitch… you get the idea.

Categories
Comedy Drama Strong Sexuality

‘Rudo y Cursi’ (2008) a story you can’t forget

Rudo y Cursi is an artful story of hick half-brothers from banana plantations in the Cihuatlán Valley between Jalisco and Colima. An agent discovers them and signs them to opposing First Division teams in Mexico City, where they succumb to the trappings of success.

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Drama Strong Sexuality

‘Garrincha, Lonely Star’ (2003) wasn’t all that lonely

Manuel Francisco dos Santos, commonly known as Mané Garrincha, was second only to Pelé as one of Brazil’s greatest players. Garrincha – Estrela Solitária is a docudrama that shows his dribbling flair on the field and his sexual exploits.

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Drama Strong Sexuality

‘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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Comedy Strong Sexuality

‘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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Drama Strong Sexuality

‘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 quit, and the team becomes all gay. They win the league because the other teams forfeit.