Tag: USA
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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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‘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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![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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‘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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‘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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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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‘Untold: Hope Solo vs US Soccer’ (2024) or Hope Solo vs Herself?
In many ways, Hope Solo is a duplicate of the Tonya Harding story. Both athletes were products of the non-conformist Pacific Northwest, had a non-nurturing home life, were fatherless, and struggled economically. Both were determined not to be defined by their circumstances, but to rise above them and become champions. Of course, the reason you…
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![[Review] ‘The Playbook: A Coach’s Rules for Life’ (2020)](https://soccermoviemom.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/the-playbook-2020-thumbnail.jpg)
[Review] ‘The Playbook: A Coach’s Rules for Life’ (2020)
Click on my #Coaching tag, and you’ll see 24 documentary films and series that give insight on soccer coaches at all different levels. The stories range from youth to high school to Liverpool, Leeds, ManU, Barcelona, and Argentina. While I found something to learn in all these films, I highly recommend watching the Netflix series…
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Review: ‘Under Pressure: The U.S. Women’s World Cup Team’ (2023)
Under Pressure: The U.S. Women’s World Cup Team is a 4 episode series produced by Netflix. It follows several players as they agonize about making the USWNT roster for WWC 2023. Only 23 women can be selected. And after they’ve made the team, as any USSoccer fan now knows, that team turns in the worst…
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Waititi and Fassbender are pitch perfect in ‘Next Goal Wins’ (2023)
In the film industry, remakes surface all the time, even when the story was told pretty well the first time. Someone in Hollywood decides to freshen up the story, try a new perspective, or rewrite the facts completely. So when I read that Director Taika Waititi was going to reconstruct the original 2014 documentary Next…
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‘Courts of Belonging’ (2024) – street soccer in Maine
Courts of Belonging is a 10-minute short film that expresses the benefits of playing soccer, facilitated by having a place to play. In Maine, the Kennedy Park futsal court creates a soccer melting pot, where migrants come together to enjoy the world’s game.
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‘The Other Zoey’ (2023) is cute but is not a soccer movie
I watched this young adult/teen rom-com on Amazon. It’s a very cute story about a nerdy girl named Zoey who inadvertently causes soccer player Zach to suffer a concussion. He gets amnesia and mistakes her for the soccer playing girlfriend he recently started dating, who is also named Zoey.
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‘The Ultimate Goal’ (2017) — inspirational behind the scenes
English footballer Dan Metcalfe has been the soccer coach to the stars of Hollywood, choreographing the soccer action and training the actors for many films such as Will Ferrell’s Kicking and Screaming and Amanda Bynes’ She’s the Man. In The Ultimate Goal, Metcalfe advances beyond an accessory role and adds Writer Director and Producer to…
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Steve Zahn is perfect in ‘Gringa’ (2023)
First of all, spoiler alert — nothing terrible happens in Gringa. I had hesitated to watch this movie because I thought it was going to be a depressing trope about failed lives and relationships. But instead, Gringa is about second chances — the chances we give ourselves to recover, and the chances we give others…
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Briana Scurry can’t save ‘High Expectations’ (2022)
It would be a cheap joke to say that I had high expectations for the soccer movie High Expectations. Actually, I had pretty low expectations, given that I had recently seen one of Kelsey Grammer’s Christmas movies. But Kelsey is not the problem in this drama, it’s pretty much everything else — except him and…
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A long farewell to ‘Ted Lasso’ Season 3 (2023)
Ted Lasso Season 3 was great and satisfying. All the stories were tidily wrapped up. The dialog was often amazing. Ted’s monologues were inspiration exemplified. The football was better. The writers explored new themes and got knee-deep in immigrant and LGBT issues. But Season 3 of Ted Lasso was a little different for me than…
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The Golden Goose – ‘Messi Meets America’ (2023)
When MLS announced Messi was joining Inter Miami FC, I admit I opposed the idea. Messi’s coming to MLS would be a black mark against and devalue his career. It would be the perfect encapsulation of MLS as a retirement league, I thought. Of course, Apple and MLS knew better, and it turned out that…
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‘The Champions’ (2018-2023) is funny and clever from Bleacher Report
The Champions popped up on HBOMax (currently known as Max) recently, and I was a little confused by the context of this brilliant animated series, i.e. where did this come from? Originally created for the Bleacher Report by comedic writer-producer Andy Haynes, this was a web series on Youtube, mirroring the Champions League (CL) from…
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‘Soccergate’ (2021) shows how justice is denied
Soccergate (aka Footballgate) is Episode 3 of the Netflix series Bad Sport , but it provides disappointing coverage on the 2006 match fixing scandal commonly known as “Calciopoli”. I learn something from almost all the documentaries I’ve reviewed, and it is only a very few that leave me with so many questions that I am…
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Review- ‘Black and White Stripes: The Juventus Story’ (2016)
Directors Marco La Villa and Mauro La Villa say that this film is about fathers and sons and how football unites generations and allows them to relate to each other. The twin brothers worked on this film for 10 years, after their father, a life long Juventini, passed away without ever attending a Juventus game.
