Tag: USA
-
Review: ‘The Men Who Sold the World Cup’ (2021)
The Men Who Sold the World Cup was produced and directed by Daniel DiMauro and Morgan Pehme, two fellows who have built their careers with documentaries that explain corruption and evil-doing in a very accessible and entertaining way. This docuseries shows how corruption is cultivated and how difficult it is to capture the bad guys…
-
The business side of womens football – ‘Angel City’ (2023)
Truth be told, I watched the 3-part Angel City docuseries a couple of weeks ago, but I just couldn’t get myself to write this review. The series shows a lot about Angel City FC that I hadn’t known, and I was glad to learn it. But the coverage of the startup and inaugural year of…
-
Times have changed since ‘Pretty Tough’ (2011)
Pretty Tough sat in my Amazon watchlist for a long time, because it looked like one of those low quality movies that was either exploitative of teen girls or from the Christian network. So I was surprised when I found Pretty Tough to be pretty good, and neither exploitative nor religious.
-
‘Hood River’ (2021) captures high school soccer
High school sports often serve as the film setting for a great divide: between rich and poor, Black and White, or urban versus rural. Maybe the greatest high school sports drama is Denzel Washington’s Remember the Titans (2000), where in the racist South, a Black coach and Black and White co-captains unite a newly integrated…
-
Know your history – The Sisters of ’96 (2021)
The Sisters of ’96 highlights an accomplishment that seems to barely register in American soccer history. While the 99ers are now easily recognized as the winners of the WWC 1999, how many know that prior to that, these women won the gold medal at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta?
-
‘King Otto’ (2021) wins your heart
What does it mean to be Greek? King Otto shows us through the initial friction between and then a melding of German and Greek cultures on a football pitch. Combining ambitious German discipline with Greek passion and spirit, the result is an improbable underdog run through the 2004 Euros. Like Morocco’s recent run through WC…
-
Will ‘Truth be Told’ (2022) set the NWSL free?
Truth be Told: The fight for Women’s Professional Soccer is an ESPN E60 production. The film covers the more visual aspects of the “This guy has a pattern” story that was reported by Meg Linehan and Katie Strang. On Sep-30-2021, the reporters broke open their investigation on abuses by celebrated coach Paul Riley and the…
-
A last gift from Grant Wahl – ‘Good Rivals’ (2022)
This is a heavy-hearted review. I watched Grant Wahl’s docuseries Good Rivals during the two weeks that the USMNT was playing in the group stage of the World Cup in Qatar. I had hoped that Grant would see my review during the WC. But tragically, Grant Wahl suffered a fatal aortic aneursym in the press…
-
‘Welcome to Wrexham’ (2022) – not your normal sports documentary
There was so much hype about the Welcome To Wrexham docuseries, I put off watching it until I needed the DVR space for the WC 2022 games. (It’s not like Ryan Reynolds is going to read this review.) But if you’re wondering what to watch in the deluge of streaming sports docuseries, Wrexham is unique because…
-
‘FIFA Uncovered’ (2022) the World Cup of Fraud
If you did not have the energy to read the 2014 Garcia Report, the Netflix docuseries FIFA Uncovered is an excellent way to get all the facts in a very visual mode. Director Daniel Gordon interviews journalists, authors, and media experts as well as key principals formerly inside FIFA, and the Qataris who bought the World…
-
‘The Soccer Football Movie’ (2022) – weird and unwatchable
The Soccer Football Movie needs a big red alert that warns “Not Suitable for Small Children”. Followed by a second warning that says “Indigestible for Adults”.
-
‘Thirteen Lives’ (2022) entertains but is not the best rendition
I wasn’t planning to review Thirteen Lives, Ron Howard’s dramatization of the 2018 Thai Cave Rescue. After all, I had already reviewed 3 other films covering the story, and this isn’t really a soccer movie. In fact, wikipedia has placed it in the genre of “biographical survival film”. But I noticed that search engines were…
-
‘The Rescue’ (2021) may be the best
The prior film from Elizabeth Chai Vasarhely and Jimmy Chin was the Oscar-winning, bone-chilling Free Solo. National Geographic handed them the reins to tell the story of what is commonly known as the Thai cave rescue. Once again, the Director duo deliver a pulsating story about men who pursue a death-defying sport, except this time…
-
Where have you gone, ‘Ted Lasso’ Season 2 (2021)?
The Apple TV+ series Ted Lasso has had such a cultural impact, it calls for a separate review for its second season. Season One arrived as an antidote to a toxic presidency and a worldwide pandemic. Coach Ted Lasso was quoted from the pulpit of my local Presbyterian church, in whose congregation almost no one…
-
‘Soccer Mom Madam’ (2021) is not a soccer movie
First of all, let’s set the record straight. Soccer Mom Madam is not a soccer movie. But its provocative title is going to occupy any search for the keywords “soccer mom movie”, so I am posting this review as a public service to soccer fans. 🙂
-
At least the soccer is great in ‘LFG’ (2021)
LFG, the new documentary on HBOMax, is about a mission that is right and just. From other reviews on this website, you know that I am 100% behind the USWNT’s fight for equal pay. But LFG (Let’s F**king Go!) is in some ways a disservice to the cause, because the film is too long and…
-
‘Pelé’ (2021) – the game that made Pelé cry
The Netflix documentary Pelé has all the makings of a prestige film: a man known as the greatest footballer in the world, the only player to have won 3 World Cups, and celebrity in the historical context of a brutal dictatorship. The twist in the story is that you see an aged man at his…
-
The soccer is murderous in ‘Kick – Sudden Death’ (2015)
Is it fair to write a review when I abhor horror movies? To add to my dilemma, I could not force myself to finish watching Kick – Sudden Death because it simply defied logic. Maybe that’s what horror movies do; since I don’t watch them, I can’t really judge. So to compensate, I will keep…
-
‘In Search of Greatness’ (2018), born from creativity
If we study the Great Ones of sport, we find there are many contributing factors to their success: motivation, competitiveness, mentors, resilience, discipline, talent, and luck. Writer-Director Gabe Polsky gives us examples of all that and adds one more trait, creativity, that extends across music, art, and other disciplines.
-
Strive to be as ‘Unbreakable’ (2019) as Steve Zakuani
Unbreakable: The Steve Zakuani Story is an extremely well-made documentary of a man reviewing his footballing career that ended just short of meteoric. By telling his story, Steve Zakuani hopes to convince every young teenager that they can be at rock bottom but still rise again and ultimately give back.
