Tag: USA
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More romance and less soccer in ‘See You Soon’ (2019)
See You Soon (До скорой встречи) is a beguiling romance that combines fairy tale, travelogue, and a little bit of soccer. Can America have a male soccer star who is a recognizable face worldwide but plays in the USA? To American hearts still aching from the failure to qualify in T&T, it feels like a fantasy.
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‘Coach’ (2019) is 25 minutes of inspiration
Sport Psychologist Courtney Carroll Levinsohn found out that SFSU coach Tracy Hamm was working on her UEFA A-license. Only 1% of such coaching licenses are held by women. Why not put this story on the screen and thereby normalize it? The result is Coach, 25 minutes of inspiration that tell women and girls, you can…
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‘Diamantino’ (2018): A satire or just randomly disturbing?
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.
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‘Thai Cave Rescue’ (2018) seals our faith in humanity
This is the first of several films and documentaries about the dramatic Thai Cave Rescue that gripped the world in June-July, 2018. Director Tom Stubberfield presents all the facts of the story for PBS’s Nova TV series, narrated by Eric Meyers.
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‘Back of the Net’ (2019) mirrors USWNT values
Created just in time for the 2019 Womens World Cup, Back of the Net embraces many of the same values that propelled the US Womens National Team (USWNT) into the social media stratosphere: embracing diversity, teamwork and a can do spirit. If your child got on the USWNT WWC2019 bandwagon and wants other forms of…
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A magical football match in ‘Bedknobs and Broomsticks’ (1971)
Disney’s Bedknobs and Broomsticks is not a soccer movie, but should be watched for its engaging 10-minute animation of a football game. Like all Disney animations, the quality is so good that the 50 year old film remains on par with today’s technology.
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‘Ordinary Gods’ (2019): It takes a family to sustain a footballer
The first feature documentary from Writer-Director Pascui Rivas, Ordinary Gods was meant to be a prestige piece. Along that line, his film does not show six young players as powerful future gods of football, nor as soccer royalty who will wow us with talent. Instead, Rivas lets us into their lives to reveal their human…
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‘Alex & Me’ (2018) is a quality movie with good role models
Even if you are like me and have watched over 250 soccer movies, Alex & Me provides an enjoyable fresh take on the underdog theme. Despite going straight to DVD, it is an inspiring family-friendly film that is well worth watching by pre-teen girls as well as their parents.
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‘Morris from America’ (2016) is not a soccer movie
Morris from America might come up when you search for “soccer movie”. But even though it takes place in Germany, and is ostensibly about a black American soccer coach, the film is not about football and actually has no football in it except as a visual reference. I’m reviewing the film on my website really,…
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‘Takim’ (2015): A Film to Smile About
Writer-Director Emre Sahin and his successful production company Karga7 like to draw stories and real topics from the real world.
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‘Coach Jake’ (2017) pays it forward
With his bald head and authoritative, gnarly New York accent, I sometimes thought I was watching former US soccer coach Bob Bradley. But no, Coach Jake is about Martin Jacobson, an American high school soccer coach who is, in many ways, much more successful.
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Review | ‘After the Cup: Sons of Sakhnin United’ (2009)
Directors and brothers Christopher and Alex Browne filmed After the Cup: Sons of Sakhnin United during the 2004-05 season. Almost 15 years have passed since the events were recorded, but judging from more recent soccer movies such as Forever Pure, life has changed very little for Arabs in Israel. Israeli Arabs (Palestinians) remain second-class citizens, and Arabic players…
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‘The Anderson Monarchs’ (2012) all-Black girls team
Soccer decision makers, fans, and parents who don’t understand how our sport works in America should watch The Anderson Monarchs. Writer-Director Eugene Martin captures, in a decidedly upbeat way, the commitment required to sustain a unique, inner city, all-African-American, girls soccer team in Philadelphia.
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‘Shoot’ (2018): an Arab-Arabian football story
Shoot languished in my Amazon Prime watchlist because I assumed it was just another foreign film. So I was quite surprised when I started watching it, and almost the first words on the screen were “The first Saudi-American film”.
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‘Futbolistas 4 Life’ (2018) a playbook of resilience
You might summarize Futbolistas 4 Life as an inspirational example of resilience. But you’d be selling it short. You would miss the fact that bringing this engaging short documentary to theaters required the right stuff in every essence of its being. The story about immigrant and undocumented students in Oakland, who forge a life through…
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‘American Fútbol’ (2018) – what a way to go to a World Cup
American Fútbol is like a playful combination of Anthony Bourdain style and Pelada, sampling the food, absorbing a little culture and history, and playing pickup soccer with fans in 8 countries. In 2014, two young men, Directors Peter Karl and Sam Mathius, set out to cover the fan experience from Mexico to WC 2014 in…
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Immigrants and soccer ‘En el Séptimo Día’ (2017)
En el Séptimo Día is more of an art film with a message from Director Jim McKay. It originated with a script that he drafted in 2001. The story is an intimate portrait of Mexican immigrant life, pulled from his present neighborhood in Brooklyn as well as his experience years ago, when he worked in…
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‘Setenta y Sete’ (2017): a fine piece of reporting
Setenta y Sete is an ESPN TV documentary on the Nov-2016 plane crash that killed 71 of 77 passengers and staff traveling with the Brazilian Chapecoense team to Medellin, Colombia. The E:60 segment was originally broadcast in Jun-2017, but it was slightly updated and re-broadcast during WC 2018. I assume the update was meant to…
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‘Nossa Chape’ (2018) a view inside the club
Nossa Chape is the Zimbalist Brothers’ film on the greatest sports tragedy of the 21st Century. The documentary covers the crash of the charter flight that carried the Brazilian Chapecoense team to Medellin, Colombia, and the struggle of the club and the survivors to rebuild. The film arrived on the Fox Sports channel in time…
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Review: ‘I Scored a Goal in the FIFA World Cup Final’ (2010)
I Scored a Goal in the FIFA World Cup Final is such a hokey title, that I thought this film must be a spoof. But no, it is an ESPN compilation of interviews of the then 33 remaining players who had actually done the deed, up through WC 2010.
