Soccer Movie MomPosts marked “Notes” are not movie reviews
It’s hard to believe, but even though it was a World Cup year, 2022 was one of my worst years for soccer movie reviews. I can’t blame it on the COVID-19 pandemic, because by Year 3, most of the world developed pandemic fatigue and pretty much threw their masks and self-isolation to the wind.
Since Twitter is imploding as I write this, I decided that I would not tweet my World Cup bracket but am instead posting it on my website.
There are a few reasons why I have posted so little in 2022.
My ISP Dreamhost tweeted about Google AdSense recently.
2021 was a little better than 2020. The availability of vaccinations helped us get back to semi-normal, but shockingly there is a small segment of the world’s population that refuses to get vaccinated. So the pandemic continues to rage on.
Keith Phipps recently lamented in The Ringer that sports movies as a genre have generally lost their way to the multiplex. Space Jam: A New Legacy, whose theme is to tie big brands together into one movie, is an example of where the genre might be heading. But Phipps notes that the new economics of streaming might open up more opportunities for independent films.
2020 has been a year we all want to forget. Many of us are isolating at home while the pandemic rages around most of the world. The market for home entertainment seemed to increase the number of soccer movies that were available online.
It is incredibly unfortunate that media like the Washington Post and the NY Times downplayed the 2014 Garcia Report, with headlines saying that there was “no smoking gun”. Virtually every page in this independent report from Michael Garcia’s Investigatory Chamber details FIFA’s corrupt methods in selecting the sites for WC 2018 and WC 2022.
I’ve reviewed several movies about FIFA corruption, but this document clearly lays out in business details and email flows, the operational procedures that comprise FIFA’s corrupt practices, and how an investigator breaks it all down.
We are all struggling to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, as lives are lost and normalcy is completely disrupted. If you have been affected, I hope that you recover from your grief and trauma. If you are sheltering in place like I am, then I hope that holding onto something you enjoy gives you some respite from the world’s troubles. May this website be a small diversion for you.
2019 was a Womens World Cup year, but unlike with the Men’s side, few producers timed their theatrical releases to the tournament. However, interest in football films and soccer movies continues to grow rapidly, so that my list of movies to watch grows much faster than the movies that are available to me. My to-watch list now numbers almost 600 whereas 2-3 years ago it was around 400.
In the big battle for your streaming attention, Amazon Prime has licensed quite a few independent international movies related to football (soccer). I find less than half of these foreign films are OK, and the rest can be quite laborious to watch.
Rather than bail water in a sinking ship, I don’t want to spend a few hours researching and reviewing a film that’s not worth my time. Instead, I am going to just list those films here, in alphabetical order. I will update this post as other films arrive on Amazon.
This list is a metaphor for 2019 MLS coaches expressed as various forms of sea life. I was inspired to write this after listening to Andrew Wiebe interview many MLS coaches for the @ExtraTimeRadio podcast.
I originally posted this on twitter
2018 was a World Cup year, with Russia hosting possibly the most entertaining World Cup ever broadcast. Many producers and creators plan football film releases during a WC year, when interest in soccer is intense. Thus I was pleasantly surprised at the number of films that were shown on cable and streaming sites, as well as in theatres.
This is my transcript from the ExtraTime Radio podcast of Jun-25-2018 where Matt Doyle gave a ballistic and convincing rant on why Juan Carlos Osorio should not be USMNT coach. Go to 1:03:35 in the podcast. I wanted to preserve this brilliant rant for posterity. It reminded me of Ned Beatty’s Oscar-winning speech in the movie Network. My transcript is close but not perfect, and I’ve used some abbreviations…
The 2011 film Soka Afrika got me wondering, how does a player in Africa find the right agent? How do players avoid scams by fraudulent football agents that will turn them into victims of human trafficking?
