I heat up the ice cubes...It's the best of both worlds!

Dick: Well Tiger Woods is still awesome, the Celtics proved once again that defense wins championships, and being fired in the middle of the night while 3000 miles from home is just plain brutal (right, Willie Randolph?). But we don't need to beat those topics into the ground. As we both love sports, and we both love movies, it seems only logical that we discuss the greatest sports movies of all time.
D: I think the easiest way to do it might be sport by sport, and since football is always on the top of my list, I will start there. Friday Night Lights wins because of quotability factor, realistic football action, and humanistic characters. Varsity Blues is a close second, falling short to FNL in all of those categories. The Replacements, while thoroughly enjoyable, is just not realistic at all; from beginning to end, it is just one big "WTF, mate?" moment after another. I like the movie, and I watch it every time it is on (thanks to TBS), but it wins my Golden Raspberry Award.
Pralines: I support those choices. I'm going to drop some seriousness on the world with Rudy. Revived Sean Astin's career, and was the birthplace of the team-up between Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn. Now to go completely off the charts, I'm going to say Necessary Roughness. Scott Bakula is underrated here as the aging cowboy quarterback who returns to play college ball, with hilarity from Jason Bateman and Rob Schneider as the play-by-play man.
D: When we come upon another sports news drought, I think we should devote an entire blogosphere to football movies. I mean, we didn't even mention Remember the Titans, Invincible, Any Given Sunday, We are Marshall, The Longest Yard (old or new), or even the Waterboy. Come on.
P: Too many subdivisions in the football genre to tap into all of them in one sitting.
D: Of course. Let's see, next in line alphabetically after football is yachting, I'm pretty sure. I don't know any yachting movies though, so I will laud Kingpin as the greatest bowling movie of all time. Honorable mention goes to the Big Lebowski because they do play substantial frames of bowling. Bowling movies must be the key to hilarity. One would be hard pressed to find a more impressive pair of sporting comedies than Kingpin and the Big Lebowski.
P: Oh absolutely. Kingpin I feel is the most overlooked film by the Farrellys. Bill Murray steals it for me as Ernie McCracken ("It's a small world when you've got unbelievable tits, Roy"). The Big Lebowski is amazing on so many levels. Jeff Bridges plays my personal hero as the ultimate slacker/amateur bowler ever dedicated to celluloid.
D: In addition to our football movie roundabout, we should just fill up paragraphs with Kingpin and Big Lebowski quotes...perhaps a "to be continued" on the end of this entry. Who knows?
D: The most obvious golf flicks are Caddyshack and Happy Gilmore. Enough said.
P: Caddyshack is just amazing. Happy Gilmore, while enjoyable, isn't in the same league as Caddyshack. Bill Murray (see a pattern here?) as the insane groundskeeper, Chevy Chase as the club pro/resident ladies man Ty Webb and Rodney Dangerfield are just amazing together onscreen.
D: No arguments there. I will be the first to admit that I generally favor newer movies to old, but Caddyshack blows Happy Gilmore out of the water. Hands down.
D: Let's see...baseball brings us to Major League. Bull Durham deserves mention, but cmon. Major League. How good is Major League? I also can't help but notice that my movie choices started out quasi-serious and have since plummeted into "best sports comedies." That's just who I am. I'm sorry I'm not sorry.
P: I enjoyed an Indianapolis Indians game last night and the whole time I wasn't sipping on Coors Light drafts, i was quoting both Major League and Bull Durham. Bob Uecker as Harry Doyle is tremendous as the drunken announcer, but I think what makes it work is the ensemble cast. I mean clearly this is Charlie Sheen's best work besides Hot Shots, and it's Corbin Bernsen's best work, well, ever.
D: For some reason, and I honestly cannot explain why, my favorite line comes in the final game against the Yankees when the NYY first basemen asks Wesley Snipes/Willie Mays Hayes, "Going somewhere, meat?" To which WS/WMH replies, "About 90 feet." Like I said, I cannot explain why, but that is my favorite line out an entire movie of great lines. Weird, I know.
P: Harry Doyle: "The Duke is the league's triple crown winner, leading in saves, strikeouts per inning, and hit batsmen. This guy threw at his own kid in a father-son game."
D: "How would you like to manage the Indians this year?" "Gee, I don't know."
P: Since we're not technically throwing out all serious sports movies, I'd feel bad if I didn't namedrop the following titles: For Love Of The Game, Field Of Dreams, and The Natural. Oh, and Rookie Of The Year and Little Big League and Angels In The Outfield, but for entirely different reasons. Those three movies are links to my childhood and reminders of how my tastes in films have grown over the years.
D: Rookie of the Year is good. I give it 2 thumbs up for 2 main reasons. First is the quote "Funky butt-lovin'" and the second is Daniel Stern. Daniel Stern is like a poor man's Steve Buscemi. By that I mean he is always funny, even though his roles are usually minimal, save for Bushwacked and Home Alone. But those are fucking funny anyway.
P: Indeed. He makes City Slickers watchable. Hopefully our support here can get him more roles.
D: What the hell happened to him? I can't think of anything he's done in the last decade. That sucks.
P: Another subdivision to delve into would be Will Ferrell sports comedies. Talladega Night: The Ballad Of Ricky Bobby led the way and is probably the most well-known, but I think people are too quick to dismiss the genius of both Blades Of Glory and Semi-Pro. People need to preface their viewings with the mindset that they are separate, stand-alone films and should be enjoyed as such, and not just Ricky Bobby on ice skates and on the
D: I have to admit that he plays the same character in a different uniform with a different voice, but the movies are still funny. Just because they are unoriginal doesn't mean they are ungood. They can, in fact, be unungood, and they are unungood. I'd also like to throw out a last minute salute to the Mighty Ducks as my favorite hockey movie.
D: And Kicking and Screaming...wow Will Ferrell makes a lot of sports movies.
P: EMILIO! Yes, he as former pro hopeful turned lawyer turned kids hockey coach Gordon Bombay (great name) is amazing. D2 isn't bad, but The Mighty Ducks 3 is super lame. Kicking and Screaming works mainly because of Robert Duvall and Mike Ditka as grizzled old neighbors that hate each others guts.
D: I'm not crazy about Kicking and Screaming, as it is inevitably one of Mr. Ferrell's ungoodest works, but it does grow on you. I hated it after the first viewing, but I'm up to about 4 viewings now, and I kinda like it.
P: Agreed. It takes a while for the funny to seep through, but overall it's a solid picture.
D: Will Ferrell calling Coach Ditka "juice box" makes it worthwhile, if for no other reason than a similar situation on the streets would result in a giant can of whoop ass being opened.*
P: Well, with this being the most scatterbrained blog we've done to date, at least we walked away with a plethora of future blog topics to dive into more detail. Shall we end this tea party?
D: I don't see much good coming out of a continuation. It's bad enough that I'm stone cold sober and blogging on a Friday night. I feel it best to limit myself to one sadsack behavior at a time. Have a good weekend, Pralines.
P: Until we blog again, Dick.





*Everyone wave goodbye to juice box! Literally wave. DO IT! Parents too! Everyone waves.