Let's start with a movie, a new football movie, since I went to see
Invincible today.
(Spoiler Alert -- but then this is a Disney movie so if you're looking for a downer of an ending you've dropped in at the wrong production house.)
Do we really need another undertalented-athlete-with-a-lot-of-heart-gets-a-shot-at-the-big-time film? After all there's already a pretty good football film just like that, Rudy. It's college (Notre Dame) and Invincible is pro, but we still get to see a lot mis-matched pad hits. (Just FYI, Rudy Ruettiger is available for inspirational lectures, he recently spoke nearby at a fundraiser for a new Catholic High School -- wish I'd heard about it beforehand.)
In fact Disney has already had a very similar film in The Rookie, but that was about a baseball player, Jim Morris; and it was in Texas, not Philadelphia, PA. So has Philly already had an underdog-gets-a-shot movie? Uh, yeah, a little film called Rocky. Coincidentally this film is begins in the year Rocky came out, 1976.
So did we really need another one of these films? Of course not, but you know what; I'm glad they made it and if they keep finding these stories and doing a quality job with them I hope they keep right on making them. I can stomach one or two a year.
This one was made easier to swallow with a fine performance by Greg Kinnear as new Eagles head coach Dick Vermeil and it didn't hurt that I was kid in a Philadelphia suburb in the early 70's, when the team was struggling -- brought back memories like the Christmas that both the boys next door got full Eagles' uniforms, pads and helmets included.
Maybe my favorite part of Invincible was the stock footage at the end, showing the real Vince Papale, Dick Vermeil and the gritty Philadelphia fans, bad 70's haircuts and all.
Invincible today.
(Spoiler Alert -- but then this is a Disney movie so if you're looking for a downer of an ending you've dropped in at the wrong production house.)
Do we really need another undertalented-athlete-with-a-lot-of-heart-gets-a-shot-at-the-big-time film? After all there's already a pretty good football film just like that, Rudy. It's college (Notre Dame) and Invincible is pro, but we still get to see a lot mis-matched pad hits. (Just FYI, Rudy Ruettiger is available for inspirational lectures, he recently spoke nearby at a fundraiser for a new Catholic High School -- wish I'd heard about it beforehand.)
In fact Disney has already had a very similar film in The Rookie, but that was about a baseball player, Jim Morris; and it was in Texas, not Philadelphia, PA. So has Philly already had an underdog-gets-a-shot movie? Uh, yeah, a little film called Rocky. Coincidentally this film is begins in the year Rocky came out, 1976.
So did we really need another one of these films? Of course not, but you know what; I'm glad they made it and if they keep finding these stories and doing a quality job with them I hope they keep right on making them. I can stomach one or two a year.
This one was made easier to swallow with a fine performance by Greg Kinnear as new Eagles head coach Dick Vermeil and it didn't hurt that I was kid in a Philadelphia suburb in the early 70's, when the team was struggling -- brought back memories like the Christmas that both the boys next door got full Eagles' uniforms, pads and helmets included.
Maybe my favorite part of Invincible was the stock footage at the end, showing the real Vince Papale, Dick Vermeil and the gritty Philadelphia fans, bad 70's haircuts and all.
posted by ttChipster @ 5:47 PM
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