As the days go on and I start to watch more films, I start thinking about some I’ve seen in the past.  Two inspirational films really stick out in my head.  The first, “100 Miles to 40″ is an awesome film about Michelle Halsne running the Western States Endurance Run for her 40th birthday.  It’s amazing to see these people run 100 miles in less than 24 hours.  Michelle in particular because she has a few mishaps along the way.  I won’t spoil the documentary but her husband/filmmaker Chris Halsne does an incredible job catching things along the way.  You can get the film here:  http://www.zombierunner.com/store/categories/dvds/product2762.html

The second film “Crossing Hell’s Mouth” is the story of Frank Chalmers who attempts to swim across the Pentland Firth.  I can’t remember how old Frank is but he isn’t a spring chicken.  It’s incredible of how much endurance this guy has.  He’s already swam the English Channel and now he’s taking on this new challenge that no one has accomplished.  It’s a pretty awesome feat and a great story.  You can watch and/or buy it here:  http://www.meerkatfilms.co.uk/portfolio/crossinghellsmouth/

Hey Gang -

Please spread the word.  We are entering our 3rd year of the festival and we’ve made a few changes.  We’re going to be holding the festival on November 11-13, 2011 at the El Portal Theater in North Hollywood, California.

We’re excited to see and read all the awesome sport themed stories out there.

Go to www.AllSportsFilmFest.com to submit.

Thanks!!

Like many sports films, there’s always a moment where you find yourself grabbing the arm rest really hard cuz the protagonist is literally fighting for their life.  In the case of Soul Surfer, it has it’s moments where the film is fun to watch and the intensity kicks up your interest a notch.  Between all the awesome cinematography and the surf competitions, I found myself entertained.

Point – I’m not going to give a lot of details about the movie – I’m not a critic.  I want you to go see it.  So instead, I will give you some of my thoughts in a nutshell.

The story itself is pretty awesome.  A girl overcomes losing her arm to roll on as a professional surfer.  That in itself compelled me to go watch the film.  The few things that took me out of the moment was some trite writing in the script and some actors who couldn’t carry the dialogue.  But when Dennis Quaid is on the screen, he turns the script and the film up a notch.  I just love watching the guy whether it was in The Rookie or The Express – whatever he does.

Overall, the film does what it’s suppose to do, entertain.  It may inspire you.  That depends if it’s your genre and style.  But nevertheless, it’s definitely something you should grab on DVD.

As the Festival Director for the All Sports Film Fest, I’ve had the pleasure of watching many awesome films.  However, too many of these documentaries aren’t getting any recognition out there.

Handicapped: A Documentary About Bad Golf

http://www.badgolfmovie.com/

This was a fun piece of work to watch.  It borderlines absurd and keeps you guessing if these guys are for real.   Without giving too much away, it’s the story of a billionaire who is a terrible golfer and puts together a tournament just so he can win it.

The filmmaker G.R. Kearney put together an awesome group of golfers to pull this off.  Even if you aren’t a golf enthusiast, you’ll get a kick out of it.

Faded Glory

http://www.endorphinentertainment.com

This is a story of a group of dysfunctional guys who, through baseball, define themselves and friendship.  There are many great, what I call character moments, in the film.  Not character as in something on a sitcom but character as in the human element.

Rick Cohen pretty much covers “all the bases” as creator of the documentary.  He does a lot of leg work in getting this in the can and it pays off.  It’s a film about people and baseball so it’s a win win for anyone out there who loves a good baseball documentary.  Even if you aren’t a baseball fan, it’s a wonderful view of life and people.

Both of these filmmakers need to be commended for their work.  They’ve both put together solid pieces of film and it was a pleasure to watch them both.

If you’re a sports film buff, you know a lot of the films we watch are documentaries.  A couple reasons are because they’re a heck of a lot cheaper to make than a live action film and they’re just plain great stories.

So, I watched “The Pat Tillman Story” the other night and came away from it pissed.  It documents his college and professional careers as a football player and how he dropped everything to join the armed forces after 9/11.  He, like most people, wanted to do their part to keep America out of harm’s way after the tragic events in NYC.  The sad part is that once he started his tour, he realized how much the war was built on lies.  He had a chance to get out of his tour early, but his integrity kept him in.  Pat didn’t make it back home alive.  The military said he was killed by “friendly fire” just several months from his tour ending.  This is where the story goes south.

The object of this documentary wasn’t made to put Pat up as a national hero who died for his country.  From what I got from it, he wouldn’t have wanted that.  The doc was about how his family had to work around the government to get to the real reason how he was killed.  When everything was finally exposed, I walked away from the film hating the military and the all the men who lead it.  I’m not going to get on a soap box and ramble on about who said what and what should have happened to anyone.  I’ll let you do that for yourself after you watch the doc.  All I’m going to say is that he was a hell of a ball player, hell of a person, and he’s got a hell of a support group around his spirit to this day.

First let me say that there is no such thing.  The reason is because you’ll ask 100 people and the answers will be all over the place.  So the bottom line is that the “best” is what you think is the “best”.

Just because “The Blind Side” won all kinds of praise doesn’t mean you have to like it.  In fact, as a sports fan, I loathed it.  Even though it’s “entertainment”, sports fans need to draw the line somewhere.  My line was drawn when Sandra Bullock walked out on to the practice field to give “Michael” his blocking assignment and motivation.  Anyone who has spent one day on any type of practice field knows that a coach would never go for this.  It was just ridiculous – boarder line of stupid.  I know it’s Hollywood doing it’s job but it was trying too hard.

Most of the sport genre films out there have great qualities to them.  I just watched “Secretariat” the other day and found it quite entertaining.  Even though there are many “cliche” moments in the film and you know how it turns out, it kept my interest.  I remind myself all the time that these films aren’t a solid biography but entertainment.

Most of my favorites have two common denominators in them – the writing and acting.  Yeah, yeah, so what else is left?  A lot.  If you don’t have knowledge of the story and can’t get the actors on the same page as the filmmaker’s vision – it’s gonna be a train wreck.

Here are a few of my favs (and not so favs) with a few quick notes:

“Cinderella Man” is another great film.  I could have used less Renee Zellweger but that’s just me.  But Russell Crowe is awesome in it.

I thought “The Express” was done well but again, a few too many “cliche” moments in it for me.  (I mean cliche as in the moment somebody does the traditional “point” at the opposing player or coach – yawn – that why I thought “Remember the Titans” was poorly done.)

You have to throw in there “Pride of the Yankees” as a pure sports fan.  The movie reflects the filmmaking process at the time (which seemed amateurish), but you have to overlook that to enjoy the subject matter.

Rudy, Hoosiers – Anspaugh and Pizzo do a great job with both of these.  Lots of fun characters to root for.  Sean Astin brought that role to the table.  I’ll watch “Hoosiers” anytime it comes on.  Didn’t like the Gene Hackman – Barbara Hersey chemistry but that’s me.  Dennis Hopper – please!  Awesome.

“Sea Biscuit” another horse movie done well.  Toby McGuire raised the bar in it.

“The Natural” – Redford’s Best – IMO.

I’d like to throw Dennis Quaid’s name in there just for his films as a wonderful actor – “The Express” and “The Rookie”

I’ll quit my rambling on “Miracle”.  Fun film to watch.  Again, we know the outcome but it gives ya goosebumps.  Kurt Russell was a pleasure to watch and the support of the actor’s busting their nuts to make the scenes look real added to the essence of the film.

In 2007, John Grisham released a novel (is “released” only used for the music industry cuz he personally didn’t publish it?) called “Playing for Pizza”.  It’s about an NFL quarterback who can no longer get work because he blew a 3 touchdown lead in the play-offs so his agent signs a deal for him to play for the Parma Panthers in Parma, Italy.

It’s a fun story and it mixes my two loves – Italy and football.

Anyway, Mike Medavoy over at Phoenix Pictures bought the rights to the book and it went into pre-production.  Adam Shankman (Hairspray, Bedtime Stories) was on board to direct it.  All of a sudden, it’s gone.  No where to be found on IMDB, etc.  So if you have insight to where this thing is at, please comment.

This is a film I’d love to see get made.  Hell, I’d love to make it.  It has great possibilities because it has the comedy and sports in there for the guys and the romance for the ladies.

So Mike or John, when you get to this blog in 2037 and you’re looking for a writer/director to handle this novel, please give me a call.

Hey Gang,

I’m Pat Battistini and I’d like to welcome all you sports films fans.

Like a lot of the procrastinators out there, there were too many times I thought of putting together something with sports and films but never got around to it.  Finally, it has begun.  This whole thing came about  several years back when I realized there wasn’t an active film festival solely dedicated to sports films.  I thought that someone needed to reignite the flame but nobody ever did.  Well, I put my money where my mouth and passion are and started the All Sports Film Festival.  (AllSportsFilmFest.com)

Needless to say, there are about 3,745,239 film festivals in LA so it has been a battle getting butts in seats.  But to keep my mantra in the genre, “If you build it, they will come.”  Compounding the problem of getting recognized is the fact that sports films seem to be the red headed child of the film industry.

Last year, I screened a total of 69 shorts and features.  These included documentaries, live action, and animation.  (Spoiler – shameless plug ahead)  I can honestly say that many of these wonderful films would have been or have be omitted from most festivals.  My favorite example to give is the film that won our Best Feature Documentary in the first year of the fest, “Bicycle Dreams”.  (www.BicycleDreamsMovie.com)  This film wasn’t even accepted into Tribeca/ESPN’s sports category.  Wasn’t even accepted!  It’s an amazing piece of work by filmmaker Stephen Auerbach.  And since our fest, he’s rolled up quite a impressive resume.

As I head into the third year of the fest, I hope to make some changes to help all the wonderful filmmakers out there get the well deserved exposure they yearn for.  A lot of the films we screen are documentaries so I’m going to work extra hard to get people out to watch them.  For those of you who don’t attend festivals, most of the people there are cast and crew from the films being screened.  But with docs, the crew is small and there aren’t a laundry list of actors to come watch themselves on the screen.  Thus, the audiences tend to be light.  Gotta change that.  I’ve already planted seeds in the media for a better turn out this year – we’ll see where it takes me.

As for venues and dates, int he past I’ve screened in July at Raleigh Studios.  Great screening rooms and great history behind the studio but there is absolutely no marquee value and traffic there so I’m changing locations this year.  I’m looking at a November fest.  Maybe even 11/11/11.  It has a nice ring to it.  ;o)  So keep checking back and I’ll be posting all the good info as soon as I confirm it all.

Thanks a bunch for reading.  I hope you got something out of this – even helping your insomnia.

Oh, BTW – I’m always looking for sponsors.  The ROI is a warm fuzzy feeling.