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Arguably the best football movie ever, We Are Marshall is about much more than sports. Don’t shy away because 75 people – including dozens of collegiate football players – died in the horrific plane crash that forms its centerpiece. The movie is about what led up to the tragedy and mostly how the team, the school and the community picked themselves up afterward.

The crash itself is over in a flash, like a band-aid ripped off a wound. Only this flash opens a wound, one almost too big to comprehend, too big to overcome.

American spirit rises to the challenge, at least as this "true…

Great football movie, which is to say tough yet sensitive in a manly sort of way. Relationships between fathers and sons and buddies and girls-who-wear-jerseys are all well mined for emotional wallop.

The movie has added resonance for those of us familiar with Philly and the 70s, especially Philly in the 70s. The music (Nugent, Edgar Winter, et. al.), The Vet, the plaid slacks, it’s all here in its funky glory.

Perhaps a movie past its time – when the Dallas Cowboys were TV America’s Team – but a rousing and funny movie nonetheless. Notable for a classic Nick Nolte man’s man performance, football action that for the first time seemed real, and a whiff of the larger changes going in 1970’s society outside of football.

A three hanky weeper of the best kind – uplifting and funny. I was fortunate to watch it in the darkened cabin of an overnight flight to London, otherwise the tears streaming down my face would have been noticeable to others. But a good man-cry¹ is one reason I love the movies, and The Blind Side triggered more than a few.

One needn’t be a football fan to fall for this richly affecting true story. An appreciation for a wholesome human interest story – well told and performed – is enough to fall in love with it.
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¹ A cry triggered by selfless fraternal or par…

Yuck. A big F. U. to the NFL that hypocritically revels in jock sniffing, Any Given Sunday qualifies as a guilty treat mainly due to its extensive use of legendary players. Non-fans should steer clear.

Oliver Stone manages the near impossible here: making the NFL banal. He wastes copious star power in caricature roles, gives them dialogue consistently dripping with disgust, and employs them in a trite plot full of cheesy melodrama.

Did I mention that at 2.5 hours, the entire abomination is way too long. And way too jumpy.

Flag it for delay of game, offsides, and unnecessary …