***DEADLINE extend until Sunday at 5 pm!!
Hello all, we continue with our sports movie season of March Movie Madness by looking at the world’s most popular sport: soccer (or "football" as it is known to most of the world).
Football is the national sport of many countries in Europe, Latin America, Asia and Africa. It's easy to play, with a simple kick about, and the World Cup is the world’s biggest sporting event. But unfortunately the sport’s governing body, FIFA, is run by corrupt fools; somehow they think Russia and Qatar are better World Cup hosts than England, Australia, the United States and South Korea (as you can tell I‘m still a little bitter). Because of the sport’s popularity to people of all ages and instant appeal to footy fans, soccer films do have an international appeal. They are inspiring stories about how victory was achieved to stories looking at social issues.
Bend It Like Beckham is easily one of the biggest and most well-known football films in recent years. Starring Parminder Nagra, Bend It Like Beckham was Keira Knightley and Jonathan Rhys Meyers’ big break. This comedy-drama was not just about the sport but also a film about cultural identity, with a young woman battling the Indian culture of her parents and the English culture she grew up with. It is also a film about women breaking gender stereotype, while enjoying and playing the sport they love. This was a surprise hit in both sides of the Atlantic.
The other hooligan film to make the list was Green Street Hooligans, the big Hollywood take on the issue with Elijah Wood trying to avoid being typecast after The Lord of the Rings. This film was more popular in America than in Europe and Charlie Hunnam could not do a Cockney accent to save his live. Wood plays a Harvard student who joins West Ham’s hooligan wing in a story about friendship whilst being very violent. At least my club’s theme song, “I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles,” was brought to an international audience.
Victory is loosely based on a true story of when the Ukrainian team Dyamno Kiev was able to beat and humiliate a film of SS soldiers. Hollywood gave this story their treatment about a group of Western POWs being forced to play against a propaganda match against the Nazis in Paris. This film features the actors like Michael Caine, Sylvester Stallone and Max von Sydow with football legends Pele and Bobby Moore in a story of offering resistance. It is always uplifting viewing it, but the real story is sadly a lot darker.
FIFA wanted to get in on the act of the big bucks and PR the film industry could offer. They allowed real clubs to be used in the rags-to-riches story about Santiago Muñez (Kuno Becker), an illegal Mexican immigrant in Los Angeles who gets the opportunity to play for the Premier League club Newcastle United. Yes, it’s clichéd and predictable, but it was uplifting and fun.