Friday Night Double Feature: Football!

I’ve mentioned several times on the site how little of a sports fan I am. In fact, the only sport I follow with any frequency is Hockey, and typically that’s just enough to switch out my players in our Cinema Blend Fantasy Hockey league (where, somehow, I was champion this year). Yet, for some reason, this week football movies appealed to me, so here we sit with a Double Feature about Football.

Now, remember, this is the Friday Night Double Feature you’re reading, so don’t expect to see us throwing movies like Rudy and Brian’s Song together. We want you to enjoy the guilty pleasures of the world, not cry giant man-tears at good players. This isn’t drama; this is football! Pull yourself together man!

Actually, it’s probably a testament to these movies that they could make a non-sports person enjoy them so much. If movies can draw me into a sport I’ve never cared much for, think how good they must be for those who have a passing interest in football or really enjoy the sport.

Down, set, hike:

Friday Night Lights

I never expected to like Friday Night Lights. As a non-sports person, the story of an underdog football team had no draw for me. Even worse – most of the movie is about the football field, with very little of the story taking in the player’s lives off the field (forget about seeing them in a class). But that’s actually what really makes Friday Night Lights work. The movie is brutal and visceral, and draws even the least enthused sports fan in to a point that you can’t help but be interested in what happens to these kids (this is a high school football team we’re talking about). It also isn’t afraid to expose the darker side of football fanaticism, where expectations crush the kids and winning or losing a game is the difference between being happily welcomed or run out of town. Peter Berg had lost my interest with The Rundown (although that too is a guilty pleasure movie destined for a slot in this column) but Friday Night Lights really shows what Berg can do and how sports movies can be cool, as long as they’re willing to take as brutally realistic an approach as this one does without completely glorifying the sport, they can win over any fan.

Necessary Roughness

Now this is more my style when it comes to sports movies. The football version of Major League for all intents and purposes, only on a college level. It’s a college football team full of misfits versus the college dean (skillfully played by Larry Miller). Among this bunch of misfits? Sinbad. Actually, that’s enough right there, but they also have an older man (Scott Bakula), and even a girl on the team (the gorgeous Kathy Ireland). Add in a guy who can’t catch a football, a kung-fu defenseman, Rob Schneider in one of his less annoying roles (as the game announcer), Jason Bateman during his in-between years, and then make the team play both defense and offense, and you’ve got a great guilty pleasure. It’s got laughs. It’s got babes (again, Kathy Ireland). And for those of you who really want some football in your comedy, it’s got Dick Butkus and Jerry Rice, among others. A far-too-frequently overlooked comedy, Necessary Roughness is easily one of my favorite guilty pleasure movies, even if it does have Sinbad in it (Bonus: Presidential Candidate alert: Look for Fred D. Thompson among the cast).

Other good plays: Wildcats, Varsity Blues, The Best of Times, The Longest Yard

Enjoy our Double Feature suggestions? and maybe we’ll use them in a future column.