17 May 2016
Today’s Top Picks
Brought to you by: sports!
My first pick for the day is one of my all-time favourite movies, Remember the Titans. Released in 2000, this film is about an African American football coach named Herman Boone (Denzel Washington) and based on a true story. Set in a time of segregation in the town of Alexandria, Washington, D.C. in 1971, Coach Boone tries to create a racially diverse football team at T.C. Williams High School. With assistant coach Bill Yoast (Will Patton) helping along the way, the T.C. Williams High School football team faces many challenges.
Faced with frequent racial clashes, the new integrated football team must find a way to work together in order to succeed. Two of the main football players in the film are Gerry Bertier and Julius Campbell. In classic sports movie fashion, these two hot-headed guys start off as enemies, but end up friends.
Fun fact #1: You may recognize the actor who plays Gerry Bertier! It’s Ryan Hurst, aka Opie Winston from Sons of Anarchy.
Fun fact #2: A young Ryan Gosling stars in this movie, as well as a young Kate Bosworth and even younger Hayden Panettiere as Coach Yoast’s daughter.
Fun fact #3: You may also recognize Donald Faison in this film, the actor who played Turk in the television show Scrubs.
Remember the Titans is one of the best sports films I’ve seen. I honestly love this movie so much. I first saw this movie years ago and I still love it to this day. I don’t want to give away anything, but this movie is so heartfelt and tells a truly amazing story. If you’re a fan of sports movies, this is definitely one I’d check out.
Today’s second pick is the British sports film Green Street Hooligans—known simply as Green Street in the UK. Focussing less on the actual sport itself, Green Street Hooligans is about football—or soccer here in North America—firms. Firms are run by fans of a specific football team. Every team in the UK has their own firm. This film focusses on the Green Street Elite, West Ham football team’s firm.
A young American journalism student named Matt Buckner—played by Elijah Wood—is kicked out of Harvard after his roommate frames him for cocaine possession. Unsure what to do, and afraid to stand up for himself against his roommate’s powerful family, Matt accepts bribe money and uses it to visit his sister, Shannon and her husband Steve Dunham, in London, England.
Upon arriving, Matt meets Pete Dunham, Steve’s younger brother, and the head of the Green Street Elite (GSE) football firm. The two begrudgingly attend a football match together where Matt is thrown into the world of the GSE. Throughout the film, the GSE often find themselves in sticky situations, but their friendships continue to grow, showing that the lads of the GSE truly have each other’s backs.
This film is more about how football brings the lads together—and also tears them apart. It’s a really under-appreciated film that is actually pretty deep.
Fun fact: Fans of Sons of Anarchy should recognize Charlie Hunnam, aka Jax Teller, as hooligan leader Pete Dunham. Charlie is much younger in this film; fresh-faced and clean shaven!
Green Street Hooligans is a great movie for sports fans of all kinds.
Let me know if you check out either of these movies! I’d love to hear from you!
