Thursday, August 20, 2009

Forever Strong

Movie: Forever Strong
Like/Don't Like: Feel-good sports movie. Like.

I get the gist of most sports, but rugby stumps me. As does cricket and Australian rules football. Basically sports that are popular primarily in the former British Empire are a complete mystery to me.

I was hoping that since this movie was about a high school rugby team I would get a handle but I finished it still not understanding the purpose of the scrum. Or why they all lift one guy up to catch the ball. And why they can't pass forward.

But not knowing these things didn't actually hinder enjoying the movie. It wasn't anything revolutionary, just your standard feel-good sports movie. I think we're hard-wired to like them. Who can resist Rudy (who is actually in this movie) or Hoosiers or Remember the Titans? You can't! You can't resist the power of the final seconds ticking down in slow motion. Don't even try.

As a funny side note: Gary Cole is in this as the coach of the team and most of his lines are made up of Important Life Lessons. And all I could think of while watching him was when he played Mike Brady in the Brady Bunch Movie and spouted off Important Life Lessons. That was played for laughs. This was not. But I laughed anyway.

1 comment:

Rach said...

So true about Gary Cole. But whenever I see him I think about Office Space instead. So anything he says makes me laugh because of that. I had forgotten he was Mike Brady. My cousin actually played Rugby for Highland High, so I went to a rugby match one time and was very confused the whole time, having watched football my whole life. I just couldn't make sense of the sport. But I digress. I also enjoyed the movie. Did you recognize Jimmy Chunga?