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Film Reviews

The Damned United & A Handful Of Non-Shit Sports Films
Taylor Parkes , March 24th, 2009 11:25

The Damned United is a lightweight version of David Peace's dark character study of football manager Brian Clough. Taylor Parkes picks apart this flawed football flick. Plus Jeremy Allen compiles a gallery of 10 sports films that weren't shit.

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Rocky

If there's one sport that has inspired more decent movies than any other, it has to be boxing. Raging Bull is phenomenal, while the 1996 Rumble in the Jungle documentary When We Were Kings based on the musings of Norman Mailer, is so uplifting that it should be prescribed on the National Health. Rocky falls into the 'decent' category, but it's easy to forget its merits if, like me, you've inadvertently sat through any of the endless sequels that have so sullied the spirit of the original. While you can never rule out yet another comeback by Mr Balboa, you can console yourself in the fact that while Rocky's II, III, IV, V and so on were woeful, none were as execrable as Stallone's arm wrestling picture Over the Top, a movie that made men everywhere put their muscles away in disgust.