Detouring off Glory Road
Bill Simmons, the ESPN Sports Guy, has his review of the hoops movie Glory Road up today.
Sadly, Simmons confirms many of the fears I had about the movie when I first saw the trailers. Since then, many people, including even my sportsphobic wife, have asked me if I want to see the movie. I've hemmed and hawed and stalled for time on it because of this problem:
I know what really happened in history, so I think I'm going to have a problem when I realize that the true story is being warped for Hollywood's purposes. And I knew, just knew, that Hollywood wouldn't be able to leave the real story alone. Simmons confirms this in his review.
It's ironic that in Hollywood's quest to make the story of Texas Western and its historic NCAA title in 1966 over the all-white Kentucky Wildcats more enjoyable to the wider audience the producers, directors, et al, alienate the hard core sports fans. Maybe they figure we're so desparate for a sports flick that we'll watch anything. In fact, it's just the opposite. We've got plenty of sports shows already. They're called games. And if I want to go back and watch Texas Westen, I'll just tune in to ESPN Classic.
Comments (1)
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Since Hollywood so often butchers real-life sports stories, I try to stick to the fiction. I highly recommend FX Toole's "Million Dollar Baby" -- for those who haven't seen it yet. That's definitely on my list of top-5 sports movies. All that said, I did like "Eight Men Out" on the Chicago Black Sox of 1919.
Posted on February 2, 2006 7:15 PM