The Silver Screen Oasis

I tend to favor boxing films as well. Some that haven't been mentioned:

The Setup (1949)

Body and Soul (1947)

Kid Galahad (1937)

I forgot to mention Fat City (1972) It's a very gritty boxing movie and it's probably the best performance Stacey Keach ever did on film.

"Fat City" is terrific. I'll never forget Susan Tyrrel in that one, and the Mexican boxer who never spoke a word and looked so scary but was really hiding a health problem and lost the fight has always stayed in my memory.

This is one of John Huston's best. It showed that he could compete with the "Film Brats" of the Seventies.

Boxing: THE SET UP with one of Robert Ryan's best performances as a washed up pug who just may have one more good fight left in him. Adding to the realism is the fact that Ryan did a bit of boxing himself at one time.

Baseball: a film I haven't seen mentioned here yet, THE WINNING TEAM, the story of real life player Grover Cleveland Alexander, with Ronald Reagan & Doris Day. The film contains one of Reagan's most "winning" performances in the lead, and a nice dramatic turn from Doris Day as his wife.

I recently just saw The Set-Up and it's now on my list of best boxing movies despite the rather selfish comment by the wife at the very end of the movie.

A local sports radio station recently had a contest to determine their listeners' all-time favorite sports movie. They chose 32 films to start with and bracketed them against each other just like a sports competition (such as March Madness). The listeners could then vote on-line on each match up. The match-ups continued until only one film was standing. Their winner was Caddyshack. Obviously there weren't many classics in the field as the movies they chose concentrated on the last 30 years (The Natural, Miracle, Slap Shot,Rocky, Raging Bull, Hoosiers, etc...). The fact that Caddyshack would win isn't totally surprising considering the demographics of a sports radio station, but I thought the idea was interesting. It might make an interesting forum here if we could nominate say 64 of our all-time favorite films and then bracket them out to determine this sight's all-time favorite movie (sorry, I'm straying from the sports theme). Or we could do it for different genres. Does anyone have any interest in something like this? It would generate some input from everyone and it would be fun to list the movies that would vote on. Perhaps once a year we could do it to see if they remain the same or change over time (and with new site members added).

Just a thought.

I think the idea of a competition/elimination is a very good one. Perhaps it should start by bracketing similar films, say "The Navigator" vs "The General" as part of a favorite comedy competiton, instead of having "The General" vs. "The Producers" be the first one up.

cinemalover wrote:Obviously there weren't many classics in the field as the movies they chose concentrated on the last 30 years (The Natural, Miracle, Slap Shot, Rocky, Raging Bull, Hoosiers, etc...).

For me, the masterpiece that is Raging Bull is a classic. This is in my top 64 films. Heck, I'd say The Natural is a classic too.

As for tallying our top 64, sounds good like a good start to me. The "top ten" notion is so impossible that I never even attempt it, but 65? I might be able to muster that...

MR,
True, I should have chosen my words more carefully. Raging Bull is outstanding and a timeless classic. By "classics" I was referring to the fact that no films pre-1970 were included. I think Rocky is a classic for me, but that's another story. Anyone else interested in putting together a movie competition? I'm sure between all the talent we have at this site we could figure out a viable way to do it. It should spur a lot of conversation and debate.