Dell's Pointless Lists: Greatest Actors Who Played in the NFL

On My Mind: Do the Right Thing, Colin Kaepernick

Football Time!

When the Game Stands Tall

Dell's Pointless Lists: Greatest Football Plays in Movie History

Football Scenes!

The NFL season is officially underway. Yay!

The college kids are finishing up their second week of games. Yay!

It's Sunday. Double Yay!

And I'm lazy. Triple...wait, what?

Yup.

But I must do something.

After all, even though this is a movie blog I always mark the beginning and possibly the ending of football season somehow. At the start of last year, I gave you my 11 favorite football movies. What I did at SuperBowl time turned into a pair of my most popular posts. I created my very own fictional football team.

Since I did say I was lazy, I'm not even going to try and top it this year. Instead, I'll shut up now and just share some of my favorite football scenes with you. Enjoy!

And one real life football scene, just because I can. To put it in movie terms, I hope this is foreshadowing...

Pointless Lists: Fictional Movie Football Team, Part II

Yesterday, I gave you the special teams and defense for my fictional football team. Now, on Super Bowl Sunday, I'm going to give you the guys people come to see, the ones that put points on the board.

I did give myself some rules to go by. As a reminder, here they are...

1. I really do mean "fictional." None of these players are directly based on a real person. That means no Rudy, no one from Remember the Titans, Friday Night Lights, The Express, or any other "based on a true story" football flick.

2. This one goes hand-in-hand with the first rule and makes things even trickier. Characters played by people with NFL experience are not eligible. My apologies to Luther Lavay from Any Given Sunday (Lawrence Taylor), Deacon Moss from the remake of The Longest Yard (Michael Irvin), Bogdanski from the original The Longest Yard (Ray Nitschke) and all the other pros who took their talents to the silver screen.

3. The player doesn't have to be from a football movie, but there should be at least one actual football scene in their movie during which I can reasonably assume he/she is on the field. You're outta here, Johnny Utah from Point Break.

4. Players are to be judged as they are during the movie. Past success be damned, Jack "Cap" Rooney from Any Given Sunday is an old man!

5. The player should at least have a speaking part. Okay, this is more of a guideline than a hard rule.

Offense

Offensive Line

Starters:

Tackles - Bud "Lite" Kaminsky (Abraham Benrubi), The Program and Patrick "Madman" Kelly (Andrew Bryniarsky), Any Given Sunday

Guards - Billy Bob (Ron Lester), Varsity Blues and Andre "Action" Jackson (Michael Taliferro), The Replacements

Center - Manumana the Slender (Peter Tuiasosopo), Necessary Roughness

Back-ups - Jamal Jackson (Faizon Love), The Replacements...Jumbo (Ace Yonamine), The Replacements...Rudy "The Gas Man" Zoltek (Michael Zweiner), Little Giants...Turley (The Great Khali), The Longest Yard (2005)

Bud "Lite" Kaminsky will be an absolute anchor at left tackle. "Madman" Kelly, on the opposite side, is nearly as good. He also bears a striking resemblance to defensive end Steve Lattimer. Manumana is a massive center who can take on multiple blockers even while handling snap duties. We're taking some chances with our guards, though. Billy Bob isn't in the best shape and is prone to concussions, but he's hard to move. He also might be able to sneak out and catch a pass or two. "Action" Jackson works best when his brother Jamal is on the field, who isn't starting. However, due to Billy Bob's issues we can foresee him getting a lot of time. Jumbo will also see some time, if for no other reason than he's, well, jumbo. Turley has an extremely low football IQ, or regular IQ, for that matter. Still, he's a mountain of a man who can play some d-line, also. "The Gas Man" will fill-in if we really get in a pinch. He is undersized, but has a rather potent secret weapon.

Receivers

Starters:

Wide Receivers - Rod Tidwell (Cuba Gooding Jr.), Jerry Maguire and Jimmy Sanderson (Bill Bellamy), Any Given Sunday

Back-ups - Charlie Tweeter (Scott Caan), Varsity Blues...Clifford Franklin (Orlando Jones), The Replacements...Phil Elliot (Nick Nolte), North Dallas Forty

Tight End - Brian Murphy (David Denman), The Replacements

Tidwell is a money receiver. Literally. His recent willingness to go over the middle has elevated him to elite status. All I have to say about Sanderson is that he was the go-to-guy on a team that included Terrell Owens, and T.O. didn't even complain about it. Tweeter will work the slots. We just need to make sure we keep him out of the bars the night before games. Franklin is a little iffy in the hands department, but can stretch the field. We're not sure how much we can get out of Elliot. He goes through more than seems humanly possibly just to make it onto the field, but age is catching up with him. He still has great hands, though, so he'll be out there in key third-down situations. Plus, we might line him up at tight end from time to time, a position he's more suited to these days. We will have to. Brian Murphy is the team's only true tight end. We think we've got a good one despite the fact that he's deaf.

Running Backs

Starters:

Tailback - Julian "J-Man" Washington (LL Cool J), Any Given Sunday

Fullback - Ray Griffen (Leon Pridgen), The Program

Back-ups - Earl Megget (Nelly), The Longest Yard (2005)...Darnell Jefferson (Omar Epps), The Program...Wendell Brown (Eliel Swinton), Varsity Blues

We are absolutely loaded at this spot! Washington will be our workhorse. This includes getting the rock in most short yardage situations. No worries, there will be plenty of carries for Megget and Jefferson who both have game changing speed. Megget is inexperienced so we might not have him in on too many obvious passing downs and we'll have to keep an eye on Jefferson who has some fumbling issues in the past. Brown will be there to spell Washington and get the bulk of the carries should Washington go down. At the fullback spot, Griffen is actually a former tailback. After a tenuous adjustment period, he's taken quite nicely to delivering some crushing blocks. Every now and again we'll reward him with a carry or two.

Quarterbacks

Normally, I favor drop-back quarterbacks. I have to begrudgingly admit times are changing. I need someone who can make plays with his arm AND his legs. Maybe we can even put in some read-option and other new-fangled stuff. For this, there is no better option than...

"Steamin'" Willie Beamen (Jamie Foxx), Any Given Sunday

To back him up, we worked out everyone available. Of course, they all had some issues. Levander "Bird" Williams (Mykelti Williams, Wildcats) had some character issues. Johnny Moxon (James Van Der Beek, Varsity Blues) is not really all that into football. Lance Harbor (Paul Walker, Varsity Blues went into coaching. Joe Kingman (Dwayne Johnson, The Game Plan) doesn't have his heart in it anymore. Frank Cushman (Jerry O'Connell, Jerry Maguire) wants too much money. Seth Maxwell (Mac Davis) was too much of a wild-card. We even worked out two guys named Paul Crewe (Burt Reynolds and Adam Sandler, both versions of The Longest Yard). The older one was extremely close to locking down that third string spot. The younger one was just as good, but looks too much like linebacker Bobby Boucher for our tastes. In the end we went with...

Shane "Footsteps" Falco (Keanu Reeves), The Replacements and Joe Pendleton (Warren Beatty), Heaven Can Wait

Falco has shown some unbelievable leadership skills and has just gotten over his big-game jitters. Pendleton is also quite the leader. Like I said, he and the two Crewes were close. In the end, Joe gets the nod because he has divine intervention on his side. After all, not only did the guy win a Super Bowl, he came back from the dead to do it!

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Pointless Lists: Fictional Movie Football Team, Part I

It's Super Bowl Weekend! Weather permitting, of course, tomorrow is the final chance I will have to watch gladiators collide on the gridiron until fall rolls around again. Well, since I started the season with a list, I will end the season with one.This time, I've scrolled through my massive mental database, and did some good ol' internet research to remind me of a few things, and formulated my all-time team comprised strictly of fictional football players from movies. And since I'm a football nut, and injuries happen, I'm not only going to give you starters, but back-ups wherever possible.

To make it a challenge, I've imposed a few rules upon myself:

1. I really do mean "fictional." None of these players are directly based on a real person. That means no Rudy, no one from Remember the Titans, Friday Night Lights, The Express, or any other "based on a true story" football flick.

2. This one goes hand-in-hand with the first rule and makes things even trickier. Characters played by people with NFL experience are not eligible. My apologies to Luther Lavay from Any Given Sunday (Lawrence Taylor), Deacon Moss from the remake of The Longest Yard (Michael Irvin), Bogdanski from the original The Longest Yard (Ray Nitschke) and all the other pros who took their talents to the silver screen.

3. The player doesn't have to be from a football movie, but there should be at least one actual football scene in their movie during which I can reasonably assume he/she is on the field. You're outta here, Johnny Utah from Point Break.

4. Players are to be judged as they are during the movie. Past success be damned, Jack "Cap" Rooney from Any Given Sunday is an old man!

5. The player should at least have a speaking part. Okay, this is more of a guideline than a hard rule.

We'll save the glamour boys on offense for last. Let's start with the least heralded players on any football roster.

Special Teams

Place-Kicker - Lucy Draper (Kathy Ireland), Necessary Roughness

Punter - Derek Wallace (Larry Gilliard Jr.), The Waterboy

Kick/Punt Returner - Forrest Gump (Tom Hanks), Forrest Gump

One small issue, our team doesn't have a true punter. Wallace is really a place-kicker, but since punters are much more likely to be called on to actually hit someone, I'll slide him over instead of Lucy Draper and let him handle kickoff duties, as well. All Draper will have to do is keep putting the ball through the uprights, or Wallace will take over that job, too. These two beat out Nigel "The Leg" Gruff of The Replacements. Nice guy, but too willing to throw a game due to his gambling problems. Gump will handle the return game. He's not always locked in, but just hand him the ball and say "Run Forest, run!"

Let's move on...

Defense

Defensive Line

Starters:

Ends - Steve Lattimer (Andrew Bryniarski), The Program and Sgt. Engleheart (Kevin Nash), The Longest Yard (2005)

Tackles - Phillip Finch (Tab Thacker), Wildcats and Samson (Richard Kiel), The Longest Yard (1974)

Back-up - Andre Krimm (Sinbad), Necessary Roughness

Going with a 4-3 defense, here. Once you apply the criteria I'm using, the pool of linebackers thins out tremendously. That said, I'm excited about what we have up front. Sgt. Engleheart can be a little soft, but Lattimer more than makes up for him with his 'roided out insanity and passion for having a place at the table. Finch is a gentleman and a scholar, but at something like 400 lbs., he clogs the middle like nobody's business. Beside him, Samson is the d-line's secret weapon, but we have to be careful with him due to the fact he can go overboard. He might literally break your f'ing neck. Krimm will keep things light in the locker-room and get spot duty.

Linebackers

Starters:

 

Charles Jefferson (Forest Whitaker), Fast Times at Ridgemont High...Bobby Boucher (Adam Sandler), The Waterboy...Daniel Bateman (Jon Favreau), The Replacements

Back-ups - Becky "Icebox" O'Shea (Shawna Waldron), Little Giants and Alvin Mack (Duane Davis), The Program

We have some issues with this unit, mainly a lack of depth and some odd mental quirks. Charles Jefferson is a certified stud and will man the middle. If he suspects the opposite team messed with his car then he is guaranteed to destroy them. Bates is just as vicious, even more so if we're playing someone wearing red. Bobby Boucher is the wildcard. As long as he can conjure up visions of all the things that have angered him, including his own mother, he's unblockable. He also has a thing about the water the team drinks. "Icebox" O'Shea is decidedly undersized, but she's also absolutely ferocious and will get plenty of snaps. As a bonus, she can fill in at fullback on offense, too, and maybe even play a little QB if we really get in a bind. We're saving a spot for Alvin Mack who suffered a knee injury that was thought to be career-ending. We're hoping the advances in medical technology since 1993 will get him back on the field.

Defensive Backfield

Starters:

 

Cornerbacks - Earl Wilkinson aka "Ray Smith" (Michael Jace), The Replacements and Trumaine (Wesley Snipes), Wildcats

 

Safeties - Guard Papajohn (Michael Papajohn), The Longest Yard (2005) and Stefan Djordjevic (Tom Cruise), All the Right Moves

Back-up - Spike Hammersmith (Sam Horrigan), Little Giants

We have four solid DBs. Earl...ahem...Ray and Trumaine are a pair of ball hawks at the corners. Ray can help return kicks, too. We might be a bit shy on technique at the safety spot since both Papajohn and Djordjevic are actually corners, as well. Still, they are good players so they should pick things up nicely. Depth is a bit of a problem. We're going with the humongous-for-his-age, but still small Spike Hammersmith. He's best known as a tailback, but he's logged plenty of time in the secondary, has a serious mean streak, and is already built like a safety which is where he'll get the most time. Sure, his habit of referring to himself in the third person gets annoying rather quickly, but there's no denying raw talent.




That's all for today. Tomorrow, I'll finish things off with the offense.

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Greatest Football Movies

Undefeated

Directed by Daniel Lindsay and T.J. Martin.

2011. Rated PG-13, 113 minutes.

Cast:

Bill Courtney

O.C. Brown

Montrail “Money” Brown

Chavis Daniels

Manassas High School in Memphis, TN has no football history worth speaking of unless noting how remarkably bad they've been through the years. Even though the school has been in existence since 1899, yes 1899, they've not won so much as a single playoff game. Ever. In fact, when current Coach Bill Courtney took over, they hadn't won a football game of any kind in fourteen years. Over the handful of seasons he’s been there, the team has at least shown signs of life, winning a few games each year and visibly improving. He hopes this will be the year the school finally manages to get off the playoff snide.

By itself, a school with that athletic history reaching for loftier heights than they've ever attained would be worthy of a documentary. However, that’s merely the tip of the iceberg. Coach Courtney didn't just inherit a bad football program. He’s also inherited a roster full of kids with tough situations, poverty and broken homes among the most common problems. This doesn't even take into account that he’s a white coach at an all-black school. We follow him as he tries to make school history and simultaneously mentor his players, build up their character as young men.

Other than the coach, we spend most of our time with three players. There’s O.C., a lovable giant who is a gifted athlete but struggles in the classroom. Next is "Money," another nice kid. He outperforms his size on the field. Off the field, he’s an emotional wreck, sensitive almost beyond belief. Finally, we have Chavis. He’s the type of kid your parents warned you about. The chip seems permanently affixed to his shoulder. He’s perpetually angry and occasionally violent thanks to a hair-trigger temper. In fact, we only get to meet him after he’s finished a stint in juvie.

As it turns out, Coach Courtney is married with children of his own. We get a glimpse at how his spending so much time with his team is affecting them. Unfortunately, this is the one area where the movie feels like it doesn't go far enough. We hear from his wife, but never directly from his children. I suspect this is by the coach’s choice so I can’t knock the movie too hard.

Really, it’s hard to knock the movie too much at all. Each situation grabs us by the throat and doesn't let go. As a result, it’s easy to get choked up a time or two as certain things happen and other things don’t. It’s so wonderful as what it is, I hope no one ever gets the bright idea to make a scripted movie out of it. Whatever spit shine some writer applies to it will likely rub away the beautiful rawness of it and oversimplify until we have a tired sequel to The Blindside. Undefeated deserves better. It deserves to be left alone because it is magnificent as it is.

North Dallas Forty

Directed by Ted Kotcheff.
1979. Rated R, 118 minutes.
Cast: Nick Nolte
Mac Davis
Charles Durning
Dayle Haddon
Bo Svenson
Dabney Coleman
Steve Forest
G. D. Spradlin
Savannah Smith Boucher

Phil Elliot (Nolte) is a veteran wide receiver for the North Dallas Bulls. Everyone seems to agree he has the best hands in the league. Over the years, his body has taken a tremendous beating. He’s in constant pain and seems to subsist on a diet of painkillers, B12 shots, cigarettes and alcohol. Citing what they call his childish attitude, his coaches have taken him out of the starting lineup and are constantly on his case. He pines to get his job back and does whatever it takes to be ready to play.

Doing whatever it takes seems to be the mantra he and his teammates live by. It pushes these men to the extremes in all situations. For them there is only intense pleasure or sharp pain. Though the two often mix, there really isn’t a middle ground. They are emotionally and socially underdeveloped, applying a football mentality to all areas of their lives. The sport encompasses their entire beings. When Phil laments “It’s the only thing I’m good at,” he seems to be speaking for the whole team.

Their shortcomings reveal the sacrifices they’ve made to get as far as they have playing the game they love. The question Phil must wrestle with, the one they will all have to answer at some point, is does the game love them back. His every effort is met by a naysaying head coach who hands down orders to be barked by his drill sergeant of an assistant. The two function remarkably like a ventriloquist act. Regardless, Phil perserveres. We come to admire and pity him simultaneously for what he puts himself through. We become his friend and wonder if he has any others in his own lockerroom. We doubt very seriously whether the one guy who seems to be on his side truly is.

The movie also has shortcomings. The biggest one is that the love story between Phil and Charlotte (Haddon) seems to come out of nowhere. He meets her early on. She disappears from the movie for quite a while until we suddenly see the two waking up in bed together. It also feels a little rushed given that the entire movie spans a time frame of only about 3 weeks.

Still, more than any movie before it, and perhaps since, North Dallas Forty gives us a long realistic look at the inner-workings of professional football. Though the amount of dollars has increased exponentially and the drugs involved have mostly changed the framework seems to still be intact, judging by the recent lockout in the NFL. The ‘us against them’ attitude of both players and owners still feels present. The owners still hold most of the cards, able to cut a player at any point regardless of contract. Players fearing for their livelihood still put their bodies through arguably inhumane treatments to stay on the field. A number of these same players act out immaturely leading to a sport-wide arrest rate seemingly quite a bit higher than that of the public at large. Coaches rely on an endless stream of data to create gameplans and remove emotion from the decision making process. It’s all summed up beautifully by the eloquent words of Jo Bob (Svenson), frustrated, fed up and yelling at one of his coaches: “Everytime I say it’s a game, you say it’s a business. Everytime I say it’s a business, you say it’s a game!”

The Blind Side

Directed by John Lee Hancock.
2009. Rated PG-13, 128 minutes.
Cast:
Sandra Bullock
Quinton Aaron
Tim McGraw
Jae Head
Lily Collins
Kathy Bates
Ray McKinnon
Tom Nowicki
Melody Weintraub
Sharon Morris

Plot: The Tuohy family, at the urging of fiery matriarch Leigh Ann (Bullock), take in Michael Oher (Aaron), a homeless and academically challenged boy who attends the same school as their children. Michael turns out to be a highly sought after football prospect. Based on a true story.

The Good: It bends the sports underdog genre on its ear by making the person who helps the underdog the protagonist. In this case, that person is Leigh Ann Tuohy, played brazenly by Sandra Bullock. It’s perhaps the best performance of her career. Accordingly, it earned her an Oscar for Best Actress. As a whole, the movie knows when to utilize its sense of humor and when to press our emotional buttons. That timely alternating keeps us locked in, fully vested in the Tuohy family mission.

The Bad: Alas, genre clichés still abound. We think we know every obstacle before it approaches. Moments later, our suspicions are confirmed. This combines with the fact that the story it’s based on is of extremely recent vintage to sap the film of any real sense of mystery. The questions of race and budding sexuality are too neatly wrapped up within one scene. As far as race is concerned, it's content to be another film in which near-perfect white people save a damaged black kid from the ghetto. Both race and sexuality are quickly swept under the rug by a short speech in which Leigh Ann shouts down her naysayers. Perhaps more importantly, because we knew the racial dynamics going in, the question of just how Michael’s grades rose so quickly is never really addressed. This could be because of a scene in which Leigh Ann confronts one of Michael’s teachers and says “All the other teachers are on board. What’s your problem?” Hmmm, is there something else we need to know? The movie as a whole just seems too afraid to veer from the path to “happily ever after” to tackle the tough issues.

The Ugly: Now, that’s how you finish a block.

Recommendation: This is probably the best “feel-good” movie of 2009. Like a good football team, is has a game plan and executes it well. It never surprises us one bit, but that’s okay because it entertains us and engages us. If you’re prone to crying over movies, keep some tissue nearby.

The Opposite View: Melissa Anderson, Village Voice

What the Internet Says: 7.7/10 on imdb.com (5/26/10), 67% on rottentomatoes.com, 53/100 on metacritic.com


MY SCORE: 7/10