Great story, not so great movie.
May. 5th, 2007 08:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gridloreNow that we've finally gotten back into the Netflix habit, I'm starting to see more movies roll in. Today, I watched Invincible.
For those of you who haven't heard of it, this is the story of Vince Papale, a then part-time bartender in South Philly who got the chance to try out for the Philadelphia Eagles when their brand-new coach Dick Vermeil basically threw the doors open for anyone to try out. Against all odds, Papale made the teams, and went on to place three seasons as a back up wide receiver and special teams standout. Great story, and made for the movies, right? so what went wrong?
First of all, they edited one very important fact from the film. Papale had played pro ball before. Admittedly, it was the World Football League (anyone else remember that fiasco?) but he wasn't the wide-eyed innocent the movies tries to make him. The other big problem was pacing. A sports film, any sports film, needs to keep the on field action coming. My favorite baseball movies of all-time (Eight Men Out andA League of Their Own) both have primary stories not having to do with the game itself, but the directors keep going back to the game to keep us in the game. In Invincible, the football is far too infrequent. He could have edited 20 minutes of Papale hanging with his buddies and gave us more context to the football scenes.
The actual game footage, and the shots of training camp, weren't bad. I think the standard for filming football was set by Any Given Sunday, they do a good job. However, going by this movie I have to believe that in the summer and fall of 1976 eastern Pennsylvania was either suffering from massive forest fires or volcanic ash fall. Every scene set in South Philly was filmed in this crappy sepia toned light. The director could have been less subtle by having random characters look into the camera and say "our lives suck." Again, far too much time was spent on this aspect of the lives of Papale's friends.. useless shots of the most unconvincing strike I've ever seen, long introspective drives.. get to the point!
A film from the same production team that covers another true "old guy gets break" story is The Rookie. A far, far, better film by any metric.
Next up.. Mystery Science Theatre 3000: The Prince of Space!
Heh heh heh hennnhhhh....
For those of you who haven't heard of it, this is the story of Vince Papale, a then part-time bartender in South Philly who got the chance to try out for the Philadelphia Eagles when their brand-new coach Dick Vermeil basically threw the doors open for anyone to try out. Against all odds, Papale made the teams, and went on to place three seasons as a back up wide receiver and special teams standout. Great story, and made for the movies, right? so what went wrong?
First of all, they edited one very important fact from the film. Papale had played pro ball before. Admittedly, it was the World Football League (anyone else remember that fiasco?) but he wasn't the wide-eyed innocent the movies tries to make him. The other big problem was pacing. A sports film, any sports film, needs to keep the on field action coming. My favorite baseball movies of all-time (Eight Men Out andA League of Their Own) both have primary stories not having to do with the game itself, but the directors keep going back to the game to keep us in the game. In Invincible, the football is far too infrequent. He could have edited 20 minutes of Papale hanging with his buddies and gave us more context to the football scenes.
The actual game footage, and the shots of training camp, weren't bad. I think the standard for filming football was set by Any Given Sunday, they do a good job. However, going by this movie I have to believe that in the summer and fall of 1976 eastern Pennsylvania was either suffering from massive forest fires or volcanic ash fall. Every scene set in South Philly was filmed in this crappy sepia toned light. The director could have been less subtle by having random characters look into the camera and say "our lives suck." Again, far too much time was spent on this aspect of the lives of Papale's friends.. useless shots of the most unconvincing strike I've ever seen, long introspective drives.. get to the point!
A film from the same production team that covers another true "old guy gets break" story is The Rookie. A far, far, better film by any metric.
Next up.. Mystery Science Theatre 3000: The Prince of Space!
Heh heh heh hennnhhhh....
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Date: 6 May 2007 04:04 (UTC)no subject
Date: 6 May 2007 04:45 (UTC)no subject
Date: 6 May 2007 04:10 (UTC)no subject
Date: 6 May 2007 19:18 (UTC)-Tom
(Philly born and bred... but more of a Flyers fan than an Eagles fan)