Olympic Sports Movies

[arabiandoublefront]

So I just saw The Boys in the Boat today, and also having Miracle (2004) on the mind, I began to wonder why we haven't seen a movie about an underdog U.S. women's Olympic team yet. It's been almost 28 years since the Mag 7 happened and we haven't gotten a movie about that even though Miracle was only 24 years after 1980 (it seems like that Kerri Strug biopic is in limbo). I was also thinking that the 1976 women's basketball team would be a good choice because of the book Inaugural Ballers by Andrew Maraniss.

 

[RedBirdie]

I can only imagine how awful a Mag 7 movie would be. Hollywood never gets gymnastics right, and the liberties screenwriters would probably take to make it vaguely interesting....shudder.

Miracle is unusual in that it's actually a great movie (most sports movies, imo, aren't) and hockey people absolutely love it. Plus, it's the Miracle on Ice. Mag 7 may have been underdogs--debatable--but that team had zero business being in the conversation about medals, let alone knocking off the Soviets and then winning gold. It was such an utterly insane and improbable achievement.

 

[makam]

The way they mess up figure skating movies would not bode well for gymnastics.
(Stick It gets a pass because they went weird and owned it and I respect that)

 

[MaryClare]

These kinds of movies always rely on lazy stereotypes. Not every Eastern European sports coach is an ice cold sociopath who smiles maybe twice a decade. Just most of us

 

[rlayt]

Well! More Kerri Strug.

Millie Bobby Brown To Play Olympian Kerri Strug In The Gymnastics Pic ‘Perfect’ From Gia Coppola With Netflix Circling Hot Package

Millie Bobby Brown is set to star in the biopic 'Perfect' playing olympian Kerri Strug

deadline.com

 

[flappergirl]

Well! More Kerri Strug.

That’s one movie I won’t be watching. If it was realistic, Kerri wouldn’t sign off on it…

 

[KristyJ]

Okay at least facially though, she's a decent pick, the resemblance is believable

 

[Rebel]

I can only imagine how awful a Mag 7 movie would be. Hollywood never gets gymnastics right, and the liberties screenwriters would probably take to make it vaguely interesting....shudder.

Miracle is unusual in that it's actually a great movie (most sports movies, imo, aren't) and hockey people absolutely love it. Plus, it's the Miracle on Ice. Mag 7 may have been underdogs--debatable--but that team had zero business being in the conversation about medals, let alone knocking off the Soviets and then winning gold. It was such an utterly insane and improbable achievement.

There is an awesome ESPN show “Of Miracles and Men” which tells the story from the Soviet side. I have watched it several times.

 

[OnlyBeansOnToast]

The arc of the sports movie universe bends towards dreadful, largely because the sport itself is so hard to convincingly fake. And while anyone who works in any industry will snigger at films depicting what they do, we're all so familiar with sport that it just looks very, very wrong when not done properly. Honorable exceptions include Bend It Like Beckham, as it turns out Keira Knightley really is a suprisingly useful footballler.

The shortage of decent women-in-sport films is glaring. I was hugely disappointed by last year's The Young Woman and the Sea, which took a fascinating story and a solid source book and turned it into credulity-streteching bleurgh full of made-up scenes. And when someone decided to make a film about the rise of the Williams sisters, who dominated their sport as few others have, it was actually all about their dad.

TLDR: I don't hold out much hope for "Perfect".

 

[IratePanda]

The Nadia biopic from 1984 was one of the worst movies ever made, full stop. I knew it at the time, even as a 13 year-old, but that didn't stop me from watching it approximately 15 times a week. (Don't judge me. It was summertime, I was too young to have a job, both of my parents worked, and I had lots of time alone in the house.)

Fun fact: I have a small family connection to this movie. Talia Balsam, the actress who portrayed Marta Karolyi, is a distant relative on my dad's side. Balsam later went on to play John Slattery's wife in Mad Men (IMO one of the best TV shows ever).

 

[rlayt]

The cheese factor will be big. Any gym nerd could write the same script.

 

[Puffin]

The Nadia biopic from 1984 was one of the worst movies ever made, full stop. I knew it at the time, even as a 13 year-old, but that didn't stop me from watching it approximately 15 times a week. (Don't judge me. It was summertime, I was too young to have a job, both of my parents worked, and I had lots of time alone in the house.)

Fun fact: I have a small family connection to this movie. Talia Balsam, the actress who portrayed Marta Karolyi, is a distant relative on my dad's side. Balsam later went on to play John Slattery's wife in Mad Men (IMO one of the best TV shows ever).

Oh that movie was truly terrible - probably because it was based on Bela's (fantasy) memoir where he was the hero

Nadia - in the movie - was characterised as so slow and unemotional as to give the impression she had a learning disability.

Teodora found herself on hand to give Nadia a pep talk during the bb rotation at 1979 Worlds (like any good movie "best friend") because Bela was upset with the judges for giving Teodora "mean" scores - which was miraculous given that Teodora had retired a few months earlier at the University Games and wasn't on the Rom team at 1979 Worlds.

Then there was the melodramatic "strength of character" moment when LD Nadia insists that she is going to compete on bb when Eberle falls and it's her decision to make - approaching bb in blood spattered bandages to score 9.95 thus glorifying gymnasts competing injured ....... whereas the reality was that Nadia was removed from the hospital by Bela/RGF and told it was her duty to the team and Romania to compete despite having just had a surgical procedure!

 

[arabiandoublefront]

Well! More Kerri Strug.

Millie Bobby Brown To Play Olympian Kerri Strug In The Gymnastics Pic ‘Perfect’ From Gia Coppola With Netflix Circling Hot Package

Millie Bobby Brown is set to star in the biopic 'Perfect' playing olympian Kerri Strug

deadline.com

Like even if they couldn’t find someone short enough, the problem is the completely different body type.

 

[makam]

I don't mind when the actor doesn't look exactly like the subject of the biography/docudrama, as long as they can actually act--if they pick someone who looks exactly right but can't act their way out of a bag, that I when I have a problem (notable exception, in the new Stitch movie, the guy playing Jumba didn't have the voice, didn't have the presence, I hated it every time he opened his mouth)

 

[Sasha]

I don't really have a problem with the casting per se really, no one but a gymnast is likely to have the physique, or even the build, of an elite gymnast.

 

[cftmoonlight79]

If you've never seen American Anthem, you are missing out. Fabulously cheesy, romance, and a pretty cute young Mitch Gaylord

 

[IratePanda]

If you've never seen American Anthem, you are missing out. Fabulously cheeses, romance, and a pretty cute young Mitch Gaylord

Oh, I loved that movie! I had a mad crush on Gaylord back then.

 

[rlayt]

me too!

 

[RedBirdie]

But have you seen Gymkata? We used to get drunk and watch it at camp.

 

[IratePanda]

But have you seen Gymkata? We used to get drunk and watch it at camp.

Now I know where I went wrong. I tried to watch it sober.

The original Footloose is a sports movie, of sorts. Kevin Bacon's character was a gymnast. (It's one of my all-time favorites, cheesy 80s soundtrack and all. And Kevin Freaking Bacon!)