Rollerball

Do I really need to say this would the 1975 version of Rollerball that I’m talking about? I wish it weren’t the case, because Chris Klein couldn’t even be in the same room as James Caan’s jockstrap, let alone hold it. The year is 2018 and Rollerball is THE sport. Two teams of ten (seven skaters and three on motorcycles) circle the track in an attempt to get possession of a grapefruit-sized steel ball and place it in a magnetic goal. It’s like a violent mix of roller derby, football, and roulette. Jonathan E is the best and most popular Rollerballer in history, but his ability to rise above his fellow players angers the corporate head that run the game. Their purpose for the game is that it showcases teamwork and highlights the futility of individual effort. Jonathan E operates in direct conflict with those ideals, and the corporate heads decide that he must be taken out. As the season progresses, Rollerball devolves from sport into gladiatorial combat. When the championship game rolls around and Jonathan E is alive and as popular as ever, the rules are changed- no penalties, no substitutions, no time-limit. The winner is the team with the last man standing.

Balls of Fury

In most of the world, ping pong has long been derided as a game relegated to the rec room, with the experience enhanced as you consume more beer. In some parts of the world it’s a serious sport with superstars and big trophies and the whole shebang. It nearly became that in the US, save for the epic failure of Randy Daytona at the 1988 Olympics. After living through years of disgrace and only able to get work as a ping pong dinner buffet act in Reno, Randy is contacted by the FBI to infiltrate an underground ping pong tournament run by Feng, who’s also responsible for killing Randy’s father at the aforementioned Olympics. In a Star Wars inspired turn, Randy trains for the tournament under the ping pong master that once trained Feng, before he turned to the evil side of ping pong. Randy manages to get a invitation to the tournament, only to find that it is a sudden death format- you lose, you die.

BASEketball

In the future, people wil lose interest in sports and the idea of an athlete as a hero will be long gone. They’ll tire of franchises constantly changing cities and the athletes focusing more on their celebration routines than playing the game. This laid the groundwork for the rise of BASEketball, the brainchild of Joe Cooper and Doug Remer. It’s like basketball with baseball rules and rose to prominence in driveways across America. Once it catches the eyes people everywhere, it’s not long until the formation of the National BASEketball League. And they make sure the game won’t turn into those sports it replaced with rules preventing teams from changing cities and the players treated like indentured servants, just like the old days. It’s not long before the greedy owners want to start changing the rules and start making big bucks off BASEketball. It’s up to Joe to make everyone realize that they can’t let BASEketball go down the path of all the defunct sports.

Men with Brooms

The idea of curling sounds less than exciting- it’s like shuffleboard on ice and you sweep the ice with brooms to direct the sliding stones. No doubt it’s an exciting game to play, but a spectator sport? You might be skeptical, but it’s always one of the events I look forward to at the Winter Olympics. One of the very few movies to focus on this fringe sport is Men with Brooms. The small town of Long Bay, Ontario hasn’t been the same since Chris Cutter left town. You see, he was the local curling star who disappeared, leaving behind a fiancée and a shot at the curling championship. With his departure the town went into a downward spiral. When the old coach dies while trying to resurrect Long Bay’s curling team, Cutter comes back for the funeral and realizes he shouldn’t have ditched his fiancée, teammates, and the whole town to find out everything he wanted was right there. It plays a lot like Mystery, Alaska without all the Hollywood polish.

Gymkata

Trying to make men’s gymnastics cool is such an untenable proposition that Hollywood has only attempted it a couple times. The only other movie that comes to mind is American Anthem. For whatever reason, the producers felt it necessary to cast real Olympic gymnasts in both those movies. Anthem got Mitch Gaylord and Gymkata, Kurt Thomas. Thomas makes his film debut as Jonathan Cabot, in a surprising turn as an Olympic gymnast. He’s approached by agents from the Special Intelligence Agency who want him to participate in “the Game,” an athletic competition in the country of Parmistan. The winner of the Game gets their life and a wish. The SIA wants Cabot’s wish to be that the SIA can put a satellite monitoring station in Parmistan so they can monitor every satellite in space. Because this sounds like a truly idiotic task to undertake, the SIA tells Cabot that his dad previously entered the Game but was never heard from again. Cabot finally agrees and is trained in the deadly art of ninjitsu. If this sounds like a ridiculous premise for a movie, you’re right. This movie’s claim to fame is the goofy plot and poor execution. But sometimes that’s all you really need in a movie.

Instead of Santa and Rudolph, I’ll take Murtaugh and Riggs. From Jingle Bell Rock leading from the opening credits to a mostly naked woman committing suicide to a drug bust in a Christmas tree lot to Riggs giving Murtaugh a Christmas present of the bullet he’d been saving to kill himself, it’s a Christmas classic. Writer Shane Black created the perfect buddy cop movie- two men forced to work together against their will. One a cranky old buttoned-down type and the other a suicidal Veteran who is constantly hounded by the department psychiatrist. Producer Joel Silver used all his power to keep the action at a fervent pitch. No one has been able to top the mount of drugs or torture in a Christmas movie. It’s violent, cynical, and funny- just like Christmas at my house.

Has there been a more odd Christmas movie than Edward Scissorhands? I mean it’s like Frankenstein meets Freddy Kruger meets Mumford set in some cartoony neo-’50s town. It’s got giant topiaries, Vincent Price, and a mob of angry villagers. All that and Anthony Michael Hall delivers the greatest line he’s ever uttered- “I’d give my left nut to see that again.” This was the first pairing of Tim Burton and Johnny Depp and they were maybe the only two that could have pulled it off with such magnificence. They’ve both been good separately, but they have this ‘off’ quality about them that creates an incredible synergy when they team up. They’re like the circus sideshow version of Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro.

Bruce Willis? Terrorists? Smartass quips? It must be Christmas! Die Hard is the ultimate Christmas movie. On it’s surface, it’s a story about a large-scale heist and the wacky cop trying to stop it. But underneath that runs all the themes of the great Christmas movies- hope (that there’s a desperado in our midst to save us), joy (in the ability of that desperado to kill the terrorists), brotherhood (the relationship between total opposites John McClane and Sergeant Powell), charity (in the selfless manner that McClane attacks the terrorists), and family (the reunion of McClane and his wife). Die Hard’s combination of action, humor, and colossal scale forever changed the action genre and made Christmas way more exciting.

Most people will probably say Dumb and Dumber has nothing to do with Christmas, but that’s just not true. This movie is all about Christmas- Lloyd Christmas. Lloyd and his partner in crime Harry are truly dumb, but like most dumb people in movies, they manage to find a way to save the day. After Lloyd decides that the most recent passenger in his limo is the love of his life, he decides to return the briefcase she left behind so she’ll fall in love with him. Lloyd doesn’t realize it was a ransom drop and absurdity ensues as Harry and Lloyd trek across the country to return the briefcase, first in a car made up like a dog and later on a mini-bike. While it’s not exactly the same as The Twelve Days of Christmas, the movie does have two dead bird jokes.

2003 brought a new staple to my Christmas viewing- Bad Santa. I’m not sure if it’s because the movie eschews most Christmas movie traditions or just that Billy Bob Thornton is such an incredible actor, but I’d could watch this movie a lot before I ever get tired of it. Willie is the opposite of everything you know about Santa- he’s mean, swears, drinks, hates kids, beats up kids, occasionally pees his pants, and has a penchant for taking large women from behind. And this is one of the few movies to embrace the Christmas pickle tradition- a blood-stained wooden pickle is the catalyst that begins melting the icy casing around Willie’s heart, transforming him from a Grinch into not so much of a Grinch.

Brad Pitt

I used to like Brad Pitt. I mean, how could you not after Se7en, Twelve Monkeys, and Fight Club? So I was really psyched when I heard he was teaming up with Darren Aronofsky for The Fountain. Then pictures of Pitt with his conquistador beard started emerging and I got REALLY psyched. So what happened? Jerk Brad Pitt has some issues with the script and pulls out just before production was scheduled to begin. The production was shelved and wouldn’t be resurrected for several years. When production finally began, Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett were long gone and the budget was slashed in half. I still enjoyed the movie once it eventually hit the screen, but I was looking forward to something different, and I wasn’t the only one. That’s why I hate Brad Pitt.

Justin Long

I never really had much of opinion of Justin Long. I guess he was kind of funny, in his own submissive, unassertive way. And then the smug little jerk started with the Mac vs PC ads. Those things annoy and disgust me more than those Taco Bell Cheesy Melt commercials. The combination of his smug little attitude and the condescending tone of the commercials is too much for me to handle. Not to mention the nearly slanderous lies he’s spewing. Now I just can’t find anything redeeming about this little twerp. I’ve gotten a headache just writing this.

Harrison Ford

I’ve always been kind of impartial toward Harrison Ford. He never left a big impression on me, but he was Han Solo and Indiana Jones, so it’s not like I could really dislike him. Then for whatever reason he decided to get an earring. It seemed like an old man trying to recapture his youthful cool, and one of the most off-putting things since Sean Connery starred as the dirty old man in Entrapment. Why couldn’t he just buy a sports car and chase 18-year old girls? Maybe he could have dyed his damn hair if he wanted to feel younger. It’s a stupid reason for hating the guy, but I mean, come on.

Al Pacino

Like Harrison Ford, I was pretty neutral about Al Pacino, but hey, he’s played some pretty iconic characters over the years. I wouldn’t watch a movie just because Pacino was in it, but he didn’t make me avoid anything either. That changed after Frank Caliendo joined MadTV. His impressions were all great, but his Pacino seemed to capture the essence so well that he’s all I can think about when I see Al Pacino. Most people get excited at the prospect of him and Robert DeNiro in the same movie, but all I see in my head is the two of them trying to order ice cream.

Tom Hanks

I was always a little impressed with Tom Hanks. Not really in his acting ability, but in how he transitioned from a goofball comedian to one of the most respected dramatic actors in Hollywood. In 1993, he goes from Sleepless in Seattle to Philadelphia and stuns the socks off everyone. He follows that Best Actor win with another the next year for Forrest Gump and becomes a film legend. Then he gets nominated again for Saving Private Ryan, but this time he doesn’t win, losing to Roberto Benigni for Life is Beautiful. While Benigni was overreacting his way up to the stage, there was a cutaway to Hanks looking absolutely disgusted (I tried to find a picture or video of it, but couldn’t. He kind of looked like this). Now I just think of him as a conceited primadonna consumed by his own self adoration. Maybe that’s what it takes to be great at something, but I can’t dissociate that image from him. Tom Hanks, oh how I loathe thee.