SLAP SHOT (1977) - 8/20/2024
My Top 5 sports movies
The first time I dragged myself to my laptop to watch Slap Shot, I thought it was going to be a slog to get through. Usually 70s comedies rarely hold up in any way, shape, form, or fashion because the type of humor over the nearly forty years1 since then has evolved. Yet, the 70s hockey classic - shot in Johnstown, PA - still thrives. Sure the times are different and the use of the f-slur is a little bit much from time to time, but it never feels like it’s meant to be truly spiteful. However, Paul Newman can still hold it down, and the actual hockey is great. Who doesn’t crack up whenever the Hanson brothers are on screen acting like a bunch of fucking idiots. How do you not laugh at Newman’s charm? This movie is fantastic and still - for the most part - holds up to this day.
Originally I wanted to talk about some of the best fake jerseys in movie history, but I would get hung up analyzing for too long, so I decided to go with my Top 5 and Honorable Mentions of my favorite sports movies.
Honorable Mentions: Hoop Dreams, Space Jam, Rocky, Rocky IV, Miracle, The Fighter, Raging Bull, He Got Game, Love & Basketball, The Mighty Ducks, The Endless Summer, Bend it Like Beckham, The Replacements2, Point Break, Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, Mystery, Alaska
BASEketball - As a kid, this movie absolutely captured my imagination for creating a new sport and the film put so much thought into the actual production and design of it. This film fucking rules.
Slap Shot - For the reasons above, this movie is just fucking hilarious with great hockey scenes. I would have loved to have Mystery, Alaska in this spot, but Slap Shot reaffirms how this is probably the best hockey movie.
Remember The Titans - A corny pick, but god damn if this film doesn’t absolutely rip. Sure, I was of a certain age when it came out and watched it, but there’s a reason we still all yell, “Suuunnnshineeeee” or give Ryan Gosling shit once a year for being a liability in the secondary.
Any Given Sunday - This is the best football movie ever made. Sure it may be over the top, but it’s too damn good.
Major League - Honestly, a perfectly fine film, but no film has ever had a stronger 4th quarter showing. Most sports movies are pretty predictable: having an underdog beat back against society and the circumstances it was put in to make you feel good. A reminder that with enough perseverance and grit you can overcome anything. This movie just does a great job of being funny and then has probably the best baseball sequence ever captured on screen to end the film. It never gets old - except maybe for the Chief Wahoo aspect of it.
The time that I watched it.
Even though this movie is about scabs, I still love it.