Sport and Cinema.com

In a role that carries the ball forward in a picture based on a true story, Sandra Bullock’s performance as Leigh Anne Tuohy, a gutsy, self-confident, well-off Southern woman with hyper-protective instincts garnered her an Oscar as Best Actress at the 82nd Annual Academy Awards held Sunday.

Rob Siegel, the writer of the Oscar-nominated drama, The Wrestler, writes and makes his directorial debut in this small, but exceptional and thought-provoking tale on obsessive behavior through the prism of sports – in this case NFL football.

As we begin 2010 it is time to consider which is the BEST sports movie from the first decade of the 21st Century.

There are some very good choices. Documentaries, by the way, like “Dogtown and Z-Boys” deserve their own column.

Here is the Top Ten:

More than 30 years after the original motion picture, “Rocky” continues to be recognized as a film icon and American hero where a “nobody” becomes a “somebody”. This definitive collection that features Sylvester Stallone as Philadelphia club fighter Rocky Balboa includes each film version as well as a bonus disc with hours of documentaries, interviews, behind-the-scenes footage and a new trivia game.

Rugby has had a rough life on the silver screen, but this weekend a major film from Warner Bros. directed by Clint Eastwood opens hoping to score at the box office where not many have.

“Invictus” tells the inspiring true story of how Nelson Mandela (Morgan Freeman) joined forces with the white captain of South Africa’s rugby team, Francois Pienaar (Matt Damon), to help unite their country during an improbable run at the 1995 World Cup.

The story begins with Nelson Mandela

This new documentary film focuses on the health and financial issues facing former NFL Players following their retirement, including their ironic struggle against the NFL Player’s Union and the team owners.

In one of his earliest starring roles, Robert Redford gives a memorable portrait of an inarticulate, self-absorbed, but gifted world class skier obsessed with being the best, no matter the cost.
Taking on the sport’s best downhillers on the circuits of Europe with dreams of Olympic glory, David Chappellet’s (Redford) selfish clashes with his U.S. national team coach (Gene Hackman) can be summed up when he tells him, “I ski fast and that’s all there is to it”.

Glen Macnow has been a popular sports-radio talk-show host at Philadelphia’s 610-WIP for over 14 years, following an award-winning career as a sportswriter for the Philadelphia Inquirer and Detroit Free Press. He is the author of three best-selling sports books, and is a frequent guest on local and national television sports shows. He lives outside Philadelphia.

Now playing in theaters throughout America is a story about a British “soccer” coach, but while the backdrop of the mid-seventies football scene in England may be largely unfamiliar to the American audience, this is really a universal look at ego, ambition, power and personality.

The horse that won a rare Triple Crown in 1973 is the subject of a motion picture now shooting in Kentucky and Louisiana.

Diane Lane stars as Penny Tweedy, the real story of this film as the history-making owner of the legendary race horse. Tweedy broke some barriers of her own crashing through the male-dominated racehorse ownership world to take Secretariat great success.