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.

Cable network FX will present a new dramatic series with a pugilistic backdrop.

“Lights Out” centers on an aging former heavyweight boxing champion (Holt McCallany as Patrick “Lights” Leary) who struggles to support his orthopedic surgeon wife and three daughters after his fighting days are over (don’t doctors make pretty good coin?).

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.

With good reviews on the film festival circuit and a theatrical release, the boxing documentary “Facing Ali” is now available for home entertainment as a single disc DVD from Lionsgate.

Muhammad Ali, the three-time world heavyweight boxing champion and Olympic gold medalist who electrified the world with his unorthodox style and charismatic ways, is paid tribute by ten of his acclaimed rivals.

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.

Written and directed by John Lee Hancock (“The Rookie”) this is the story of a young black teen Michael Oher and his unusual path to success on the gridiron and a better life when he is taken in by an upper class white family after growing up virtually abandoned in the poverty-stricken projects of Memphis where he had few options and even fewer opportunities.

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”.