Sport and Cinema.com

In my book I stated for the record it is the best sports film of all-time, now in celebration of the 50th Anniversary of “The Hustler”, 20th Century Fox has produced a DVD worthy of its excellence. The story of Fast Eddie Felson (Paul Newman) and his exploits with fellow pool hall gamblers is given special treatment on blu-ray.

Cars 2, the follow up to one of the most successful movies with an auto racing background in Hollywood history, begins its box office run this Friday when star racer Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson) and his tow truck pal Mater (Larry the Cable Guy) head overseas to compete in the World Grand Prix race. But the road to the championship picks up the pace from the original with added complications that includes going wheel to wheel with newcomer Finn McMissile (Michael Caine) and a high-tech coupe named Holley Shiftwell (Emily Mortimer) as the racers veer off track and get tangled up in international espionage.

Fans of boxing drama on the small screen can pick themselves up off the canvas after FX dropped “Lights Out” as HBO has acquired a docuseries about veteran fight trainer Freddie Roach.

Soul Surfer is the inspiring true story of teen surfer Bethany Hamilton, who lost her arm in a shark attack and courageously overcame some tall odds to become a champion again.

Most film festivals seek to showcase best of the up-and-coming. Not Turner Classic Movies. The TCM Classic Film Festival is back with more than 70 screenings, as well as special introductions, guest appearances, panel discussions and other events revolving around the all-time classics of cinema.

After years of fighting to get this story of boxer brothers Dicky Eklund and Micky Ward from a hardscrabble town of Lowell, Massachusetts off the canvas, actor/producer Mark Wahlberg triumphed with The Fighter scoring a one-two punch at the 83rd Academy Awards ceremony held at Kodak Theater in downtown Los Angeles Sunday night.

The curtain has fallen on a new and compelling “television film festival”. ESPN has just concluded its opening run of thirty engaging and provocative movies, premiering 14 months ago. Meticulous and sharply observed, this “30 for 30” project has been as ambitious an undertaking as anything the network has done.

While on assignment writing a football story for the Los Angeles Times Down Under in Melbourne, Australia, I had the good fortune to catch up recently with noted Aussie director, Fred Schepisi.

With credits like The Russia House, Barbarosa, Empire Falls and Roxanne and busily editing his latest picture, The Secret River, the native of Victoria spent some time in his Melbourne high-rise to discuss his well-received fish-out-of-water sports comedy Mr. Baseball. The picture features Tom Selleck as a fading baseball player traded to a Japanese team and has trouble fitting into that culture.

On the evening of September 7, 1996, Mike Tyson, the WBC heavyweight champion, attempted to take Bruce Seldon’s WBA title at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

At this point in his career, Tyson’s fights had become somewhat of a cultural phenomenon, where the ever present hype of the professional boxing scene would come face to face with the worlds of big business, Hollywood, and hip hop.

Baseball’s Midsummer Classic returns to Anaheim Tuesday for the third time since the All-Star Game began in 1933, but the event has changed quite a bit since the city first hosted the exhibition (in 1967 when the NL won in dramatic fashion on a Tony Perez home run in the 15th inning).