Sport and Cinema.com

ESPN is now offering on DVD the remaining 15 of the 30 films from its original slate in the highly acclaimed “30 for 30″ series.

He has been called by Dallas Cowboys’ all-pro punter Mat McBriar as the “Godfather of Australian punting”. Bennett, a native of Sydney, followed a brilliant career Down Under in Aussie Rules football (AFL) to help pioneer a path for Australians by succeeding in the NFL.

The former full forward for the Melbourne Demons, who went on to excel for the San Diego Chargers and was named to the NFL’s 1990s All-Decade Team, is credited for the introduction into the NFL of the “Aussie Rules kick” or “Drop Punt” as it is known in Australia. The technique was instrumental in the advancement of Australians into the NFL. Currently more than half of the punters in pro football make use of the Aussie Rules punt in pooch-punt situations.

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.

During a recent interview with me in Shanghai when his team was in town to play the Sharks, Parker talked a lot about movies. The native New Yorker is very passionate about cinema and has grown increasingly so, saying he spends much of his free time in China watching titles from his massive, and still growing, DVD library he has built since going there to play in the CBA.

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.

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.

Celebrating their 30th anniversary by engaging well-known filmmakers to create documentaries centered on the last 30 years in sports, ESPN’s ambitious project takes to the air beginning in the fall.
Airing on Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET beginning October 6 and running through November 10,the series features notable directors and producers from Hollywood exploring topics ranging from the end of the USFL to the title fight between Muhammad Ali and Larry Holmes to the story of the Baltimore Colts Marching Band which continued to march even though the team had moved to Indianapolis. Peter Berg’s film exploring the effects of the shocking trade of Wayne Gretzky from Edmonton to Los Angeles in 1988 will kick off the series Tuesday, Oct. 6.

Oscar nominated writer/director James Toback (“Bugsy”) presents a no-holds-barred portrait of the controversial former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson.