Sport and Cinema.com

A promising young golfer, Luke Chisholm (Lucas Black) has a terrible day. His meltdown after contending for the lead in a tournament in Texas drives his father/coach to abandon him and makes television headlines. Heading out onto the back-roads to blow off some steam, Luke instead blows right through the pasture fence of eccentric rancher Johnny Crawford (Duvall) and finds himself stranded in the tiny town of Utopia.

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.

A new documentary film about one of the great drivers in Formula One racing history, Brazil’s Ayrton Senna is now out in limited release including the Los Angeles Film Festival this week. The movie, which will go wider in August, takes you inside the sport with brilliant on-board cameras as well as the politics and rivalries that were part of the three-time world champion’s world.

The legendary ballplayer is in play at Legendary Pictures which announced they are developing a film based on Jackie Robinson who broke major league baseball’s color barrier in 1947.

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.

Coinciding with the annual tip off into March Madness, ESPN will air a new film next weekend about one of college basketball’s more memorable teams.

The horse that won a rare Triple Crown in 1973 is the backdrop of a motion picture that Disney releases nationwide later in the week.

Just as “The Blind Side” is a story more about the personal values of a strong-willed woman than football, “Secretariat” is more a character study of the lady behind the record-breaking horse. Diane Lane (“Unfaithful”) stars as Penny Tweedy, a housewife and mother of four who broke some barriers of her own crashing through the male-dominated racehorse ownership world to take Secretariat great success.

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.

Today was a sad day in the history of the Tour de France. Bad luck and age caught up with Lance Armstrong today to leave him 13′26″ off the lead. Compounding his trouble on the cobbles in stage 3, Lance fell 3 times today and at age 38, he just didn’t have the gas to rejoin the leaders. Regardless of the falls, Lance really didn’t have what it took to keep pace on the climb as teams Sky and Astana held a fast tempo up the high mountains. The other contenders, Contador, Evans, Schleck and Menchov were able to stay together. Notably, Lance’s teammate Levi Leipheimer was able to stay with the leaders, and leave team Radio Shack with a shot at the podium.

Out in theaters now comes this basketball-centered romantic comedy featuring Queen Latifah and Common.

Written by Michael Elliot (Like Mike, Brown Sugar), the title refers to Latifah’s character, Leslie Wright, a physical therapist and die-hard hoops fan that is simply not lucky in finding Mr. Right.