Sports Movies

A couple of weeks ago, we asked you to vote for the 10 best sports movies of all time. And 9,280 ballots later, we unveil your picks. No. 1: "Hoosiers" (1,392 first-place votes, 42,874 points) This is the best sports movie ever made. Norman Dale (Gene Hackman) comes to Hickory, Ind., to coach the high school basketball team. To the people of Hickory, the team, the Hickory Huskers, is more important than life itself. And none of them can understand why Dale, a former big-time college basketball coach, would come to the middle of nowhere to coach.

The last 15 years have been, in some respects, the glory days of sports movies. I don't mean this in a qualitative sense -- "Remember The Titans" isn't exactly "The Natural" -- but it's certainly a time when sports movies have prospered. There have been a number of outsized hits: 2000's Titans" made more than all but five sports dramas in history while, with $256 million, 2009's "The Blind Side" is the most successful sports movie ever released. Even disposable comedies like "The Longest Yard" raked it in; the remake tallied $158 million when it hit in 2005.

Two activity sessions will be available to keep children busy Monday and Tuesday in the Parks and Recreation Department. At a cost of $18 per participant, games, sports movies, lunch and holiday gifts will be available to entertain children ages 4 to 9. Information: (714) 961-7192.

A couple of weeks ago, we asked you to vote for the 10 best sports movies of all time. And 9,280 ballots later, we unveil your picks. No. 1: "Hoosiers" (1,392 first-place votes, 42,874 points) This is the best sports movie ever made. Norman Dale (Gene Hackman) comes to Hickory, Ind., to coach the high school basketball team. To the people of Hickory, the team, the Hickory Huskers, is more important than life itself. And none of them can understand why Dale, a former big-time college basketball coach, would come to the middle of nowhere to coach.

It was a different time, but it could apply to today's sports world. Professor Quincy Wagstaff, the newly appointed president of Huxley College, addressing two professors, asks, "Do we have a university? Do we have a football team?" When the professors say, "Yes," Wagstaff replies, "Well, we can't afford both. Tomorrow we start tearing down the university." The above is from the 1932 Marx brothers movie "Horse Feathers." The role of Wagstaff is played by Groucho Marx.

Kyle (Duane Martin) is a high school basketball phenom in Harlem who wants to be a college whiz and an NBA all-star. Irked that the big college recruiters have yet to sign him, he showboats on the court in the closing games of his final season. It's bad teamwork but great to watch: Kyle is totally fulfilled as he soars through the air.

No one watches a movie in a vacuum. You don't check your real-world baggage at the door — something for which any good critic must account. Several days before catching the new Steven Soderbergh action thriller "Haywire," I learned that Soderbergh had made the movie on the rebound, fired from "Moneyball" on the eve of its shoot. Moreover, he got the idea of starring champion mixed martial arts fighter and glamorous "American Gladiator" ingénue Gina "Crush" Carano in the days after his termination, after watching her televised loss to a rival named Cyborg.

The Los Angeles Film Festival has a reputation for appealing to both the average popcorn-chomping moviegoer as well as the high-brow cinéaste . Take last year, when the festival hosted the premiere of the latest "Twilight" film within days of screening a retrospective of work by little-known Argentinean director Leopoldo Torre Nilsson. This year's edition, running June 16 to 26, will again offer a wide assortment — more than 200 films, music videos and shorts from more than 30 countries will be shown (including 27 world, North American and U.S. premieres)