Sports Movie Madness: The Super 8 – Vote Here!
Even though UConn has officially ended the NCAA tournament with an impressive win over Butler for the national title, the Sports Movie Madness tournament continues here at Player Affinity. We are down to the final eight movies, affectionately called "The Super 8," each representing the best film of its respective sport according to you, the voters. Now, your vote will help directly determine the best sports movie of all time.Here are the regional results from last weekend:1 Boxing Championship: 1 Rocky def. 2 Million Dollar Baby2 Football Championship: 2 Remember the Titans def. 8 The Waterboy3 Baseball Championship: 2 Field of Dreams def. 4 The Natural4 Other Sports Semi-Final: 4 The Karate Kid def. 1 Caddyshack5 Other Sports Semi-Final: 2 Cool Runnings def. 3 Happy Gilmore6 Basketball Championship: 6 Space Jam def. 1 Hoosiers7 Hockey Championship: 1 The Mighty Ducks def. 3 Mystery, Alaska8 Football (Soccer) Championship: 1 Bend it Like Beckham def. 2 The Damned United The lowest seed to advance to the Super 8 was Space Jam, a No. 6 that knocked off a No. 1, likely due to the age demographic of Player Affinity's readers who have fond memories of Michael Jordan's film debut. In the Other Sports region, The Karate Kid offed Caddyshack for what I imagine to be similar reasons. What was nearly the Cinderella story of the tournament was The Waterboy, which upset Rudy and The Longest Yard to make it all the way to the regional final before losing to Remember the Titans.As you can see, we've seeded all the regions now that different sports will be going head to head. So, your matchups for this week are below. Please choose one film in each head-to-head matchup and post those four films in a comment below.
******All votes must be cast by 5 pm Sunday night!!!*****
1 Rocky vs. 8 Bend it Like Beckham
Rocky has often been claimed to be the best boxing film ever made and Player Affinity readers have proved as much by voting it this far. Rocky was always seen as an early favorite with generations of fans. One of Sylvester Stallone’s finest films and his breakout role, Rocky is a classic underdog story about a low-ranking amateur boxer who is given the chance to fight Apollo Creed for World Heavyweight Title. Loosely based the famous fight between Muhammad Ali and Chuck Wepner in 1975, Rocky is both an inspiring story and a crowd pleaser. Inspiring five sequels, Rocky Balboa was a character moviegoers loved.Whilst Rocky offered inspiration for boys, Bend It Like Beckham was film that really appealed to girls, particularly in North America. Bend It Like Beckham produced breakout roles for Parminder Nagra, Keira Knightley and Jonathan Rhys Meyers as two of the players and the coach of a woman’s football team in West London. But Bend It Like Beckham is not just a film about a team looking for glory but also a film about a young woman trying to balance out her cultural identity between her parent’s Indian culture and English culture she grew up in. And it is also a film about breaking gender stereotypes, with a group of women wanting to play the sport that they love.
2 Remember the Titans vs. 7 The Mighty DucksThe lord of American sports meets the king of Canada in this football vs. hockey smackdown as Denzel Washington leads Remember the Titans against a group of scraggly underdogs in The Mighty Ducks. Both films certainly have their followers, with “Titans” carrying with it a sense of pride and a blockbuster past, and “Ducks” oozing nostalgia and good memories like nobody’s business.
Certainly, one of these two films has an edge simply with regards to broad appeal (hint, it’s not the sport with ice) though never countout a film from somebody’s childhood. The true story of a newly appointed African-American coach and his high school team and the not-true story of a lawyer demoted to coaching a pee-wee hockey team will test one another in this rough and tough matchup here on Sports Movie Madness.
3 Field of Dreams vs. 6 Space Jam
Doesn't sound like much of a matchup on paper, does it? Well, what if we told you Field of Dreams squeaked past its fellow baseball films with an overall record of 14-6, while Space Jam obliterated its competition, with 19 votes for it and only 2 against it? It's true. The Michael Jordan/Bugs Bunny combination has been lethal thus far, which is especially surprising considering it was only a 6 seed at the outset of the tournament. But look at its competition. As good as Coach Carter, Hoop Dreams, and Hoosiers are, they are no Field of Dreams. They are no Kevin Costner and James Earl Jones. They are no "If you build it, they will come." But if voters are still in basketball mode, Space Jam could continue its magical run.
4 Cool Runnings vs. 5 The Karate Kid
The Other Sports championship commences in the Super 8 between two dynamite films. Disney's Cool Runnings represents the most random sport in the filed with bobsledding in this uplifting but mostly goofy story of a group of Jamaicans forming a bobsled team with the help of John Candy. Cool Runnings has sped past its competition thus far, but will it continue to feel the rhythm and the ride against one of the '80s most iconic sports films?
The Karate Kid will look to sweep the leg of its competition and having already upset Caddyshack, the sky is the limit. This classic embodies everything from a great and intense story to fond memories, a deadly one-two punch in a tournament such as this. With the '80s sports montage being the butt of a lot of today's jokes and a 2010 remake, The Karate Kid has made a bit of a resurgence, but can it be the best around?
