Sports Frog

I used to lambast Bill Simmons regularly. Then I didn't post as much, and recently, his stuff (mainly about the NBA) has been pretty good. We all know what we're getting with Simmons. Take him or leave him. He's got a pretty good gig, so that's nice for him.

Then I read his latest article for ESPN the Magazine. The crux is that the future of sports movies is going to be ugly.

His rationale? Re-watchability. Is that the true measure of a good sports movie? I'll stop and watch Bull Durham anytime I see it on television. Major League? Ditto. Same for Rounders (which Simmons mentions). I'm also not so arrogant as to say that just because I won't watch Million Dollar Baby over and over that it isn't a pretty well-made movie. It's also hard to watch Schindler's List a bunch of times. Just because something makes you squirm doesn't mean it can be dismissed as a good film.

Maybe it's this: Instead of Hollywood making enjoyable movies about sports, they decided to make good movies that had sports as a central theme, or sometimes even just a distraction to the main idea of the movie. Does anyone think Remember the Titans was a football movie? It was a race movie that used a football team as the medium to tell its story.

Simmons has seen the ugly future of sports movies. I'll politely disagree and say that, as someone who no longer has the time to watch all the sports movies that come to theaters, I'd rather go in knowing that effort has been put in to make a good film about sports than a good sports movie. And at home, I'll just put my Durham DVD in if I can't find Hoosiers on the tube. Note, of course, that certain movies (Maybe even Semi-Pro) cannot be saved from being a bad movie just by being about sports.

The Swamp is kicking it around, and highlights that Simmons himself may be a little ironic as it pertains to his career arc. However, I think the real irony is that Simmons writes this piece for a magazine that is a big reason that I think the future of sports magazines is ugly.

My opinion, of course.