Typically, when a sports movie comes out, we're told by the filmmakers that what we're watching isn't really about sports at all; its about life. In the case of Oliver Stone's Any Given Sunday, I'm tempted to go along with the life-not-sports line because the film seems so transparently a playing-out of Stone's conflicted feelings about Hollywood. (This qualifies as life, doesn't it?) Al Pacino plays Tony D'Amato, the head coach of the Miami Sharks football team, now on a losing streak. The film ostensibly slams the country's win-at-all-costs culture, but I've rarely seen a movie that put such a premium on the thrill of victory. Any Given Sunday is a powermonger's fantasy about saying screw you to the front office while still winding up on top . . . Angela's Ashes, directed by Alan Parker, converts Frank McCourt's whimsical coming-of-age memoir into a sodden, drizzly thing. No blarney will be found here, but also no spirit, no humor, no depth.
Advertising
Most Popular Stories
Most Viewed
Last 24 Hours
- Paul Ryan: Free Lunches Make Kids Soulless [Updated]
- How Oscar Pistorius Might Avoid Prison
- The Best of Twitter Interrupting Cameron’s Phone Call With Obama
- After Newsweek Reveal, Man Insists He Isn’t Bitcoin’s Creator
- The Plot From Solitary
- Mike Lee’s Tax-Reform Plan Does, in Fact, Suck
- The Hijacking of Satoshi Nakamoto
- Broke Law Firm Dewey & LeBoeuf Was Also Fraudulent, Prosecutors Say
- Only 39 Percent of New Yorkers Approve of This Bill de Blasio Character Now
- Bro Who Never Worked at Goldman Sachs Deemed Unqualified to Write Goldman Sachs Elevator Book
Most Emailed
Last 24 Hours
- The Plot From Solitary
- How Not to Talk to Your Kids
- Justin Davidson: How Can the Vienna Philharmonic Change Without Changing?
- Why You Truly Never Leave High School
- Bar-onomics
- Space of the Week: A Firehouse, Revisited
- How I Got Over My Al Gore-a-phobia
- By Noon, These Two Will Have Brought In Another Half a Million More Dollars
- Listening to Xanax
- New York Wedding Guide - Makeup Artists Directory