Soccer Mom (2010) Review

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(More customer reviews)I rented this movie from RedBox and I couldn't stop lauging as the mom tries to play a popular italian soccer star just to convince the girls soccer team that he is actually coming to coach. She and the soccer star actually got into an altercation at the airport and he blatantly refused to coach the soccer team, but there are some real surprising twists as the movie progreses. I was laughing for more than a full minute on the part where the real "Lorenzo" pours a pitcher of water on himself because two other people poured water on him because they thought he couldn't "make up his mind" on what to order. The truth of the matter was the mom (Missi Pyle) was impersonating him and they were in the same room!
You just need to watch the movie to find out if the mom's (Missi Pyle's) act of playing Lorenzo the Italian soccer star is exposed. Emily Osmont did an excellent job as playing Missi Pyle's daughter and she is very good at playing soccer. I wish I could give this movie 6 stars because of how closely it resembled Mrs. Doubtfire and She's the Man (both excellent movies where people try to impersonate others).
I wasn't sure why some people gave it negative reviews based on the sexual dialagoue, but this is a teen movie. What did you expect? But anyway this movie is actually worth buying and keeping as a collector's edition.

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When Becca's (Emily Osment) losing soccer team needs a new coach, Wendy (Missi Pyle) decides to masquerade as the famous Italian soccer star ‘Lorenzo Vincenzo' and take the job. Can she now lead Becca's team to the regional finals before her increasingly crazy double life comes totally unglued? Kids and parents alike will love this heartwarming family comedy about mothers, daughters and the unexpected goals that bring them together.
Stills from Soccer Mom (click for larger image)

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Big Green (1995) Review

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(More customer reviews)Let's be honest. You already know the beginning, middle, and end to this movie. You know it even if you haven't watched it. Nonetheless, is an enjoyable, albeit incredibly predictable Disney sports flick. Basically, it's Little Giants with a European translation of Football.
When the film begins, an attractive, teacher named Anna Montgomery (Olivia d'Abo) arrives in a small town as a visiting teacher - sort of a teaching abroad half-year deal from England, but without the bad teeth. Anyway, she's a horrible teacher; so she decides to teach her lessons via soccer indoctrination. The kids would rather be doing something more fun, like covering themselves in Cheetos and letting birds eat off of them.
Anyway, the kids name their team after their field in a nearly-stolen-from-Mighty-Ducks concept, and the teacher gets them to play soccer. Naturally, the kids suck when they first begin to play. They're so bad it's almost as if each kid suffers from vertigo or something; they completely lack any sort of athletic ability or coordination. And, the fat, red-headed kid from Sandlot plays a goalie who is afraid of the ball (like Goldberg the goalie from Mighty Ducks), and sees opponents as ninjas, terminators, and zombies (like visions of puppyheads from Waterboy).
Soon enough, just as the sun rises, the movie follows the Disney movie sports formula. The kids that sucked start to win, lose to the best team in town inevitably coached by a jerk, the kids learn life lessons, insert goofy character (Steve Guttenberg), at least one kid on the team overcomes some sort of difficulty, and the good guys vs. bad guys finale for this genre. I'll let you guess who wins.
It's typical, easy to pick apart for a paint-by-numbers script and mediocre acting, but it's still fun enough to enjoy.

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The Official 2010 FIFA World Cup Film (2010) Review

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(More customer reviews)First off, this disc will only play in 3D, and it's only 720p, this is one reason why I deducted 1 star.
In spite of it only being 720p, the scenes on the soccer/football fields are pretty amazing. The extra inserted interview footage, not so much. the interview footage is very soft and not quite too sharp, where as the footage on the fields is amazingly sharp.
This movie is simply a documentary of the World Cup playoffs in South Africa. It points out how having the tournament in S. Africa has given pride to the nation as a whole, and brought people of all races in Africa together.
Mainly, however, it highlights many of the (most important) games of the FIFA 2010 World Cup series. I am by no means a sports fan, but I found this BD very entertaining. The footage shot during the games at times makes you feel like your right in the middle of the action. For the most part, the 3D was shot very well, except for a few brief instances of mis-synch between left and right images, and what appears to be a brief instances where the stereo seems inverted. There's not too much of this, however, but this is the other reason I deducted one star.
The interviews and other supplementary inserted footage at times appears to be rather flat, with very little depth, especially the outside shots of the stadiums, but I assume that is due to the zoom factor from a long distance. The interviews were shot rather close, and those are almost flat as well.
However, the game footage is awesome, which is why I bought the BD in the first place. I had seen a short clip of some of the action in 3D which looked really nice, and when I saw the title up for pre-oreder, I jumped on it.
It was nice to see how they take you through the games, highlighting the important goals, wins and losses. I really felt bad when the last African nation in the series, Ghana, lost. Being right in the middle of it made it feel more real for me.
Overall, the film was very well made, and in spite of being only 720p resolution, looks very good. There was practically no ghosting to speak of, at least on my 42" Panasonic Plasma screen.
When I inserted the disc, and started the movie, it immediately displayed in 3D, I didn't have to chage the setting on the TV. The TV and BluRay player have what Panasonic calls VieraLink, which lets the devices communicate with each other when connected via HDMI. I have the BluRay player set to always play 3D titles in 3D, so I don't know if this is why I didn't have to set the TV myself.
At any rate, this was a very entertaining look at something I virtually ignored while it was happening, the FIFA 2010 World Cup. I will watch it again, at some point, and I would reccomment this title to the folks out there with 3d TV's that are hungry for content. It's a live action film, as opposed to the mostly CGI 3D movies that have been made in the last few years, so this is another bonus -- getting to see real humans in 3D.

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Dare to Dream: The Story of the U.S. Women's Soccer Team (2005) Review

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(More customer reviews)Last year, I began coaching my daughter's U-8 team. The girls knew nothing about the glories of the USWNT. I told them about Mia Hamm and got them to read a brief bio on her, but this HBO documentary was the best teaching tool ever.
It is a great story that uses the retirement game for Hamm, Fawcett and Foudy to lok back at the history of the WNT from the first WC in 1991 through the 2004 Olympics.
This movie can't help but increase the self esteem of any young girl just starting the sport to see how good the Americans can be at soccer. Because the Men's World Cup gets more publicity, my girls all thought that Americans just weren't very good at soccer and that it was dominated by a half dozen European and So. American countries. This video points out that historically the US WNT is the best. It really got my daughter interested in the current WNT and we even went to see a game in San Jose last month.
The release is being timed to come just after the beginning of this year's Women's World Cup in China. (The first game for the US team, who are #1 ranked again, is Sept. 11th.
HBO is also selling it directly through their website, but for $5 more.


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