Game of their Lives RSVP

[Jim Umber]

Man! I wish I could have made it. It sounds like it's going to be fun!

[Viva REAL!]

How does it work if we RSYP for tickets? I sent an email to Glenn requesting 4 tickets. Do we show up and get the tickets there? Are they sent to us? Any insight?

[Remus]

Due to a "Everything is down - they need you" distress call from work. I, plus my 2 friends, had to leave early. 😠
How did the end of the movie go? Was there anything after the movie ended? It looked like they had tables set up outside. Did I miss anything good?

[dysko]

Originally Posted by Remus

Due to a "Everything is down - they need you" distress call from work. I, plus my 2 friends, had to leave early. 😠
How did the end of the movie go? Was there anything after the movie ended? It looked like they had tables set up outside. Did I miss anything good?

The US team beat England 1-0 in a suprise ending... 🙄

The tables were for players to sign autographs.

[Deuce]

It was a good movie!
I would see it again! Might even buy the DVD!

anyway it was a good turn out although Clint Mathis and Jason Kreis were absent all the rest of the team were present and very approachable.

I was glad that I was a part of it

[AreliusII]

Posted on Fri, Apr. 22, 2005



Cliches defeat real drama in story of soccer upset




``The Game of Their Lives''

*

Here is a movie that sets forth one dubious proposition (that a soccer game played 55 years ago in Brazil is of the slightest interest to anyone now) to prove another (that Americans love soccer so much that they will flock to a movie about it, even a lousy one).

A victory by the upstart U.S. team over a ``highly regarded'' English squad in the 1950 World Cup is the basis for this extremely selective flashback. The movie never mentions, for instance, that after the Americans' 1-0 win over England, they lost their next two games; or that the Brits, who were making their debut that year in the World Cup, may have been a little too ``highly regarded,'' also finishing the tournament 1-2; or that the U.S. victory did not lead to a soccer explosion in this country.

It did catch on in St. Louis, which is where we meet most of the American side, living in an ethnic enclave known as the Hill, where everyone takes an immigrant's pride in their kids making the U.S. team.

The players are introduced amid a flurry of cliches. One ``always seemed to be in the right place at the right time,'' the drama's narrator (Patrick Stewart, speaking in a flat Midwestern accent that robs his voice of its majesty) tells us. Every time one of these Italian-American super-patriots does something on the field to help make the world safe for democracy, the action goes into super-slo-mo, and the strings on the soundtrack swell.

And it isn't just the soccer that's super-slo-mo. At one point, the movie spends about 15 minutes on the dilemma confronting a player who hates to fly, as the team prepares for its trip to Brazil. You may begin to suspect the filmmakers are desperate to fill time between games.

After the squad has been put together by the national coach (John Rhys-Davies) -- who tells the players, ``America isn't going to be competitive in the World Cup for another 50 years'' -- the team's bossiest player decides something is missing. So off he goes to recruit a dishwasher (we later learn he's Haitian-American), who practices voodoo and warms up with cartwheels before games.

All the players are types, rather than characters, and while movies sometimes feature misfits who become a band of brothers by uniting against a common villain, the most dastardly character this picture can provide is a haughty English soccer star named Stanley Mortensen (Gavin Rossdale). I kept wanting to see him play.

The trouble with ``The Game of Their Lives,'' from the same writer-director team of Angelo Pizzo and David Anspaugh who proved themselves masters of that sports staple with ``Hoosiers'' and ``Rudy,'' isn't that it's hokum. It's that it is such ho-hum hokum.

Rated PG (mild language, thematic elements). 1 hour, 30 minutes.

-- Bruce Newman

Mercury News

[Remus]

Sorry to resurrect another dead topic, but I've added about 25 more pictures from the movie premier. They start here