When I did gymnastics, I never did that well in competition. I showed up, did some routines, fell off the beam, and went home. The night before my second-to-last meet, I watched The Natural on tv. The next day at the meet, I felt inspired. As the national anthem played, my courage rose and I resolved to do my best. I tied for second on bars and placed overall qualifying me for states.

Tomorrow I am running the NY City Half Marathon. I am pretty sure that I won’t win any awards or qualify for anything (except for maybe a free Jamba juice), but I think watching The Express right now does improve my chances at winning the Heisman. At the very least, it will give me something to occupy my mind during the (fingers crossed) 2 hour run.

By the way, if you watch The Express on an airplane, you will cry.

Football season officially begins in 30 days!

(image Walt Disney World Monorail System – Your Express Highway in the Sky originally uploaded by Matt Pasant)

Rotten tomatoes rating: 61%

Believe it or not, The Replacements is one of the best football movies of all time. This is not because The Replacements is not such a good movie, but really because football movies are generally so bad. Here are the reasons why The Replacements is better than normal football movies:

1. In The Replacements, both teams are shown having possession of the ball. Sometimes team A has the ball and sometimes team B has the ball. When possession changes, there is a turnover or a kickoff or some action to explain the change in possession.

2. Sometimes they have to kick a field goal. It’s not all TDs all the time people. Why do you think the all time leading scorers in the NFL are kickers? (i know, i know because of extra points)

Well, those are about the only reasons The Replacements is a good football movie, but it is a start. I would watch it any day of the week over Any Given Sunday. Seriously, Oliver Stone must hate football.

(image Keanu Reeves – The Replacements originally uploaded by pyrobunnyshoney)

Rotten tomatoes rating: 40%