Cinematic Underdogs

On this episode, we continue our Summer Olympics themed sports movie mini-tournament with the 1981 Best Picture winner Chariots of Fire . An historical drama, Chariots of Fire offers a little dash of everything: an epic Vangelis score, pastoral shots of Scotlands' heath and heather, anti-semitic and anti-Protestant hostilities, and stuffy Cambridge rituals. It is as much about class and social str...

Hey fellow UNDERDOGS!!! This week we welcome the uplifting perspective of Caless Davis ( Twitter , Instagram , &  Letterboxd ) from the supremely awesome Feelin' Film crew! Caless joins us for an exciting discussion on Without Limits : an insanely underrated mega-box-office bomb / heartfelt biopic about the one and only Steve Prefontaine. Produced by Tom Cruise, directed by Robert To...

We heard it all. A shameless commercial grab bag. IP overload. Jumbled tech references. A WB universe that makes zero cohesive sense. Lebron, like Jordan, can't act.  And there is a lot of truth to all those statements. But at the same time, we didn't forget that this is SPACE JAM we are talking about!  Let me say it again: SPACE JAM!!! You know the franchise where WB execs decided to te...

On our follow up episode to Indian Horse , we speak at length with the profound and insightful professor Kathryn Mitchell. Kathryn is of Comanche descent and has spent 25 years teaching Native American literature. She offers a bounty of knowledge about the horrific history of America's Boarding Schools, Canada's Residential Schools, and the strength and fortitude of North American indigenous peopl...

If you have read any of the new stories about the mass unmarked graves unearthed recently in former Canadian Residential Schools, you will already be slightly familiar with the horrors depicted in Indian Horse - a harrowing tale of assimilation, abuse, and survival.  Far from the feel good hockey movie you may expect stumbling upon this film on Netflix, Indian Horse is a powerful revelation o...

Join us for a very special episode of Cinematic Underdogs where we welcome Warren P. Sonoda, the director of one of the funniest sports comedies you have probably never heard of: The Puck Hogs!  The Puck Hogs is not only a well-constructed sports film, but also a criminally underrated hockey flick that should be required viewing for anyone who has ever laced up a pair of skates inside a musty, swe...

Witten by Evan Goldberg and Jay Baruchel, directed by Michael Dowse, and starring Seann William Scott, Jay Baruchel, Liev Schreiber, Eugene Levy, and Alison Pill, amongst others, " Goon" boasts a fantastic comedic team. Surprisingly, the film depends most of all on the charm and fists of its breakout lead, an actor known first and foremost by the name of the infamous character he played in " Ameri...

With " Mystery, Alaska ," Cinematic Underdogs is officially a year old. Happy anniversary to us! It felt very apropos to celebrate our first anniversary with a perfectly mediocre sports film. That's what we are here for! Not to bring you the greatest movies ever made. Not to bring you the coolest horror flicks or underrated indie gems. None of that! We are here for nostalgic sports movies that kin...

Welcome to yet another zany podcast episode dedicated solely to shooting-the-sh!t about a classic hockey movie! This time we discuss the 1986 film " Youngblood" with Justin Peterson of The Average Joe's Movie Club Cast . This is largely forgotten 80s film is truly a product of its time: drenched in sweat, synth-music, and montage sequences. It is basically "Dirty Dancing" and " Flashdance" on ice....

On this laid-back, throwback episode of Cinematic Underdogs, the boys welcome Every Movie Has a Lesson's very own Don Shanahan to shoot the sh!t about 1977's scrappy rough-and-tumble hockey classic " Slap Shot ."  Pull out a case of Stroh's, or Root Beer if you want to be blasphemous, and get ready to indulge in an hour-and-a-half of locker room movie talk on everything from the amount of F-B...

On our finale installment of our two-part discussion of " The Queen's Gambit ," we really dig into how the coming-of-age narrative at the center of this lovely Netflix Miniseries parallels the key stages of Joseph Campbell's " Hero's Journey ." Tracking Beth's rise to stardom, downward spiral into addiction, regenerative return to her homeland / orphanage, and ultimate ascent to chess supremacy, w...

Join your favorite Underdogs, Jordan and Paul, as they deconstruct the definition of chess as a sport, the moral ambiguity of using mental enhancement pills (and how that aligns with other sports controversies involving steroids / substance abuse), and whether or not The Queen's Gambit is a vapid / middlebrow miniseries or prestige TV.  It is a deeply philosophical conversation that really ge...

To get into the spirit of March Madness's long awaited return, Aaron White of Feelin' Film and Paul Keelan of Cinematic Underdogs have combined forces to release a special bonus episode that covers four 90's-era hoops classics: "Blue Chips" ('94), "Above the Rim" ('94), "He Got Game" ('98), and "Love and Basketball" (very early '00)!  From Nick Nolte's channeling of Bobby Knight-like anger managem...

In preparation for our discussion on " The Queen's Gambit ", Aaron White of Feelin' Film and I (Paul Keelan) went on a bender with chess movies. In under a week's span, we both watched " Pawn Sacrifice ," " Searching for Bobby Fischer, " " The Coldest Game ," " Queen of Katwe ," and " Computer Chess " (on top of " The Queen's Gambit " miniseries).  After this whirlwind of research, it quickly...

On this very exciting episode of Cinematic Underdogs , we welcome a very special guest to the pod: Feelin’ Film’s very own Aaron White ! Given that Feelin’ Film is itself an amazing resource for passionate sports movie conversation, and a formative influence on the genesis of Cinematic Underdogs, Aaron's guest appearance on the podcast is a very special one.  Over the course of our heartfelt...

Part II of our official breakdown of “The Last Dance” is here and it doesn’t disappoint.  In it, the Underdogs talk the latter half (episodes 6-10) of ESPN's comprehensive look at Michael Jordan’s iconography and the Chicago Bulls’ epic run in the 1990s. Nothing is left on the cutting room floor here as we waltz through all the juicy gossip at the heart of this doc: touching upon gambling add...

On this episode of the podcast, Cinematic Underdogs welcomes a very special guest—Justin Khoo.  Philosophy professor at MIT and podcast host at Cows In The Field (https://cowspod.wordpress.com/), Justin is someone who is never at a loss for edifying insights. His capacity to parse the complex ethical and structural elements of cinema elevates the medium well beyond the realm of mindless visce...

On this special edition episode of Cinematic Underdogs, we cover the first half (episodes 1-5) of our first Wild Card Flick: "The Last Dance"!  Given that "The Last Dance" is a sports documentary series and thus veers outside of the realm of feature films (it is actually not even a flick, come to think of it), your friendly Underdogs will be the first to acknowledge that we outright broke an...

On this special bonus episode of Cinematic Underdogs, we have the always sincere, insightful, & poignant Don Shanahan (https://www.everymoviehasalesson.com/ — Twitter: @casablancadon) on the podcast. If you are looking at the running time, your eyes are not lying: we dauntlessly enter Joe Rogan territory, enthusiastically chatting for nearly 3 hours. Don’t let this be intimidating though: you...

With technology and mathematics continuing to replace the human workforce, the relevancy of "<I> Moneyball <I>" far supersedes the baseball park. Nevertheless, while the plot of this Oscar-nominated film can feel numerically engineered at times, it never forgets its more sentient roots as a veritable sports movie. With statistically-driven montage sequences, an ecstatic portrayal of th...

On this very special bonus episode, Paul geeks out with the ever entertaining Jed Bookout (Twitter / Instagram: @jedbookout) as Jed enumerates and extrapolates upon his top seven sports films of all time. Jed's list is tailor-made for cinephiles, straddling the eclectic margins of the genre: a celebration of genre-defiant game-changers like "<I> Speed Racer <I>" & "<I> Shaoli...

Spearheaded by Steven Soderbergh's resourceful / expedient directorial ingenuity (producing a gorgeous motion picture from nothing more than an iPhone & some affordable stabilizers / lenses), Tarell Alvin McCraney's lean screenplay (seething with a biblical heft and a savvy subversiveness toward the capitalistic status quo), and a crackling cast (led by the smooth and silky André Holland, play...

Hello everyone!  If you enjoyed the last Cinematic Underdogs podcast episode on "Jerry Maguire", and were craving just a little more content on what is inarguably one of the most iconic 90s flicks, today is your lucky day: here is a bonus, heartfelt thirty-minute interview with J.B. Huffman! On this special episode, we manage to cover some totally new territory about the film, and deconstruct...

From #MeToo indictments (Cuba Gooding Jr.) to scientology scandals & Covid-19 fulminations on set (Tom Cruise) to excessive plastic surgery (Renee Zellweger) to fading into cultural irrelevance (Cameron Crowe) to a tragic death due to breast cancer (Kelly Preston) this year, pretty much everyone involved with “Jerry Maguire” (except for Regina King & some smaller bit characters—Jay Mohr /...

Ivan Reitman's "Draft Day ," our first foray into a group of films that illuminates the behind-the-scenes worlds of sports, is an absolute winner. Written by the playwright and Pulitzer Prize finalist Rajiv Joseph and Scott Rothman, this film is a lovely moral play. Filled with complex characters, the film centers around Kevin Costner's Sonny Weaver, the GM for the Cleveland Browns, and follows hi...