Having a minimum-wage summer job is a lot like listening to
Coldplay: Everyone does it, but nobody likes to talk about it. My
journey to a low point in self-respect had me sporting a
blue-collared shirt and a name tag. For three grueling months this
past summer, I worked at Blockbuster Video.
Though the job unfortunately did require me to pretend like I
cared whether a snobby trophy wife and her three demonic children
were finding everything alright, I did get to rent many videos for
free.
Seeing that my social life at home had gone the way of the dodo
and UCLA football’s offense, I was able to watch some of the
greatest movies ever made about sports. These are not them.
5. “Summer Catch” ““ I hate Freddie Prinze Jr.
What I hate even more is Freddie Prinze Jr. trying to be Ebby
Calvin “Nuke” LaLoosh from “Bull Durham.”
This corny “coming of age” flick about a poor Cape Cod
pitcher trying to make it in a rookie baseball league while
simultaneously trying to date a rich girl who is way out of his
league is terribly trite and dreadfully acted. The movie is as
predictable as the UCLA-Oklahoma game.
The saving grace: Jessica Biel. The former “7th
Heaven” star plays Tenley Parrish, the rich
“daddy’s girl” that Prinze Jr. courts despite the
disapproval of her father. Biel doesn’t act well or have any
on-screen presence but instead makes “Summer Catch”
barely bearable simply by being good-looking.
4. “Rollerball” ““ This movie strengthens my
support of euthanasia. Mercy should have been brought to audiences
suffering through this appalling remake. I have seen cardboard
boxes give better performances than lifeless star Chris
Klein’s. The film was terribly edited, which made it
difficult to follow the thin shred of plot that director John
McTiernan decided to include.
The saving grace: Rebecca Romijn-Stamos is ridiculously hot.
3. “Caddyshack 2″ ““ Whoever told Jackie Mason
that he was funny lied. This PG-rated follow-up to the funniest
movie ever made about golf should have been cancelled long before
it came close to a silver screen. Thank God Rodney Dangerfield and
Bill Murray were smart enough to avoid this travesty of a
sequel.
Mason, who tries oh-so-hard to imitate Dangerfield from the
original “Caddyshack,” failed miserably, and without
Murray’s groundskeeper Carl Spackler, the movie ends up as a
triple-bogey.
The saving grace: There is no saving grace. This was a terrible,
terrible movie.
2. “The Replacements” ““ The major theme of
this flop was token characters. Keanu Reeves plays the token
quarterback looking to redeem his failed career. Reeves shows
slightly less emotion than the goalposts, and his attempt at being
meaningful with a hackneyed “glory lives forever”
speech is laughable. There is a token foreigner (the Welshman who
spouts such momentous lines as “You just hold it and
I’ll kick the bloody piss out of it!”), a token comic
relief black guy (Orlando Jones as a speedy receiver with no hands)
and even a token likeable handicapped guy (a deaf tight end).
This poorly told story of likeable losers tries to be a PG-13
version of “Little Giants” but fails horribly. Anytime
you can’t live up to a Rick Moranis movie, you know that
something is terribly wrong. There was a lot terribly wrong with
“The Replacements.”
1. “Major League 3: Back to the Minors” ““ The
worst sports movie ever made for one unforgivable reason: It ruined
one of the best sports movies ever made. “Major League”
(the 1989 comedy starring Tom Berenger, Charlie Sheen and Wesley
Snipes) is one of the funniest baseball movies ever made.
“Back to the Minors” is a futile attempt to cash in
on “Major League” and its sequel, “Major League
II.” Basically, “Major League 3: Back to the
Minors” is “Godfather III,” a wholly unforgivable
blemish in an otherwise great string of cinematic successes.
OK, Graham-Caso secretly loved “Summer Catch.”
Jessica Biel really is that hot. E-mail David at
dgrahamcaso@media.ucla.edu if you agree.