I’m not nostalgic for your favorite sports film, because I probably never saw it the first time around (unless it’s A League Of Their Own, which even I know is a goddamn masterpiece). There’s no grand explanation for this gap in my cinematic literacy; I was too young for some of the classic sports movies, too old for others, and, I guess, too busy with the bad Star Wars trilogy somewhere in the middle.
Now I’m working my way through the sports-movie canon as a cynical adult and casting judgement on the movies that make up the fabric of fictional sports culture. Here, a review of The Mighty Ducks — apropos, since it’s essentially a parable about how the ignominies of youth sports will haunt you into adulthood and set you up for alcoholism.