Top 5 Sports Movies of All Time

Dave Rickards and Josh Board break down the Top 5 Best Sports Movies of all time! What do you think about their picks?

Episode Transcript

(00:02):
No Fine Heart Media presents the DaveRiggarts Podcast. All right, welcome friends
to another edition of Cigar box Office. Which is that what you decided to
name it last time? Cigars?All right? Yeah, why not Cigar

(00:22):
box Office? I like it.I am joined here by Josh Board,
emeritus movie critic of all of SouthernCalifornia for decades now. And you can
hear him regularly mornings on AM sixhundred Kogo with Ted and LaDonna, and
he'll be reviewing uh any given day. Are you on there on a particular
regular day? Yeah, every Fridayat eight everybody, And he'll tell you

(00:46):
if he likes a movie or ifhe doesn't like a movie. And I
think he's a pretty fair critic.He's a funny writer, and he's my
co host here where today we aregoing to select each of us will choose
five the best sports movie of alltime. Cool. And last time we
got together, when we were talkingabout food, I gave an indication that

(01:07):
this was coming up. Remember now, if you disagree with our five choices,
you're wrong and you should work onthat. All right, very good.
We also had a bet last time, didn't we, Yeah, yeah,
we did. I you know Ihaven't paid you back yet. I
still owe you a cigar. Iwas hoping, because I'm a bit of
a weasel when it comes to bets, I was hoping you'd let me try

(01:29):
a double or nothing here to guessone of the movies on your sports list
always open for double or nothing.Okay, good? Yeah, So I'm
predicting one of the movies on yourtop five favorite sports movies is going to
be Rocky. It is not.It's not on my list. I thought
for sure it would be on yourlist. It is, but I thought
it'd be on your list too.I thought we'd both have it. It
certainly deserves to be on someone's lists, but that is not so. Two

(01:53):
cigars though you are owe two cigars. But I think you should give me
one more pick, because think aboutit, there's hundreds and hundreds of great
sports movies. Just give me onepick to try to get a double or
nothing here and one more pick,and would it be that you owe me
not a trip? I wouldn't.This is like that episode of there was
some TV show where they kept doingdouble or nothing. It was funny.

(02:14):
I think it was new Land doubleor nothing. Bromo and I used to
go golfing every Thursday back in theday, and we would play for a
couple of dollars here or there.Yeah, always go a double or nothing.
I kid you not. I kidyou not. He was up to
eighteen thousand dollars that he owed mebecause of double or nothing. And then
he'd win a double or nothing andthen say so, does that mean you

(02:35):
own me eighteen thousand? And you'relike, no, No, that means
nothing. You have to explain themath. No, No, I'm gonna
go. I'm gonna go for anotherpick. It was stupid of me to
say Rocky because you brought up Bromoand you brought up all your golfing.
I'm going with Caddyshack. Shack isa great sports movie. As a matter
of fact, just this past Saturday, I had a poker game with my
friends and I told him that youand I were going to be doing this.
And I asked my friend Joel.He was the first one, and

(02:57):
I asked, and what's your favoritesports movie of all time? And he
said Caddyshack. And he's right.Those are two great movies. They did
not make my list, but theycertainly deserve to be on it. Know
you another cigar, then this iswell, I think it's four, but
whatever, who's coming, Um,you're gonna choose five. I'm gonna choose
five, and you believe that theseare the greatest sports movies of all time?
Here on cigar. Sports movies oftenhave cigars. It's usually if there's

(03:22):
a victory, somebody lights up acigar like a red hour back, or
if it's an agent saying a fend, listen to mister Jordan, you signed
with me, I'm gonna get youmillions. It's always the agent, you
know, kid, I'm calling youa kid. I mean, why didn't
a burgess Meredith have a cigar?He's killing it? A guess I got
a rock I'm coming. I lovethat line he's I mean, yeah,

(03:44):
he's killing it again. I lovethat guy. All right, you want
to lead us off here on theyour your pick the five best sports movies
of all time? I already saidRocky, And you know that's why I'm
smoking a Rocky Patel. I havea Rocky Patel purple. That's what you
have today? Yeah, because Ithought if it's sports teamed, I mean,
nobody's gonna know it's a Rocky Patel, but it's like it makes me

(04:04):
think of Rocky Marciano and Rocky Balboa. So that's what are you smoking.
That's a good choice. I likeit. I have a limited edition Patrone
here. It's dated nineteen twenty six. I don't think it's quite that old,
but as you know, Patron's aI think you've enjoyed a Patrone in
your day. Yeah, they're sometimesout of my price range, which is
why sometimes I opt more for aSwisher Suite, which is a lovely cigar

(04:28):
you could find at your local humidor at the liquor store right near your
street. You can get those withthe kids who sell lemonade on the on
the corner as well. Exactly.Those are good ones. Um, do
you want to start with Rocky?Do you want to talk about I think
when we do these lists, youshould do your five and after each one
of your picks we'll talk about itand then lead or five. I'll do
my five. I'm gonna lead offthen very yeah. Uh my my leadoff

(04:50):
movie for the best five movies ofall time is The sand Lot. You're
killing me, Smalls The sand Lot. Did you play baseball when you're a
kid, did you have ends inthe neighborhood. Oh yeah, what guy
didn't. Yeah. So, youknow, aside from the monster that lived
on the other side of the fence, this is a pretty relatable movie.
I loved, loved the trash talkingin the sand lot. This movie to

(05:13):
me is very much like a Christmasstory with the little kids, and just
really enjoyed that a lot. Well, you know, I hate to say
this to you, but I dida story on Fox five. It's on
their website if people want to seeat the top seventy five sports movies of
all time, and sand Loot didn'teven make my top seventy five. Oh
it didn't. I read that.I liked it. I thought it was

(05:33):
cute, but I thought the monsterthing was a little over the top,
and maybe it was still it maybejust pained me because I collect memorabilia and
knowing they're using a Babe Ruth autographbaseball that was just maybe too much for
me. But isn't that isn't isn'tthat part of the climent of going to
movies When you have this this terriblescene where the little kid. First of
all, if you haven't seen themovie, the kids are just playing ball,

(05:56):
at a sand lot and the ballgets destroyed or lost or whatever.
And the little kid, who he'snew to the neighborhood, he's desperate to
fit in with these kids. He'skind of a nerdy little kid. He's
like, hey, I got aball at home. And he runs home
and he grabs his stepfathers and he'salready got a strained relationship with him.
His stepfather's autographed Babe Ruth Baseball.You know, I talked to you know,

(06:18):
Dave Winfield, a Hall of Famer. I was talking to him once.
He was promoting a book he signed, and he said one time he
came home and his son was inthe other room with a bunch of other
kids, and they were laughing athaving the best time, and he goes
in to see what they're doing,and they're all playing baseball in a video
game, and he's like, it'sa summer day, they should be out

(06:38):
playing baseball. And things like thatmake me think of the Samlot because Brian
Pipe is another person who's a locallegend here. Was in the NFL for
a long time. He told mehe was in the first ever Little League
World Series in nineteen fifty seven whenhe grew up in Lamisa, and he
said parents didn't even come. Itwas the first Little League World Series they
ever had, and he said parentsdidn't come to the games. Now parents

(07:00):
to the games. They're yelling atthe umpires, they get in fights with
each other, they snack cues around. So Dan Lott is a nice throwback
to when kids could just go outand play. So I thought it was
an oversight. I read your topseventy five sports movies. I thought it
was an oversight on your part.But you get purpose, all right,
So good. Next up on mypick another baseball movie. Do you want
to take a guess on what itis? Baseball movie? Base now?

(07:21):
Because there's so many baseball This iswhat I believe is Brad Pitt's greatest movie
that he's ever made, and it'sMoneyball. Love this movie with Jonah Hill,
Brad Pitt, and the host ofmany other characters. I believe Jonah
Hill got nominated for an Oscar forthat. Who is Jonah Hill is going
to someday be an Oscar nominated actorlike with Wolf of Wall Street and Moneyball.

(07:44):
Yeah, Moneyball was good. Um, I thought it could have had
a little more baseball, But Iknow that wasn't the point of it.
The point of it was to showif you crunch numbers, you get good
value for your players. Well,there's a pretty good there's a there's a
pretty good chunk of baseball action init when they show the true scene where
the A's make the run for twentygames in a row, and so you

(08:05):
do see a lot of that.And by the way, they recreated with
Chris Pratt, who plays one ofthe baseball players in this movie who actually
gets the hit that secures the twentiethwin, they recreated the scene. And
I am such a nerd Josh whenI watch movies. I bet I can't
watch a movie without putting it onpause ten times and looking up on Wikipedia.

(08:28):
Did this happen? Did that happen? I watched the side by side
recreation of that scene in Moneyball versusthe actual moment that it played out in
real life, and it is identical. It doesn't matter to many people,
but it was a nice thing thatthey pulled off. I do those deep
deep dives too. It's fun,but I do it after the movie.

(08:50):
I don't want to kill the momentumof the movie. And by the way,
how great was Philip Seymour Hoffman asa manager. He totally looked like
a manager. Maybe it's just thebody type I don't know, or the
face, but I love they cantotally nail a manager like you know,
you were just mentioned in Burgess,Meredith. I mean he was perfect as
the trainer. When you get amanager or trainer that looks perfect because of
the way they bark orders at people, I love that, right, good

(09:11):
job. Next up, my thirdchoice for the five best sports movies of
all time is Rudy. Did thatmake your seventy five? No? I
didn't like Rudy. You didn't likeit. Now, I'm going to be
the first one to admit I'm wrong, because if everybody on the planet likes

(09:33):
it but me, I'm the onethat's wrong. Now, what's funny is
for fifteen years I was a volunteerwith the Makuish Foundation and I was one
time at a party they had beforea football game, and I'm sitting next
to this guy and we're talking andmy girlfriend was there with me at the
time. I go to get somefood. I come back and she goes,
do you know who this is sittingnext to us? And I said,
yeah, he said his name wasRudy. She it's Rudy. I
don't know what his last name is, but it was Rudy. Name is

(09:56):
Rudy ger or routing her or somethinglike that. But it was the kid
that the movie's based on. Imean, he's a guy now and it
was weird. So then I couldn'ttell him I didn't like the movie based
on his life, but I justthought he was too sentimental and too you
know. And it's funny because yousaid you'd like to do this deep dive.
Joe Montana was the quarterback of thatteam. He said, none of
that happened. He goes, peopleweren't cheering for him to come in,

(10:18):
But you know what, why doeshe have to reign on Rudy's parade.
It's like, you're a Hall ofFame quarterback. Let him at least have
this movie glory. You know what, though, that opens up a discussion
that I wanted to have with you. I'm glad you brought that up.
Oftentimes, in a movie being pitchedpromoted, we'll say based on a true
story, right, and it's nevera true story because they just can't do
him. Yeah, it's not atrue story. Rudy in particular. All

(10:43):
the players come in and they laytheir jerseys down on Dan Devine's desk and
they say, sorry, coach,if Rudy doesn't play, I'm not gonna
play. They're chanting his name.Dan Devine calls in a play and the
star players ignore his call. Theypull off a different play. They score,

(11:03):
which increases the lead and in theirminds, gives them a safe enough
lead to bring in Rudy. They'recheering his name. They carry him off
the field. We all know now, according to Joe Montana, none of
this happened. None of this happened. So it makes me wonder why do
they always say based on a truestory, does that sell any tickets?

(11:24):
It only matters to me based ontrue stories. After I've seen them always
say, oh, that was atrue story. That's interesting. But Dan,
I think you're right, because Dandi Vine. You know, they
asked him, they said, doyou mind if we if we futs a
little with the facts, and he'slike, nah, go ahead. Well,
when they saw how they villainized him, the lad they didn't like it.
Oh he never forgave them for that. Wow, that's interest. See,

(11:46):
there was a movie Ron Howard madea great race car movie called Rush,
and Chris Hemsworth is this guy.I brought a guy who's a friend
of mine named Joe Harding. Hewas Jay Lenos mechanic for fifteen years and
he has a bunch of classic cars, and he knew these characters involved in
Rush, this rivalry, and hekept saying, oh my god, it
was just like that. That characterwas just like that. So I thought,
Wow, Ron Howard got it right. But there was one scene where

(12:09):
Chris Hemsworth, he doesn't like thereporter the German rival race car drivers in
an accident, his faces mangled andburned, and the reporter says, how
can your wife ever make love toyou again? Because you look like that?
And Chris Hemsworth got so mad thathe followed his reporter, took him
in the bathroom, and beat thecrap out of him. I immediately went
home and googled that never happened,and I'm like, you know, I

(12:31):
just don't think you can do stufflike that, because I thought, if
that happened, this reporter is gettinga million dollars from this race car driver
for getting beat up right right?Yeah, And you know, back to
Moneyball, for a second. Therethere's a scene where Billy Bean has come
up with this mathematical way for theA's to get into the playoffs, and
of course none of the scouts likehis plan. They think it's stupid.

(12:52):
You've got to go for this guy. He's got great batting ability, the
whole thing. And there's a scenewhere Great Efusion I think is his name,
who was one of the scouts forthe A's, gets in Billy Bean's
face and he's like, this isn'tgonna work, and Billy's like, you
know, and Billy takes it fora little bit, but then the scout
tells him off and he says,f you and all that, and so
Billy Bean fires him. Never happened, Okay, those two guys are good

(13:16):
friends to this day. I'm gonnatell you another scene that bothered me in
Moneyball, when Brad Pitt goes topick up his daughter and she the mom,
is with the new guy. Thisis always the scene in the movie.
There's always the scene in movie,right, yeah, And he's talking
to the guy and they're on friendlyterms, and you think, is this
gonna get ugly house? It's gonnago And he says oh, I'm sorry
you guys lost Jason, He goes, oh, Jason Giambi or whatever the

(13:37):
guy's name is. Yeah, okay, they're trying to show you that her
new man knows nothing about baseball,right. It's cheesy because like, let's
say you're with a woman in SanDiego and you say, oh, god,
I heard about that Padre guy,Tony goasas Tony Gwynn. Oh,
yes, Tony Gwynn. No,if you're in San Diego, you know
Tony Gwynn. You know, Juniorsay out. Even if you don't follow

(13:58):
sports. So I think some butin that town would have still known the
best player on your team that youlost. But you know, don't you
think they were trying to emasculate.They were trying to pre present a demasculation
of that character. You know,Oh, I used to be married to
Brad Pitt, you know, Jockand all that kind of guy. And
this guy is a sweater around theneck, multi millionaire, house on the

(14:18):
beach kind of thing. Yea,alright, number four on my list all
time greatest sports movies ever. TinCup, Oh, Tin Cup, Great
film under seventy five list. Yeah, and you know, so I I
lost the bet by picking Caddyshack.Know whing you'd go golf? I should
have went Tin Cup. Do youlike Tin Cup? Oh? It's great?
I was. I was torn betweenum three golf movies. Tin Cup,

(14:45):
The Legend of Bagger Vance with MattDamon who. Yeah, I love
this movie. I know it getsa little weird that Will Smith is a
ghost and all that kind of stuff. And I know people complain about the
oh the Savior, the Great WhiteSavior. Yeah, I know, on
its weird stuff like that. Andthe third one that I almost chose was
the greatest game ever played. Didyou ever see Shilah Boof as the child?

(15:07):
I mean, he's not child teenagerwho wins the US Open back in
like nineteen twelve something like that.Yeah, I vaguely remember that trans swa
where or whatever his name is.I don't know. It's some silly thing,
but I thought it was a goodmovie a bit before Went Crazy.
Yeah, yeah, right exactly.Patty Shack probably truly is the best golf

(15:28):
movie of all time. I metthese guys at a party and for some
reason, people talked about watching filmsbeing filmed and had they ever been to
a film being filmed, and theysaid they were at the golf scenes for
Tin Cup and Cheech Marin. Theywere yelling at him the whole time,
and they picked up some grass andput it in a bag and held it

(15:48):
up. Go cheat, you wantto smoke with us? Comes from us.
And so finally after an hour,this Cheech gets in a golf cart,
comes over and goes, hey,you dumbasses, we're trying to film
a movie. Would you shut up? I mean, just shut up?
And they apologize. He said,over just big fans. And then she
said it's cool. It's cool,and then she signed autographs room and took
pictures. But I'll tell you something, this is very painful for me.

(16:10):
I think Ron Shelton is the bestwriter director of sports movies. He did
Bolderham, he did Tin Cup,he did White Men Can't Jump, he
did The Great White Hype. He'sjust he did this movie Best of Times
with Robin Williams and Kurt Russell,a football movie that nobody knows. That's
wonderful. And last year he wasat the Coronado Film Festival and I contacted

(16:30):
them to see if I could interviewhim, and they said, well,
why don't you join him for dinnerand Coronado, and you could interview him
during that. Well, I hadthis little device for interviews. I'm sure
you've had one of these. It'sfrom Radio Shack. It's a little tiny
device and you record. It givesyou like two hours of time. Doesn't
have any cassette or anything. Icouldn't find that. My wife's like,
hey, dumbass, just do iton your phone. Phones. Do this
now, so she shows Yeah,so I'm recording it. We talked about

(16:52):
a screenplay he wrote for an autoracing movie. We talked about I mean,
we talked about Tin Cup and howgreat it was and all this stuff,
and for some reason it was itdidn't record sure, so the whole
interview was lost. A whole hourand a half with Ron Shelton. Listen,
I'm up to my fifth one,okay, and are there any more
bests to be paid off or shellI just revealed We're good, right,
I'm gonna oe you a whole boxof cigars by the time to say,

(17:15):
which is which is exactly what I'mshooting for? Um? And by the
way, before I get to thattin Cup um. Kevin Costner, he
had been on our show a coupleof times. Great guy. Try and
count how many sports or cowboy moviesKevin Costner has done. Those are his
specialties. I mean, he's reallygreat at those. He excels at those
two movies. Um My, numberfive on the list is The Longest Yard.

(17:40):
Don't Dare? Don't you dare?I'm gonna ask, don't I'm gonna
ask, just don't. Is itthe Adam Sandler or Burt Reynolds version.
Listen, if I had to getif I had to say, Okay,
that guy is the coolest actor inHollywood, it's not going to be Adam

(18:00):
Sandler. Nothing against him. Theguy's fantastic. He's probably a billionaire at
this point. Yeah. I thinkhe's great. I think he's funny.
But I think Burt Reynolds is thecoolest guy. Was the coolest guy in
Hollywood. I love The Longest Yard? And is there a better evil character
than Eddie Arnold who even has apuny little minion who follows him around.

(18:22):
While Eddie Arnold, the warden ofthis prison, is just wreaking havoc on
these football players who have a scrimmagefootball game against the guards of the prison.
It's always great when an evil characterhas somebody follow him around, like
I love in The Sting, RobertShaw is intimidating enough, but he has
two goons with him the whole time. Yeah, it's great. Yeah.

(18:45):
And Eddie Arnold's got this crummy littleminion following him around all the time,
just doing his bidding. Yeah.And Richard Keels in it, one of
the Bond villains. That's right,that's right. Yeah, Longest Yard is
great. I wonder if during thefilming you always wonder how hard they got
hit, Like the seventies had acouple of good football movies like The Longest
Yard in North Dallas forty and itfelt like they were really filming him getting

(19:07):
hit, Like you just wondered,would Burt Reynolds get hit hard enough that
his tupe would fly off with them? I don't like to think about that.
I don't like to think about Burtwearing a wig. I know he
did the entire time, but Ijust I he chose not to know that.
When do you think the last timehe his natural hair was on screen?
Because I have a theory on this, I think it was Deliverance,
because in Deliverance, another great character, he played a real tough guy.

(19:29):
His hair was pretty thinning in Deliverance, and then after Deliverance it was back
to a full head of hair.I could be wrong about that, but
well, he goes way way back. He used to be on like Bonanza
on TV and whatnot? Did heplay somebody named Quinton on Bonanza or Gunsmoker?
Yeah, something like that. Andhe was in a movie with Spencer
Tracy, So his career goes goesquite a ways back. But The Longest

(19:49):
Yard love that movie. And bythe way, again, I'm circling back
the Tin Cup. One of thereasons I loved that as one of the
all time great sports movies. Hey, guess what hero doesn't win? The
hero crashes and burns. Oh andhow great is it when he takes that
shot over and over again? Suchan interesting scene to write for a movie

(20:10):
because so many sports movies. That'sa great point you bring up, Dave,
because so many sports movies, wherecan you go? It's the underdog
and the underdog is gonna win.We always know that, So when you
don't do that, it's a nicelike change of pace. The Longest Yard,
I just love Burt Reynolds. Backingup five steps wham right into the
guards nuts Yeah yeah, or atonce he'll fall forward again, let him

(20:33):
throw right into him. Yeah allright, those are my five. Let's
hear what Josh Board thinks are thefive greatest sports movies of all time?
All start it with Rocky, sinceI already gave away Rocky was on my
list, and since I just talkedabout how we always know the underdog is
gonna win again, the underdog doesnot win in that Rocky loses, but
I mean he wins because he makesmoney and he has Adrian. And how

(20:57):
heartbreak. I mean, just whenhe's yelling in Adrian's name at the end,
he doesn't even care who won thefight. He just can't see out
of his eyes. And it's justgot It gives me goosebumps every time.
The only two flaws I think Rockyhas is, if you watch it now,
the punch is missed by a goodthree inches. Yeah, there's some
really Yeah, yeah they should haveThe editing is not great. Yeah.

(21:19):
And then also I thought they madeAdrian's character just a little too much of
a mousy little wallflower. Oh theyreally, They really dulled her up quite
a bit. In the Rocky theoriginal Rocky, that's for sure. Yeah,
it's like I thought that character isa little bit, but it's just
such a great sports movie. Ithink it won a bunch of Oscars.
Well, I know it won abunch of Oscars. How cool is it
that one Best picture? Right?And Rocky was had no money and he

(21:44):
was offered like thirty eight thousand dollarsfor the script, but he said no,
I want to be in it,and they go, yeah, nobody
knows who you are, you're notgoing to be in it. But he
wouldn't sell it unless he was init. It's like talk about betting on
yourself and winning. Yikes that he'snot bad. He really isn't bad.
I mean he has these franchise movies, Rocky in particular. Some people laugh
at Rocky because it did get kindof goofy, and Rocky three and Rocky

(22:07):
four, it circled back. Ibelieve in the last couple installments and did
some great great movie. I agree, like literally, Rocky four is the
only Rocky I didn't like. I'veliked every other one I didn't. I
don't care much for the Creed movies. Every critic goes not so the Creed
movies. They're all sort of okaybut not great. But it may surprise
people to know that Rocky the Originalmovie. You know, they think also

(22:27):
the sim Fester Stallone, he's ameatball and stuff like that. That movie
Beat Everything, Taxi Driver, NetworkEverything, Movie of the Year at the
Academy Awards. Wow, you knowyou're was that seventy six? I think
it was seventy six. Seventy six. Now you talked about goons following people
around. So I gotta tell youa time I met Stallone. I loved

(22:48):
him in Copland. I thought hewas great again showing his acts acting prowess
there. And he's coming out backstageit critics Choice. And I was coming
back from the bathroom and he's walkingby me. He's another guy that's short,
he's like five to seven. AndI put my hand on his shoulder
and I go, I loved youin Copland. And he said thanks.
And as he's saying thanks, Iget put in like a headlock from a
guy. The guy says, don'ttouch mister Stallone. He had a bodyguard

(23:11):
there with him the whole time.It's like we're in an award show with
other movie critics. I don't thinkbodyguards are necessary. Yeah, I still
like Sylvester Stallone a lot. I'mwatching Tulsa King right now and I think
it's a great show. Oh Ihear, that's good. I haven't seen
it. I'm really enjoying it now, Dave. One of the things about
your list that was interesting is youyou covered a lot of different sports.
I'm glancing at my list right nowand I only I have five movies with

(23:33):
only two sports. Obviously, anappeals. Are you a boxing guy?
Do you like? Yeah? Ilove boxing. So my second one is
going to be Requiem for a Heavyweightwritten by Rod Sterling of Twilight Zone fame.
Have you ever seen this? Oh? Yes, well, and Mickey
Rooney as the manager who cares aboutAnthony Quinn and I just love Jackie Gleason

(23:56):
and he plays a good a gooduh you know shister who bets against his
own fighter, and the opening scenehas him fighting with Cassius Clay, who
everybody knows changed his name to MuhamadAli. And by the way, if
your name is Cassius Clay, whythe hell do you change that? If
you're a boxer, that's the mostbadass name on the planet. Oh,
that was his religion. He washonoring his religion. You named a lot
of the people in Requiem for aHeavyweight. And by the way, what

(24:18):
does that title mean to you?Requiem for a Heavyweight? I thought requiem
men story, but I don't know. It now has a couple of different
It has a couple of different definitions. But as a as a Roman Catholic,
I can tell you that a requiemis a mass for the dead.
And when I looked at that,I thought, this is the story.

(24:40):
It kind of is a requiem whenyou watch that. It's a hard movie.
My favorite character in Requiem for aHeavyweight is Madam Spivy, who comes
into the locker room to demand themoney. Did you see his character,
Madam Spivy. I mean, theseare a bunch of gohones who I'm in

(25:00):
with our cigars and whatnot. Ohyeah, and demanding their payout. God,
it's just such a great movie.And then when he ends, he
has to be a wrestler at theend and he doesn't want to do that,
which I just spoiled it for people. He's got he's got a wrestle
Haystacks McGhee or whatever. The guy'slast name is. He weighs like six
hundred pounds. And this was allpart of the humiliation yeah man had throughout

(25:25):
his life. You know, henever really he didn't finish well for him.
Yeah, And you know, thewrestling scene made me think I was
going to have the wrestler on mylist, and I made the mistake of
running my list by my wife andshe's like, wrestling is not a real
sport. Wrestling his face, ButI love the wrestler with Mickey ROURICKX.
So my next movie is going tobe another boxing movie. Since you brought

(25:45):
up to Jaclomata story Raging Bowl,I love it. I think it's funny
that it doesn't win the Oscar thatyear. I think it lost to ordinary
people or something like that. Yetnow it's considered the best movie of the
eighties. When you talk to moviepeople, it's always on list. It's
always this is one of the bestmovies of all time. It was a
dud. It was when it cameout. It was a dud. Well,
boxing movie's got to be a hardsell. And you know, when

(26:06):
we did a segment about food movies, I was tempted to put the scene
where he doesn't like the steak becauseit's overcooked, and so DeNiro thrashes the
whole table. But I thought,you know, I don't want to bring
Raging Bull up in every movie segment. We do, right, A lot
of great stuff in this movie.Part of the reason that it didn't do
so well when it first came out, as people thought it was too violent,

(26:30):
dark, it was too ugly.You've got Jake LaMotta, who is
married man chasing after a fifteen yearold girl. That's a harsh topic to
deal with. And I loved howthe recent Elvis movie with Tom Hanks and
Austin Butler. You know, Elvisis meeting Priscilla and she's fourteen, he's
twenty five. But they kind ofjust made it look sweet, like as
were romance and there's no age mentioned. That's the way you do that,

(26:52):
you know, based on a truestory. I'll tell you a great Raging
Bull story. I had an autographof Robert de Niro I bought from the
Raging Bowl movie. It was likea hundred bucks, and somehow I came
across Kathy Moriarty's address and she playedhis wife. That was her first place,
Vicky, Yeah, yeah, Isent it to her to get signed
with a self address samp Denville.I never got it back and I sent

(27:15):
follow up. Was it after shedied? Is that why she didn't send
it back. She was already dead. That's possible. Anything pass you,
Josh. It's a long time ago. You just never know. Uh yeah.
When Raging Bowl came out, itwas whatever. I mean, it
wasn't. I shouldn't say it wasa dud, but it wasn't regarded what
it is today, which Afi saysthis is the fourth best movie ever made.
Oh really yeah? Yeah, alsoa movie that introduces to Joe Peshig

(27:41):
Bowl. One knew that Joe Phi, by the way, credited with getting
Kathy Moriarty her job in that movie. Interesting, And do you know Joe
Peshi was instrumental in getting Frankie Valleyin the Four Seasons together? He was
there in Jersey and he's the onethat put them all together. It's really
about that. Well, you know, it's it's a little hard to believe,
but Joe Peshi was a singer beforehe was an actor. His name

(28:03):
was Little Joe Peshi and he hasalbums and that's something that you should google
or YouTube. You played a songsinging songs. I mean it is wild.
I remember you played one on theair and I almost crashed my car
laughing. All right, what haveyou got? You got one left for
me? No, I got twomore. I got two more. Don't
short me. You get to doa nice five list. Let me go.

(28:25):
He's got two loves. Sorry.Bulderham talked about Ron Shelton, He's
just a great writer. We talkedabout Kevin Costner being a great baseball player,
and uh, it's just a greatbaseball movie. And you know the
classic scene, you know how theclassic scene and when Harry met Sally is
the fake orgasm. I'll have whatshe's having to me. That scene in
Bulderham is when the manager comes outto the mound and they're discussing the best

(28:47):
wedding gift and candle holders and blahblah blah. I love that. And
it's just a great movie. Candlesticks, candlesticks make a nice gift. Yeah,
And he doesn't make you wonder dothese guys ever talk about stupid things
like that when they get up onthe mind. I know they've done a
lot to short probably not, butback in the day, like why would
they Yeah, you're right, becauseback in the day we heard about people

(29:07):
being drunk or that one picture wason LSD, and so, yeah,
you do hear about that, butI don't think it's like that on the
mound. Definitely not on the mound. The same I love in that movie
is Kevin Costner is this grizzled oldveteran and here comes Tim Robbins nuke the
picture. Who's the new kid whothinks he knows everything, and Kevin Costner
is kind of the old man toshow him the ropes and he keeps shaking

(29:30):
Kevin Costner off. He doesn't wantto throw the change up or whether he
wants to throw his fastball. Iwants to throw his fastball. So Kevin
Costner looks up the battery goes herecomes fastball, bang, and he walks.
He walks up to Tim Robbins onthe on the hillinggood man, that
ball got out of here in ahurry. And you know what's funny.
Everybody loves Bullderm, which is great, but so many people I know love

(29:53):
the one with Charlie Sheen Major League. Yeah, and my problem with that
is it was kind of funny,but it was just too over top.
And I think comedies work better whenthey feel like a real movie, like
these are real characters, but they'rehumorous moments in them. When you just
go over the top and Charlie Sheenis throwing fastballs that go into the fifth
row, you're just going like,no picture does this so wacky? When

(30:14):
it's wacky, Yeah, you gottabe really funny. You gotta be an
airplane or something. Last word onthat. By the way, I thought
Tim Robbins was great as nuke.Do you know who the producers wanted?
They did not want Tim Robbins.Do you know who they wanted? No?
But Ron Shelton over dinner told methey didn't want Susan Sarandon And she
was so pissed. So she dressedin this. They thought she was a

(30:34):
little too old or whatever, notas attracted enough. She dressed in the
sexiest outfit, went up to thehead of the studio. She barged into
the door and she was confronting him, say not about that, but just
talking about all the great movies he'sdone and this, and that's how she
read the script. He immediately calleddown and said to the directors she should
be in it, and oh mygod. So all she had to do

(30:55):
was kiss up to him and shegot the job. Yeah and dress sexy.
Yeah yeah, yeah, well youknow that that was a smart move
on her part. Let me showyou what I've got. I'll prove to
you that I can do this.The producers wanted Anthony Michael Hall to be
the role that Tim Robbins got.The weird thing about that is I love
sixteen candles. Yeah yeah, andhe beefed up, you know, so

(31:17):
he Yeah, he did look likemeat. The problem is you need somebody
that's also tall. I think itworks better, and I don't think Anthony
Michael Hall is tall, So that'sweird. Well they didn't get it anyway.
So yeah, exactly the last movieon my list. And I feel
bad naming this as my top movie. Why Well, because I was giving
you a hard time for Rudy beingtwo sentimental Dada and this kind of goes

(31:37):
a little over the top with themusical score building it up, and sometimes
that takes me out of it.It's like, look, we have these
tears. You don't need to havea bunch of strings to manipulate our emotion.
I know what it is. Then, oh what is it. I'm
not gonna I'm not gonna blow it. This is your moment. But by
talking about you're talking about the soundtrackto a sports movie. That can only
be one thing. Okay, whatjust tell me what you think it is?

(31:59):
You're they want me to tell you? Yes, yes, I mean
the tinkling beginning of that song.It's by Randy Newman. Oh you know
what's funny? Yeah? That TheNatural. That's right. I forgot it
was about that. Randy Newman didthe score until I was writing a story
and I was googling all his pastsoundtracks and I saw that and I was
like, wait, what, becauseyou know you're used to doing Randy Newman,

(32:22):
you got at you know, withthat nasily funny lyrics, and yeah,
that was good call on that.It's MAGNI said. The Natural is
such a great pure baseball movie.I don't really get the whole Barbara Hershey
thing where she's this assassin who wantsto run around killing up and coming athletes.
That part to me was, youknow, um, I think that

(32:45):
was based on a real character.They didn't the woman didn't do that to
a bunch of athletes, but Ithink one. So it was loosely based
on a character that did that.Um. And then you know when you
we've talked before about how people thatlike the books better always got the book
was better because their book snobs.But you know how the book ends for
the natural So I heard about this. Yeah, it's ugly. I think

(33:07):
he dies, yes, by playing, he dies because his internal organs.
You know in the movie, hejust bleeds a little bit and he shatters
the light, hitting the best homerun ever. Yeah, And you know
what's funny. I like to collectmemorabilia. I bought for fifty dollars one
of the baseball cards used in themovie of Roy Hobbs. So it's it's

(33:28):
Robert Redford. It says Roy Hobbswith stats on the back ending, and
you think, like why did theyneed And I think for the movie they
printed like probably five hundred of them, So it's not like I have a
rare item, but it's like,why was this even needed to be printed?
The movie spends so much money,Like I don't even remember the baseball
card being shown in the movie,like they just thought in case they needed
it or something. But the sparkscoming down from the lights after he hits

(33:51):
the game winning home run. Werethe lights made out of atomic bombs back
nineteen forties or something like that?That was a little overkill you. That's
so funny you say that because mycar guy friend always says that about explosions.
He's like, why in movies whencars are in accidents do they explode?
He's like, I've seen the worstaccidents on the five Freeway. There's
never explosions. The cars look likeaccordions. There's smoking airbags. That's it.

(34:14):
Fall on that day. You madegood choices there. I like him.
You've got Rocky Bull Durham Requiem fora heavy Weight Raging Bull because you
are such a boxing fan and thenatural I think those are good choices.
Thanks. Do you think it's abetter list than your No, I never
do. I never do. Ithink it's good. I think it's worthy
of being on the podcast here,but I never did good stuff. Buddy,

(34:37):
all right? Thanks Dan or JoshBoard who has heard Friday mornings on
AM six hundred kgo with Ted andLaDonna on the morning news on six hundred
Kogo can be heard doing his moviereviews and he'll tell you about a movie
that he thinks you should see.There made me one that you should pass.
And hopefully we've named one or twohere that you haven't seen and you'll

(34:58):
consider going to see it, becauseagain we have named the five best that
we both have and if you don'tlike it, you're wrong. All right,
I'll see you next time someone owesme a cigar. You've been listening
to the Dave Riggards podcast, staytuned for more episodes to come. To
reach Dave for comments or suggestions forfuture podcast topics, email him at Dave

(35:21):
Riggards at iHeartMedia dot com. That'sd A V E R I c K
A R d s at iHeartMedia dotcom at Dave Riggarts podcast