Five Sports-Themed Movies to Counteract the Super Bowl

Are you appalled by the prospect of turning your brain off for five hours during the national holiday that is Super Bowl Sunday? Do you dread making small talk between commercials with equally benumbed acquaintances? Then here's a batch of men-with-balls films guaranteed to reset your IQ, restore your faith in humanity, and/or feed your inner nihilist.

The Freshman (1925)
The great silent-movie comedian Harold Lloyd plays Harold Lamb, a bespectacled college dweeb who dreams of being big man on campus. Pigskin jockdom is the preferred route, then as now, but our scrawny, pure-of-heart hero lacks the "right" stuff. Or does he? The miraculous big-game heroics that send Harold out like a lion were shot at then-new Memorial Stadium on the UC Berkeley campus.

Black Sunday (1977)
Perhaps you need something stronger than a return to silent-era innocence, like a deep quaff of 1970s cynicism. A messed-up former Vietnam POW (Bruce Dern) and a Palestinian terrorist (Marthe Keller) plot to blow up a Goodyear blimp (hooray for product placement) over the Orange Bowl while the Super Bowl plays out in front of the president and 80,000 fans. John Frankenheimer's pulse-quickening adaptation of Thomas Harris' bestseller is about geopolitics, misplaced anger, and chickens (figuratively speaking, of course) coming home to roost, making it rather relevant today (except for the aviator glasses).

Eight Men Out (1988)
Nobody ever talks about betting on pro football, at least not in the mainstream media. But millions of people gamble - hell, what else is there to keep us interested in the fourth quarter? John Sayles' memorable, melancholy movie (from Eliot Asinof's fine book) about the piqued Chicago White Sox players who conspired to give the finger to their miserly owner and throw the 1919 World Series is really an exposé of hard-hearted capitalism masquerading as a sports flick.

The Damned United (2009)
Immediately prior to The King's Speech, Tom Hooper directed this locker-room drama based on the real-life exploits of Brian Clough, a supremely cocky fellow who lasted all of 44 days as manager (read: coach) of the venerable Leeds United football (read: soccer) club in 1974. No helmets, no pads, no pious platitudes about good sportsmanship -- just acres of mud, blood, and lager. And even more cussing (albeit with a working-class accent) than Hooper's Best Picture nominee.

Big Fan (2009)
In this scary-funny tribute to the poor wretches cursed with an unhealthy emotional attachment to the home team -- most every sports fan, in other words -- the stand-up comedian Patton Oswalt plays a laughable and pitiable New York Giants fan who really, really needs to get a life. A no-frills indie written and directed with a distinct East Coast accent by Robert D. Siegel (who penned The Wrestler), Big Fan is a smart movie about a guy who plays dumb.