Sports

The Redeem Team

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  • Title: The Redeem Team
  • IMDb: link

After a disappointing showing in the 2004 Olympics, director Jon Weinbach‘s documentary takes a look at changes to Team USA and the rededication of NBA players to bringing home the gold medal. The film touches on several subjects including Mike Krzyzewski taking over as head coach, the struggles for the team at the 2006 World Championship, the rise of LeBron James and Dwayne Wade as superstars, and how the addition of Kobe Bryant was the final piece of the puzzle for the 2008 team who would go on to dominate in Beijing.

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Hands of Stone

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  • Title: Hands of Stone
  • IMDb: link

2016’s Hands of Stone is your typical biopic offering highlights of the life and career of professional boxer Roberto Durán (Edgar Ramírez). Writer/director Jonathan Jakubowicz‘s by-the-numbers approach doesn’t offer much in the way of surprises or insight into Durán, but the film’s cast is solid beginning with a strong performance from Ramírez with some effective boxing sequences covering some of the biggest fights of the first-half of Durán’s career.

Robert De Niro as Durán’s trainer, Ana de Armas as his wife, and Usher in some inspired casting as Sugar Ray Leonard, highlight the supporting cast. De Niro is in grumpy old manger mode butting heads with his fighter for most of the film while Ana de Armas steals some scenes into Durán’s personal life. While at times the film seems to think of her as an afterthought, she’s stunning here often beautifully framed by cinematographer M.I. Littin-Menz.

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WWE Royal Rumble 2022

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  • Title: Royal Rumble (2022)
  • wiki: link

Continuing its stumble towards WrestleMania, the 2022 Royal Rumble offered few surprises, a number of older faces, a glut of mid-card talent,  the absence of several big names, and a smattering of “celebrity” appearances.

Brock Lesnar, after being cheated out of the title in a match earlier in the evening, entered the lackluster main event Men’s Royal Rumble Match securing his spot against Roman Reigns (who successfully defended his title earlier in the evening against Seth Rollins) in the main event at WrestleMania. The Woman’s Rumble wasn’t much more interesting, nor was the winner any shock to fans, but did feature a number of former WWE Superstars returning including Melina, Kelly Kelly, Mickie James, and Sarah Logan.

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WWE Day 1 (2022)

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  • Title: WWE Day 1 (2022)
  • wiki: link

One of the better WWE “premium live events” in recent memory, WWE Day 1 offered a major shake-up to the card with news breaking that morning that Roman Reigns (who was the sole wrestler on the original promotional poster for the event) had tested positive for COVID. This caused the cancelling the scheduled main event and adding challenger Brock Lesnar to fatal four-way match making it a fatal five-way as WWE seemed determined to get a major title on Lesnar no matter what.

The unexpected shake-up of the card helped wake WWE from it’s sleepwalking booking style of the last six months (although sadly the practice would resume once Roman Reigns returned from his short hiatus). The result was some genuine surprise over a WWE show which fans have seen damn little of recently.

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The Card Counter

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  • Title: The Card Counter
  • IMDb: link

Writer/director Paul Schrader examines the worlds of gambling and torture, which turn out to not be as mutually exclusive as you may think. In terms of gambling, The Card Counter doesn’t offer any new information or insight we haven’t seen presented before by movies like Rounders and 21.

What makes the movie unique is William Tell’s (Oscar Isaac) past as a disgraced MP who served 1o years in federal prison for torture in Abu Ghraib. His past causes him to befriend a troubled young man (Tye Sheridan), hoping to dissuade him from taking vengeance out on a man (Willem Dafoe) both characters have reason to hate. The relationship between the pair is a peculiar one as Will takes accepts a job on the poker tour to help his new friend who wants a completely different kind of assistance from him.

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