Any Given Sunday (1999)

I thought Dennis Quaid seemed out of place in the whole movie.
Seriously..."Cap"?

This is my favorite football movie, but then again I'm not a fan of the sport. One thing I like is that it shows so many different facets of the game and a ton of the "behind the scenes" stuff. The acting is solid throughout, but I was pleasantly surprised by Cameron Diaz being pretty good in her role. And it's always great to see James Woods playing a slimy prick.

I had no idea this movie is despised.
I love this movie. It's crazy but has great performances and very good football scenes (eyeball scene excluded). And it's over the top, flashy fun.

The best thing about this movie is the over the top stuff. Games are played during hurrricanes, an alligator gets tossed into a shower, lawrence taylor cuts an suv in half with a chainsaw, pacino screams "yaHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!" all the time, James Woods rants and raves, and an eyeball pops out of someone's head.

I also liked the STEAMIN WILLIE BEAMEN persona. His music video should be shown in every Oliver Stone lifetime achievement award video package.

Steamin' Willie Beamen got all the women...

CREAMIN'

It makes me wonder why Jamie Foxx didn't do a Deon Sanders biopic...

It was disappointing that Any Given Sunday didn't give NEON DEION his due. The film should have been dedicated to him.
'My name is Willie' is good, but it'll never be able to touch 'Must be the money'.

WELL ALRIGHT!

My second fav underrated Pacino role after Dick Tracy.

I've come to the opinion that there are two Pacino's - "Good Al" and "Crazy Hoo-ah Al"; and while the first is always a treat to watch, the second certainly has his appeal in livening up wretched movies. When most actors are phoning it in on some 2nd-rate project, they are disinterested. Not our Crazy Hoo-ah Al - when he thinks something sucks, he fucking ramps it up and doesn't just chew scenery as much as gulp it down whole and look for another set. It's fucking beautiful.

As far as the football scenes, I recall players saying that the speed and jarringngess of the football coverage were about as close as they've seen a movie come to actually capturing the "feel" of a game.

Last point is that SEVERAL of the major themes - the player having the shits while getting IVs, James Woods' sleazeball/borderline inept doc, etc - appear to have been lifted wholesale from the book You're Okay, It's Just a Bruise by some guy who was once a trainer/doc for the Raiders.

I pretty much dislike the movie as a whole (interminable and overwrought), but I give extra demerits to Cameron Diaz's character as the most laughably stereotypical, ballbusting cunt careerwoman outside of a Michael Crichton novel.

Oh, did you forget about this lovely lady?

(the one on the left)

I liked Charlton Heston's role in this.

"Hello everyone, I'm the league's commissioner. Goodbye."

If there's any movie that makes my penis feel small, it's this one.

KABONG's tiny penis aside, add me in to the chorus of folks who enjoyed the hell out of this movie. Even Deion Sanders couldn't screw this one up. I just love the insanity of it and the roughness of the football footage.

I love Diaz in this movie. Not necessarily one of her best performances but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

I really like the music montage with the DMX song.

Except she was supposed to be funny.

I think it's a solid movie, but not a great one. Pacino makes it fun.

The only issue I had with this film, as balls-out crazy as it is, was the lack of Zubaz pants.

Also, I forgot how good LT was in this.

Keep telling yourself it's a prosthetic attachment.

I've been rewatching this a bunch the past few days, and I really have to say: I think people should give this movie a second chance (if you did not like it)

The cast was amazing, and it's the last really weird and brilliant Stone film we ever got (I love Alexander so much, but Ms Jolie makes me have to admit it's flawed). AGS is the best foot ball film I've ever seen

Now, I don't know a single thing about the rules of the game. And I don't really care about it as anything other than a culturally significant American phenomena. So I didn't freak out when Stone edited the back and forth of gameplay down to impressionistic snippits. That was more than enough to tell me what was going on emotionally, thematically.

It's a movie with alot to say, and I think it's gangbusters. Pachino has not been better since, and every little role in the film is filled by an actor working their heart out.

Foxx's performance grows on me the more I see it, and I think Quaid turns in some of the best work of his career.

Oh, and this is literally the only film I've ever liked Cameron Diaz in.

This feels like, in many ways, the last time Stone went out on a limb and barreled ahead with his own deranged vision, naysayers be damned.

Everything since has been hurt by second guessing (All the Alexander editing nonsense), or unsure direction (large parts of W). It pains me to say it, but I feel like his confidence has been shaken.

Anyway

AGS is nutty and I think it's one of the best films about professional sports (and I think really, the movie is about many other things than that) ever made.

I'm a long time Oliver Stone fangirl, so perhaps take my statements into consideration with a healthy dose of skepticism, but I really don't understand a person who doesn't find AGS more entertaining than whatever by the numbers sports dreck Hollywood is turning out these days (Exhibit A: We Are Marshall)

I think it's a movie that you appreciate more and more as the years go by. I remember liking it but not being wowed the first time I saw it. I don't think I knew what to think, it was way different than any movie of it's kind that I'd seen before. But as time's gone on, I've learned to enjoy the film's unique charms. I think it's like M+C:TFSOTW that way. When Weir's film came out, it was met with a luke warm reception. Now people are calling it a masterpiece. Go figure.

I think in time, people are going to have to turn around on this one

PS At times my head does really spin when I try to get into Stone's headspace on some of his edits. In JFK and Nixon, every frame is basically perfect and gives a new shade of meaning to the moments that came before it. In AGS, there are weird editing choices like shots of clouds sloooowly rolling in while Foxx and Pachino shout at eachother. I'll admit Stone kind of lost me on that one.

But the rest is the bee's knees, make no mistake.

I recently rewatched Any Given Sunday, and while I liked it back then, I think it might be one of my favorite Oliver Stone movie.

While not my favorite Football movie, this is a damned good one. Although I think it's a little too long. Love the presser over the end credits and the rediclious uni's the Dallas team wears.

I watched the second half yesterday and I hated it (I'd seen the film only once and had liked it). The final game is absolutely ridiculous in it's BIG PLAYS, BIG INJURIES, BIG PERSONALITIES! Way, way over the top. It's a shame because the best aspects of the film are the politics and the lives of these characters who inhabit an alien world compared to regulars joes.

Was that not kind of the whole point of the film though? That any given sunday anything can happen? Lives can change, people can find themselves, legends can be born, and people can get their eyes ripped out?

PS Oh, BTW, the actor who played the Ref in the final scene is the person who played Mr Turner on DEADWOOD who died by LOSING HIS EYEBALL!! lol Also he was the cop who ripped the J out of Morrison's mouth in the LA Bowl concert scene in THE DOORS

PS Yes, the way it treats sports as politics is the best part though

That's the great Allan Graf, who aside from being a gifted actor is also one of the most legendary stuntmen and second unit directors (a role he also served on ANY GIVEN SUNDAY) known to man.

Whether being tossed off Peter Fonda's ledge by Terence Stamp or failing to see the humor in a Universal Soldier not being able to pay for his lunch, Graf always delivers the goods.

Thanks, I was blanking on the name but I knew he was a stuntman. Ever since Deadwood I've noticed him all over the place.

Edit:

For no good reason:


"My name is Willy. Willy Beaman!!"

The movie was a rancid pile of juvenile, nonsensical shit, only made somewhat memorable by the real-life cold cocking of Foxx by LL Cool. J that they kept in the film.

Unintelligible? Strange, I could tell what was going on in the movie.. Are you talking about the story? The dialog? The football action?

Cause if it's the football... I didn't care. I don't know how to play football and I liked the impressionistic approach that Stone took to the gameplay

The footage of the games was completely unintelligible, and to anyone with a passing of knowledge of football, physical gibberish. The rest of the film was just nonsense.

This is what my recent viewing made me discover. It's a if Any Given Sunday was filmed by a young and eager director full of ideas but short on experience. Stone seems really lost in this.

I'd wager a hefty sum that Oliver Stone knew next to nothing about the game/business of football prior to making it.

Having a single game in wich a player loses an eye, with two quarterback changes (including one due to concussion) and a player with a broken back topped off with a last minute victory reinforces your opinion.

Oh wow, you're so right. Stone really was over the top in this...

OH WAIT


Literally everything you just said is wrong.


1) The eye was lost in the last game of the film

2) The two quarterback changes were in the first game of the film

3) I've seen hte movie like 2.5 times in the past 3 days, and as far as I recall none of the QB changes were the result of concussion.

Quaid got a messed up disk in his back

Nameless QB #2 had unspecified leg injury.

And then it's Beaman till Pachino decides to put Quaid back in during the playoffs. Quaid plays the first half but Pachino can see he is through, and puts in Beaman.

NO CONCUSSED QBs

The player who may have gotten a concussion is a blocker or defender or something and his character's name was Shark. That was in the last game of the film, the one with no QB changes due to injury. Shark apparently had had numerous head injuries before. Based upon what I understand about football, that's not preposterous. By the way, the player "Shark" who plays despite risk of brain injury in order to get his signing bonus is one of the most emotionally resonant parts of the film, IMHO. His concussion in sacrifice for the team is touching, especially once they're carrying him off the field and he says "Don't drop me, I'm worth a million dollars" and you can see he has a mouth full of crooked gold teeth (presumably from getting the originals knocked out). It's about sacrificing for your team, and getting a concussion in foot ball is not over the top.



4) No one broke their back. A player was revealed to have had a broken neck that never healed properly, but that injury occurred before the film began

You imply that this player with a "broken back" was someone in addition to the QB injuries

That's not true. The only back injury in the film is Dennis Quaid, who ruptured a disc



And last but not least,


5)The eyeball

Stone knows it's over the top. Did you forget that he himself plays the football announcer in the film? His reaction to the eye is a purely comedic one. "Looks like he had.. Uhhh, some sort of injury to his eye there". Smash cut to the guy screaming on the field with his eye all fucked up. That line combined with the look on Stone's face when he says it tells you all you need to know about the eyeball.


PS As for a last minute victory.. that does not happen in football? Oh. Ok.

It was great cinema though. It was very satisfying thematically to see Fox make the jump like that, and if you watch the end press conference we know that it was a moment of fleeting glory. The next game the sharks played they got creamed. The point is that on THAT sunday, they pulled together and got it done. They were not world champions, just a team that fought for the inches that day and succeeded.


It's not like we saw them win the Superbowl ("pantheon cup") at the last minute. It was the playoffs.

The player with a broken is shark. He clearly doesn't have a concussion while Dennis Quaid's character clearly does. Both their story arcs are what implies their injuries and in Quaid's case, Stone uses effects to show he has a concussion.

Also, the double change of quaterbacks happens in the last game of the film, I didn't watch the first half last week.

I did not forget. The director being a bad actor in his own film is no argument about a film being bad because it's too over the op for a one that wants to be taken so seriously.

Again, you are literally just WRONG. No one breaks their back in the film. I just saw it twice this week and spent 20 minutes last night laying out in detail how you were wrong

Unless you can tell me WHO the player was who broke his back, please admit you are wrong. K?

PS Stone does not use "visual effects to show Quaid got a concussion". He has a blurry vision thing that happens to every character whose perspective we see during a game of football during the film.

Quaid sees ghosts of past audiences swirling with the present. The same thing happens to Beaman when he plays. It's a stylistic choice, not an indication of a head injury

PS Yes, Quaid also took a really hard hit and still wanted to play the second half of the last game. His coach decided to put Beaman in instead. Quaid was not taken out by injury though. He was still on his feet

You're just dead wrong on everything you're saying, and you're grasping at straws

PS I think Stone's acting is fine. He seems like a sports commentator.

PPS:


NO. Quaid was in the first half of the playoff game. Then Beaman in the second. That is one change. Math is your friend.

I'm sure the Knights also change their quaterback, the commentator mentionned it.

LT is the one who breaks his back.

So Quaid has a history of concussions established by the film's narrative. He takes a very hard hit on a dangerous play and then he starts seeing ghosts from his pasts. The coach takes him out of the game, but NOT because he got another concussion? If so, this film truly is absolute garbage.

I don't remember the knights changing their QB, but I'm also sure that it's happened before in FB. Plus, I really don't care. It's a movie, not a football simulation.

LT? Who/what is that?

The coach took him out of the game because he did what he needed him to do. He inspired the team. Quaid did not even think he was ready to play, but Pachino put him for one half. Quaid played well and inspired everyone, but clearly was not up for more, so then once the team was repaired coach thought he could finially put Beaman in charge.

I don't know why or how that makes the film "garbage"

The film wants to be serious and insightful about the inner workings of football but it's ridiculous and ignorant when it comes to the actual game of football. It's as if Jerry Bruckheimer produced a police procedural.

I would say The Program is a better football film than Any Given Sunday because it's tone is consistent while Stone couldn't find his.

You just compared Jerry Bruckheimer and Oliver Stone. This is where conversation between us ends


Oh, and you latched on to the last sentence of a multi paragraph post and responded to nothing else I said. This seems to make me think you can no longer defend your wrongness about the events in the film


Again, I do NOT care about the mechanics of football as a game (for the record I found the game sequences in the movie thrilling). I care about it as a cultural phenomena. And that's what Stone does brilliantly. He treats pro-sports as politics

You seem to want REMEBER THE TITANS or something.

Anyway, sorry you don't like the movie.

Cya.

Your posts contain tons of obscure acronyms yet you can't even find that LT refers to Lawrence Taylor. You've supposedly watched the film twice this week yet you don't remember the QB change but still call me WRONG.

And then you ignore what I've said about the film's balance and say the conversation is over. I'm glad it is.

I do not remember a tossed off reference to an injury on the opposing team where we never saw the hit or the injured person. You are right!

I didn't ignore what you said about the films balance. I said I disagreed and thought you didn't get what the film was about.


But yeah, nice chatting..


EDIT: I just looked up LT. He was "Shark". He was the character (As I carefully explained last night) who never ever ever broke his back at any point in the movie. You are wrong. Sorry.



Doesn't ring a bell?

You're right, he broke his neck. It changes nothing to my point.

He certainly didn't. I suspect nothing has changed since then either.

That's why the film is a wasted opportunity. I imagine Any Given Sunday would have been great in the hands of Steven Soderbergh who would have done the proper research.

Yes it does, because your point was that a crazy ammount of improbable things happen over the course one single game

The neck break did not even happen in the film it's something that happened to the character before the movie even started!

It turns out that the things you cite either did not happen at all or happened during different games

Your point has been refuted. Period

He's taken out of the game on a gurney with a neck brace, unable to move. The character's back story is that he's got a history of neck injuries.

Wrong. He moves his arms and shakes the coaches hand. Proving his neck did not break and he is not paralyzed (as was the fear when he took the hit)

Lawrence Taylor is arguably the greatest defensive lineman to have ever played the game, Kate. How can you profess to know what a football film is really about, when you don't even know who he is? How can you accurately judge the simulated games depicted in the film, when you don't know ANYTHING about football?