Spirit of the Game, mini movie review, #MormonYankees

Rating: 3.75 out of 5 stars.

About a month ago I saw the trailer for Spirit of the Game advertised on Facebook.  I watched, fascinated.  A Mormon missionary story and sports movie in one, based on a true story about the Mormon Yankees in Australia.

The Mormon Yankees was a basketball team of Mormon missionaries who helped train the Australian Olympic basketball team during the 1950's.  The team was so strong the Olympic committee approached the Mormon Yankees to play exposition games against other basketball Olympic teams from many nations.

A really cool missionary story I had never heard about!

The comments section under the Facebook trailer was filled with many stories other users posted about their fathers or grandfathers who played on the team.  Or how their family joined the church in Australia thanks to the Mormon Yankees.  The team was such a positive influence in Australia that the LDS church tripled in size between 1955-1960.

When October 7th approached I was excited to see the movie, and I went on the Cinemark website to get the times, only to notice that Mormon Yankees wasn't playing anywhere.  After a couple of days I realized Mormon Yankees wasn't the name of the movie, Spirit of the Game was.  This is the first mistake the movie makes, choosing a wrong movie title.  Search Mormon Yankees and many articles about a movie being made about this basketball team pop up, "Spirit of the Game" not mentioned.  Searching Spirit of the Game yields Mormon Yankee results.  This movie should have been titled Mormon Yankees.

That aside, I did enjoy Spirit of the Game.  It's an uplifting movie.  Unfortunately the story telling is very clunky.  There's an unnecessary opening scene where someone gets a call that someone else has died, only I don't remember who died, and there was no follow up to this first scene.  Overall the scene transitions are rough.  Acting in parts are rough as well.

I left the movie theater uplifted.  Spirit of the Game is not a Mormon Movie classic--Best Two Years is still my favorite--I'm still glad I saw it.  The story behind the Mormon Yankees is worth telling, though I wish it was better done.

MPAA: Rated PG for mild thematic elements.

Getting Into the Fifa World Cup Spirit, from a Nerds Point of View

 I'm a bit of a nerd.

For the longest time I thought I was more geek then nerd (I know many people think they're about the same, but this isn't the blog post for that), but after conversations with my family I've realized I was in nerd-denial.

I am a nerd.

Bona fide.  100%.  Classic textbook.

In short, if I had a choice of going to a sports game vs. spending several hours in a library or bookstore, I'd choose the books.

(Unless it's baseball, in that case bring on the hot dogs and Cracker Jacks.)

That being said, I've been trying to branch out a little.  See if I might like sports beyond the Olympics, Ice Skating, or occasional minor league baseball game, so I picked a sport to try a couple months ago, Soccer, thanks to the Real Salt Lake team who are quite popular here.

It's interesting, but I'm not quite hooked yet.  As far as I can tell people run back and forth trying to make a single point.  2 points in a professional game is really good.  Just running back and forth.  (You can fast forward a game and get the gist.)  I know!!  Not giving the experience what it's worth!  Not giving soccer a true try.

I've heard that seeing a game in person is a lot better then watching it on TV.  That's surely the case for baseball.  I want to catch at least one live Real Salt Lake game this season before making my assessment on soccer, then I'll try out another sport.  Salt Lake Jazz?  Maybe.

(I just Googled "Salt Lake Jazz" to add a link, but discovered a Jazz music festival in Salt Lake this July instead.  I love jazz.)

Anyway, enter the Fifa World Cup!

I've watched most of the games so far.  Accomplishment.  (Granted, some of the games were fast forwarded, but I did go back to watch goals and referee calls.)

When I wrote on Twitter, "Just finished watching the #WorldCup2014 game between Brazil and Croatia. Congrats to Brazil. Still thinking about that yellow card . . ." a few days ago, my brother Steven wrote:

"Still shocked that you are still watching..."

Then Robbie wrote: "Impressed."

Come on, this isn't any stranger then my Dad getting into NASCAR!

Though, gotta admit, watching cars spin off the track is pretty fun.

But I was suddenly reminded of this picture.

Place: Bee's baseball game in Salt Lake.

What: Robbie and Michael playing their Nintendo DS's instead of watching, and being quite proud of the fact.

When: Many moons ago, aka years.

I asked Robbie yesterday if he wanted to watch the Argentina team, and he declined!  Choosing to watch a Star Trek marathon instead!  (It did make me nostalgic over Star Trek Voyager, and a realization that I should watch all of Deep Space Nine.)

That being said, I am actually enjoying the World Cup.  Fast forwarding aside.

The game between The Netherlands and Spain was really good.  Sad Japan lost their game.  Happy Argentina won theirs.

And the USA game is about to start!  They're playing Ghana.  (I'll be watching that tonight.)

June 22nd is Portugal

June 26 is Germany.

So far the jury's still out, but I'm giving Soccer a fair chance, and learning a little something along the way :0)