We're down to our penultimate match-up in our outstanding, amazing, wonderful tournament to determine which movie you, the readers of The Daily Norseman, feel is the greatest football movie of all time.
The College bracket came to an end with The Waterboy stomping a bayou-sized hole in the folks from Necessary Roughness, as Bobby Boucher and company took home 211 of the 299 votes cast (70.6%) to get themselves a spot in the finals.
So who will match-up with The Replacements and The Waterboy in the grand finale of this tournament? Can Adam Sandler have not one, but two of the three finals entries, or will Denzel Washington and company have what it takes to knock them down?
The combatants. . .after the jump!
The Longest Yard
Apologies. . .the trailer above is for the 2005 remake. The only thing I could find for the 1974 version was something hyping a DVD release. Then again, since they're essentially the same movie, I guess the difference isn't that great. I just prefer the older version. Your mileage may vary.
The Longest Yard centers around Paul Crewe (played in the original by Burt Reynolds), a former star professional quarterback who was kicked out of the league for point shaving. After getting into a fight with his girlfriend, Crewe gets drunk and drives his girlfriends car off of a pier, winding up with an 18-month prison sentence as a result. After being harassed by both his fellow inmates and the guards at the prison, the warden eventually compels Crewe to put together a team of inmates to take on the prison's guards, who have a semi-pro team of their own, and many of whom are big enough and fast enough to play at the pro level. Most of the prisoners have no football experience, and the African-American players won't even talk to Crewe about joining the squad. . .at first.
Eventually, game day comes around and the prisoners actually have a shot at taking down the guards. At halftime, the prison warden comes to Crewe and tells him that if he doesn't lose this game to the guards, he'll pin a crime on Crewe that they both know he didn't commit. From there. . .well, I don't think I want to spoil the ending, although I'm sure most folks here have seen the film already.
The Longest Yard won the 1975 Golden Globe Award for Best Picture (Musical or Comedy). The 2005 version is pretty good, too. . .after all, as I said earlier, it's essentially the same movie. . .but I simply prefer the Burt Reynolds version.
Remember The Titans
Remember The Titans is the story of Herman Boone (Denzel Washington), who is a black man hired as the head football coach at T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, Virginia in 1971. The football team at the school is a mixture of black and white players, and there is a great deal of racial tension both in the locker room and in the classroom. Boone takes over the head coaching position from the legendary Bill Yoast (Will Patton). Boone offers Yoast an assistant coaching spot with the team, and Yoast refuses at first, but then accepts after the team's white players threaten to boycott the season if he doesn't accept it.
The white and black players on the team still continue to clash in racially motivated conflicts at their football camp, but Boone is eventually able to get them to work together. After returning from the football camp, Boone is told by a member of the school board that if the team loses so much as one game, Boone will be fired. The team triumphs despite having to deal with biased officiating and other major obstacles.
There you have it, ladies and gentlemen. . .voting starts now, and will run for three days.