- Every time Matthew Fox was on screen, my inner monologue kept calling him Jears. I blame Rachel a.k.a. the Ack Attack.
- Matthew McConaughey is on complete and utter crack in this movie, although of course you can’t make a movie like this without at least one character having an irrepressible hopeful spirit, yadda yadda.
- The trauma of an entire football team (plus coaches and fans) in a plane crash doesn’t quite impact on a non-American audience, I think, not because the idea in and of itself isn’t really sad (it is) but because college sports aren’t nearly as big a deal in Canada as they are in the U.S. College football doesn’t really bind small Canadian towns together in community, mostly because small Canadian towns don’t usually have university* football teams, so while the event in and of itself would be unfortunate and sad, I can’t imagine an entire town losing its morale over the event. Which is why, I guess, this movie is not set in Canada. That, and the fact that it’s based on a true story and that American studios rarely make big budget films set in Canada.
* Now that I think of it, do Canadian colleges have football teams or is it just the universities?
- I think every movie ever filmed in the future should take place in the 1970s, and failing that all actors should be costumed in 1970s clothing. It’s just so, so hideous, it’s unreal. Plus 1970s athletes got to wear really awesome knee-high socks. [Even Jears.]
- Lots of slow-motion for emotional impact in this one.
- Although the football team only ended up winning two games in the season after the plane crash, the last game they show is the first win of the season. The better part, though, is that they win at the very last second by scoring a touch down. Even better than that (if you can believe it) is that as the camera follows — in slow-motion, of course — the path of the touchdown pass, they flash across the screen various snippets of earlier parts in the movie in case we couldn’t figure out that the hopes and dreams of one West Virginia town hinge entirely upon someone catching this ball and winning the game. You could not get any cheesier if the ball itself had been made of a nice hunk of gouda.
We Are Marshall
Two-four-six-eight, what do I appreciate? Inspirational sports stories!
IMDB Plot Synopsis When a plane crash claims the lives of members of the Marshall University football team and some of its fans, the team's new coach and his surviving players try to keep the football program alive.
Ha, Jears. Ack is awesome. You both win at life.