[ad_1]
During the coronavirus shutdown, each day we will bring you a recommendation from The Post’s Peter Botte for a sports movie, TV show or book that perhaps was before your time or somehow slipped between the cracks of your viewing/reading history.
Kingpin (1996)
Rated R
Streaming: Netflix, Amazon Prime
The Big Lebowski (1998)
Rated R
Streaming: Amazon Prime
You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who was naturally funnier or made people smile more regularly than our friend and colleague Anthony Causi. In these heartbreaking days following his death from the coronavirus, perhaps these movies will provide a reason to laugh, even if briefly.
Mind you, these are two very different films with uproarious plotlines about bowling, and the Coen brothers’ cult classic “The Big Lebowski” certainly is anything but a traditional — or even an intended — sports flick.
Still, the bowling scenes alone between the White Russian-drinking, weed-smoking slacker and lead character, The Dude (Jeff Bridges), his maniacal friends Walter (John Goodman) and Donny (Steve Buscemi), and rival Jesus (John Turturro) landed the hilarious crime caper (also starring Oscar winners Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Julianne Moore) the No. 6 spot in The Athletic’s recent ranking of the Top 100 sports movies ever made.
“Kingpin,” meanwhile, leans on the traditional lowbrow hilarity of another famed brother duo — Peter and Bobby Farrelly (“Dumb and Dumber,” “There’s Something About Mary,” “Fever Pitch,” etc. — though Peter Farrelly also directed the Oscar-winning Best Picture drama “The Green Book” in 2018).
Woody Harrelson stars as Roy Munson, a drunken, prosthetic-handed former pro bowler who mentors Amish phenom Ishmael Boorg (Randy Quaid) in a quest to win a million-dollar tournament and get back at Munson’s sleazy nemesis Ernie “Big Ern” McCracken — played by the great Bill Murray of one of our previous recommendations, “Caddyshack.”
(Note: Anthony Causi’s all-time favorite movie was “Rocky,” which I fully endorsed in this series as part of our franchise ranking on March 29. He made sure to often visit the statue of the Italian Stallion whenever he was in Philadelphia, according to close friend and fellow Post photographer Charles Wenzelberg.)
Quote of Note: “Smokey, this is not ‘Nam, this is bowling. There are rules.” Walter to an opponent who stepped over the line during one bowling league game in “The Big Lebowski.”
Botte Blows: 4.2 of 5
Share this:
Let’s block ads! (Why?)
[ad_2]
