Olympia

A low-budget Field of Dreams straight out of left field, OLYMPIA charts a Mexican soap opera star's single-minded quest to become a javelin-throwing sensation. Newcomer Carmen Nogales is the monomaniacal Olympia Miraflores, who chucks fame and fortune in pursuit of her impossible dream. Her surly manager (Damian Young, AMATEUR) winces watching his meal ticket swim across the Rio Grande clutching her javelin as if it were a magic milagro bean to ward off evil and misfortune. But the headstrong Olympia won't be dissuaded and in Laredo finds an unlikely ally - a slovenly sad-sack coach named Billy (Jason Andrews, BOOGIE NIGHTS), whose previous athletic training has consisted of parading in a taco costume at a fast food restaurant. Shot on a shoestring budget, Olympia has an affable charm buoyed by its game performances, especially that of Andrews as a loser who needs a stiff shot of encouragement to redirect his aimless life.

This sweetly innocent yet infectious movie diagnoses the malaise of an interdependently skilled society and prescribes a dose of premeditated spontaneity as nepenthe. The movie will change you. The javelin throwing Oly and her bumbling obsessed coaches will remind any viewer of their own fascinations with the unattainable love paradigms that others present to us. Rock on Mr. Byington! We salute you.