Time dos Sonhos

First let me confess, I fell in love with Carla Gugino in the first 'Spy Kids' movie. She is absolutely beautiful and she can act, too!

Here she is Cathy Rush , only 23 and just married. Her husband is an NBA referee thus travels a lot. Cathy had played some basketball but no coaching experience. To give her something to do, rather than just stay home when her husband was on the road, she applied for the girls basketball coaching job at a small Catholic girls college in the Philadelphia area. This is the true story of how she took this rag-tag bunch of girls, taught them principles of achievement, and went on to establish a winning basketball program.

David Boreanaz is her husband, Ed Rush. Pretty Marley Shelton (of 'Pleasantville' fame) is Sister Sunday who is having grave doubts about her vocation, but becomes the assistant coach. Ellen Burstyn is super as the mother superior of the college, Mother St. John .

The DVD also has an interesting extra which includes not only the real Cathy Rush but also some of the members of her early 1970s championship basketball teams.

Aside from just a good story, Cathy Rush and her teams represented the leading wave of the transition from the old style girls basketball (3 forwards and 3 guards, each set only playing half-court) to the new style that we know today.

Good movie!

Edit June 2019: Just watched it again on Amazon streaming, it was just like seeing it fresh, totally enjoyable viewing.

Many movies today even ones promoted as "family" movies contain such severe hints of innuendo and subtext that parents can hardly be sure if any of them are actually appropriate for their children. This movie gives what even Disney hasn't done in a very long time, and that is offer a film with morals, a message and humor that parents can actually feel good about letting their kids watch. A lot of movies called "kids movies" have PG ratings because of the presence of some crude humor and possibly suggestive behavior. This movie is rated G for a reason and anyone going into this should be aware of that. This rating means there isn't really going to be anything rude or vulgar at all so audiences be aware, if you're looking for something with bad language or innuendo then this movie most likely isn't a good bet.

When you go to a movie and want to get your monies worth you get disappointed more than you used to before. Remember when you could go to a movie without worry of having a great experience? Well, this brings that feeling back! If you like films based on a true story, go see this film! If you want to leave the theater feeling good go see this film! If you want to go to a movie and not feel like you waisted your time, go see this film! If you want to go to the movies and not feel like you waisted a dime, go see this film! If you're tired of not being able to take your kids to the movies take them and GO SEE THIS FILM!

It's 1971 at the all-girls Immaculata College outside of Philidelphia. Mother St. John (Ellen Burstyn) hires Cathy Rush (Carla Gugino) to be the basketball coach. There is no real money, the gym burnt down, and the college is threatened to be sold off. Cathy's NBA ref husband Ed Rush (David Boreanaz) wants her to be more of a housewife. The rules have recently changed to allow the girls play the men's game. Sister Sunday (Marley Shelton) becomes the assistant. The girls struggle with loss after loss until Cathy molds them into a championship team.

This is formulaic but that's no problem for a formulaic sports movie. It's endearing in its own way. The major missing element is a bigger part for one of the players performed by a bright young star. The girls are more or less blanks except for a couple scenes. They are played by relative unknowns and they don't excel. On the other hand, Carla Gugino is great. The big emotional scene of the girl silently weeping in the van after a lost is very good. However, none of the games nor the story are terribly surprising or exciting. The story is fit for a sincere feel-good telling and this does it in a very standard way.

I saw the Mighty Macs in a preview screening tonight, and came away impressed.

First, the themes, or messages, of the movie are good ones. The movie is about a small, cash-strapped girls' school that hires a basketball coach who has visions of greatness. She tries to bring the team around to her vision. So the first theme explored is the theme of staying the course, overcoming obstacles and struggling through adversity. That theme is pretty standard fare for these underdog stories, but it is done well here, and it is all the more resonant because the movie is based on a true story.

The second theme, as I see it, was about the emergence of women in sports and in life in general, and I liked the way that this theme was presented. Nowadays in movies and in the media I often see the raising up of a woman represented by radical cosmetic makeovers or some other reference to external appearance. In the Mighty Macs, the theater actually laughed when they first saw the girls' uniforms. And in one scene, one of the girls on the team who had very little money was called out by someone outside the team for her rundown clothing. Rather than gang up on her, the team rallied to that girl's help. And rather than getting new uniforms so they could be elevated by the clothes, it was the other way around – their inspired play elevated the uniforms, and now the dowdy uniforms are fondly recalled (I know because we got some nice literature from the school at the screening).

Finally, and it's sort of a side note, I liked that there were nuns in the movie, lots of them, and they were not cartoon characters. The movie showed their different personalities; their individuality even amongst their identical appearance, not unlike the team itself. At one point, one of the nuns described her journey toward her vocation, and the treatment of it was entirely respectful. It dignified rather than ridiculed her choice. That should not be remarkable at all, but to me it was, as I almost now expect to see nuns ridiculed.

A fine, fun movie for the whole family.