Those of you who know me know that there are two things in life that I absolutely cannot stomach --- Born Again Anythings and Pretentious Hollywood Movies. It is the latter of these two that I will direct my attention towards today.
You see, the clowns at Disney are at it again. This time Goofy and the Gang have released THE GREATEST GAME EVER PLAYED -- a historical feature which Mr. Cranky declares is "looser with the facts than former FEMA director Michael Brown under oath." In trying to keep up with what may very well be the single most pretentious movie title in the history of global cinema, screenwriter Mark Frost and director Bill Paxton have elected to bring this mulligan to a climax by having amateur American golfer Francis Ouimet defeat British champion Harry Vardon in the 1913 U.S. Open by one glorious stroke on the 18th hole. In actuality, Ouimet won by five (5) stokes. FIVE STROKES! That's more strokes than Hans Blix would find in a nursing home in a year. Numerous other historical inaccuracies are par for this course, but that's nowhere near what annoys me the most.
Can there be anyone anywhere in the world who actually believes that THE GREATEST GAME EVER PLAYED was on a God-damn golf course? Are you shittin' me? Disney's shittin' me -- that's for sure. The annals of truly GREAT GAMES abound in dozens of sports -- football, baseball, hockey, basketball, soccer... Hell, there's fifty-nine water polo matches in recorded history that are GREATER than a five-stroke win on a golf course, probably more. Gimme a break...
Oh yes, one more thing. In an effort to keep audience fannies in their seats these filmmaking hackers have elected to photograph gobs of golf balls from unique, never-before-seen angles. Golf balls to the left of us...golf balls to the right of us...golf balls in close-up flying through the air...golf balls straying into the rough...golf balls plopping into the cup. Well excuse me, but if I want to see a small white thing with dimples dancing all over the damn screen I'll go to a Shirely Temple film. I bet Tiger would agree...
