ever done it? way beyond the absolute, crotch-numbing, mind-blowing hilt?? You may just get a taste of it in this classic Costner film (yes, classic, forget the purist nay-sayers).
Before "Water World", "Dances With Wolves","For Love Of The Game" and "Message In A Bottle", there was "AMERICAN FLYERS." You can guage (or wager) the distance in time, maturity or credibility of Costner's films any way you want, but this little gem will not disappoint you in subject-matter interest. Let's skip all that and get to the point: this is a movie-goer's film.
You don't have to be Fausto Coppi, Louison Bobet, Jacques Anquetil, Eddie Merckx (in the film), Laurent Fignon, Bernard Hinault, Greg Lemond or even Lance Armstrong to appreciate the deep rigors of bicycle-racing in this wonderfully entertaining 1985 Steve Tesich effort. It brims with interest on several levels. Throw out the 'corny' phrases if you want, even the obligatory and patriotic PG sex scenes with David Grant and Alexandra Paul with all the phallic symbols attached - even then, I enjoyed 'em, don't care what you say.
Though the film is powerfully underscored by hard-core bicycle racing (this one is way more technical than "Breaking Away"), it's basically about competition, strategy, the preparation thereof and the humanity involved in it's surrounding cornucopia of personal involvements; the trainers, the girlfriends, the family, a twisty tragedy and the competitors, mostly embodied by the very diverse actor, director, writer and Ted Danson be-alike, Luca Bercovici well cast.
RES FIRMA NITESCERE NESCIT ["a firm resolve never weakens", or in the film, "Once you've got it up, keep it up"] boldly emprinted on the front of David Marshall Grant's new t-shirt, once he best's his brother's (Costner) clinical and physically-challenging endurance test at the Wisconsin sports training complex (administered by the much-underrated John Amos) will definitely make you either shrivel from the exhaustion of all-out effort or totally embrace it as a sportsman/woman. For me, from birth, recipient of 'bi-lateral dysplasia' (hips out of joint corrected by bloodless surgery via casts from Shriner's Children's Hospital), the film Sirened me off the couch in my 12 year old, listless, childless marriage and challenged me to prove I could be once again - this time on a legitimate racing bicycle - somehow, the athlete in my decrepit and lethargic '40s' that I was in high school as a record-setting swimmer in my late 'teens. It worked. Twenty years after the film's debut, I still owe K.C. for the life-saving change. Not only is the film workable but my life as well, thanks to that happen-stance viewing. You may want to give it a try yourself. Bicycling or not, you'll truly enjoy this 20-year-old sports-classic, family movie.
"9" for entertainment...
Before "Water World", "Dances With Wolves","For Love Of The Game" and "Message In A Bottle", there was "AMERICAN FLYERS." You can guage (or wager) the distance in time, maturity or credibility of Costner's films any way you want, but this little gem will not disappoint you in subject-matter interest. Let's skip all that and get to the point: this is a movie-goer's film.
You don't have to be Fausto Coppi, Louison Bobet, Jacques Anquetil, Eddie Merckx (in the film), Laurent Fignon, Bernard Hinault, Greg Lemond or even Lance Armstrong to appreciate the deep rigors of bicycle-racing in this wonderfully entertaining 1985 Steve Tesich effort. It brims with interest on several levels. Throw out the 'corny' phrases if you want, even the obligatory and patriotic PG sex scenes with David Grant and Alexandra Paul with all the phallic symbols attached - even then, I enjoyed 'em, don't care what you say.
Though the film is powerfully underscored by hard-core bicycle racing (this one is way more technical than "Breaking Away"), it's basically about competition, strategy, the preparation thereof and the humanity involved in it's surrounding cornucopia of personal involvements; the trainers, the girlfriends, the family, a twisty tragedy and the competitors, mostly embodied by the very diverse actor, director, writer and Ted Danson be-alike, Luca Bercovici well cast.
RES FIRMA NITESCERE NESCIT ["a firm resolve never weakens", or in the film, "Once you've got it up, keep it up"] boldly emprinted on the front of David Marshall Grant's new t-shirt, once he best's his brother's (Costner) clinical and physically-challenging endurance test at the Wisconsin sports training complex (administered by the much-underrated John Amos) will definitely make you either shrivel from the exhaustion of all-out effort or totally embrace it as a sportsman/woman. For me, from birth, recipient of 'bi-lateral dysplasia' (hips out of joint corrected by bloodless surgery via casts from Shriner's Children's Hospital), the film Sirened me off the couch in my 12 year old, listless, childless marriage and challenged me to prove I could be once again - this time on a legitimate racing bicycle - somehow, the athlete in my decrepit and lethargic '40s' that I was in high school as a record-setting swimmer in my late 'teens. It worked. Twenty years after the film's debut, I still owe K.C. for the life-saving change. Not only is the film workable but my life as well, thanks to that happen-stance viewing. You may want to give it a try yourself. Bicycling or not, you'll truly enjoy this 20-year-old sports-classic, family movie.
"9" for entertainment...