Sport

In the cloistered world of competitive surf-lifesaving, an Australian hero is de-throned as the reigning champion by a younger, gay competitor. He embarks on a campaign of intimidation and bullying against the newcomer but is forced to confront his own repressed homoerotic desire. A booze-fueled night out brings jealousy, homophobic fear and unrequited lust to a tragic and shocking climax.

Grant Willard sponsors drivers in a “new” form of race car driving called The Figure Eight. The rise and fall of one such driver is the whole story behind PIT STOP.

An uplifting family drama about a young girl breaking barriers, The Race has thirteen year old Mary Kensay (Niamh McGirr) challenge the expectations of her rural Northern Irish community by dreaming of becoming a racing driver. Her ambitions, however, are met with disdain from father Frank (Colm Meaney), as well as from her community when she enters a local karting rally. Undeterred by all obstacles she relentlessly pursues her goal in a story full of heart-warming energy, one which celebrates the empowerment of a young woman fulfilling her potential in the face of her community’s resistance.

Jerzy Skolimowski’s second feature (and first full-length narrative) cemented his status as a one-man Polish New Wave, with the rhythms of his films influenced as much by jazz and (his own) poetry as by more conventional storytelling. Skolimowski himself plays a dropout-turned-amateur boxer who’s distracted from his bouts when Teresa (Aleksandra Zawieruszanka), an old university friend, re-enters his life.

Calvin Churchill, a confidence-man, and his sidekick/stooge, “Clip” McGurk, are being pursued by an Internal Revenue agent, Henry Potke, for their failure to file an income-tax on the advice of a shyster lawyer. They are hiding out at the Desert Springs Hotel-Resort, where Calvin is working a scam by posing as a stratosphere-flyer who is looking at making Desert Springs the base of his operations. A rich airplane manufacturer sees a chance to get rid of a stratosphere balloon that he built for an unsuccessful expedition at a great loss. Calvin intends to take the money and run but his estranged wife, Alice, now a tennis instructor at the resort promises to come back to him if he will reform. Alas, reformation does not come easy for Calvin, especially when “Clip” is around, and Henry is closing in.

Two buddies visit the schoolyard of the high school they used to attend, and remember their young and dumb days. They used to be the bullies in the school, until they find their own ways of life; one as a boxer, and the other as a member of the yakuza.

The coach of a college tennis team is given an ultimatum: put together a winning team, or else.

Brash young Spanish peasant Juan Gallardo (Tyrone Power) aspires to follow his dead father’s footsteps into the bullring, despite his mother’s fears. Bidding his childhood sweetheart Carmen (Linda Darnell) farewell, Juan and his friends travel to Madrid to learn the bullfighting craft. Years later, when Juan’s fame as a matador soars, he returns to Seville to marry Carmen. Soon, Juan’s head is turned by the elegant temptress Doña Sol De Muira (Rita Hayworth), and his career takes a turn.

Enzo and Jacques have known each other for a long time. Their friendship started in their childhood days in the Mediterranean. They were not real friends in these days, but there was something they both loved and used to do the whole day long: diving. One day Jacques’ father, who was a diver too, died in the Mediterranean sea. After that incident Enzo and Jacques lost contact. After several years, Enzo and Jacques had grown up, Johanna, a young clerk in an insurance office, has to go to Peru. There she meets Jacques who is being studied by a group of scientists. He dives for some minutes into ice-cold water and the scientists monitor his physical state that is more like a dolphin than human. Johanna can not believe what she sees and gets very interested in Jacques but she’s unable to get acquainted with him. Some weeks later back in her office, she finds out that Jacques will be competing in a diving championship that takes place in Taormina, Sicily. In order to see Jacques again she …

High school football hero Steve Novak finds himself caught up in the world of big-time college athletics at Jackson University in the 1950’s. He must balance his desire to get an education with the high expectations of his coach and “benefactor,” by whose grace he is attending Jackson. Still applicable today, the movie shows that the problems of college athletics are not just a new phenomenon.