2006's third and final underdog-football-team movie, We Are Marshall (Warner Bros.), seems to distinguish itself purely on the basis of its sobering true story. In 1970, nearly every member of the Marshall University football team, plus much of its staff, died in a plane crash; with a new coach and a ragtag group of players, the small West Virginia college fielded a squad for the following season. But the film is committed to the community's grief only insofar as it can be exploited for soaring crescendos…
How much impact did actress Elisabeth Shue have in breaking gender barriers in sport and paving the way for the Olympic and World Cup triumphs of U.S. Women's Soccer? If Gracie (New Line), the semi-autobiographical crowd-pleaser directed by her husband Davis Guggenheim, is to be believed, the answer is "a whole bunch." In all fairness, the personal story and Guggenheim's energetic direction put Gracie a cut above the average sports movie. But just a sliver…
With its unique combination of skill and chance, psychology and mathematics, poker can be the most exciting game around, but aside from rare exceptions like The Cincinnati Kid and Rounders, that excitement almost never translates to the screen. Sounding perhaps the official death knell for the Texas Hold 'Em poker craze, the long-delayed, quietly released Lucky You (Warner Bros.) starts out strong, capturing the workaday grind of playing a game of chance for a living. But the clichés stack up as quickly as the cheesy poker-as-life metaphors…
Owing more than a little to Shaun Of The Dead's success, the British horror-comedy Severance (Magnolia) tries to cross George Romero with The Office by sending a group of pencil-pushing desk jockeys to a grisly retreat in backwoods Hungary. It's a clever conceit, and the film has a handful of goofily enjoyable jolts, but the end result never fully exploits the white-collar drudgery its description suggests.