And, finally, movie makers can't resist tampering with reality, so much so that the end result is often fiction. I give you The Babe Ruth Story, in which the hard-living Bambino was rendered as a cartoon character. Who can forget when the teenage Ruth - played by the 40-something William Bendix - returned the ball he had hit through Brother Mathias' window by throwing it back through the same hole?
Anyway, people have been talking about sports movies this week since Christian Bale won a well-deserved Oscar for his role as junkie-boxer Dicky Eklund in The Fighter.
One radio talker suggested that while Bale was excellent, the best performance by an actor in a sports film was Sylvester Stallone in Rocky.
Excuse me, I just choked on a raw egg.
Rocky is a classic, and I might have agreed if I'd never seen another Stallone movie. But after a few, you quickly realize Stallone's range is more limited than Pat Burrell's.
Stallone plays Stallone, no matter the film. We've seen Rocky Balboa in camouflage (Rambo), in a zoot suit (F.I.S.T.), in a soccer uniform (Victory), and as a cop (Cop Land - "Yo, yuz have the right to remain silent . . .").
Can you really compare any Stallone performance to Robert De Niro's in Raging Bull? Or Paul Newman's and George C. Scott's in The Hustler? Or Gene Hackman's in Hoosiers?
Speaking of sports movies, Charlie Sheen, whose self-immolation is playing out in the national spotlight, had roles in two of the best, Eight Men Out and Major League.
Kind of makes you wish he'd been in a few others:
Heaven Can Wait - But Charlie Can't.
Miracle: Charlie Sheen Finishes Second Week of Rehab.
Eight Men Out, Six Hookers Arrested, Two Kilos of Coke Seized.
