cinema can fill in the empty spaces of your life and your loneliness

The SAMs: Movies I can't Help But Watch, episode II (see this post for the first episode).

• Tin Cup. Sweet, funny, populated with "golf people" but without too much overt lameness, this is Kevin Costner at his gorgeous prime.
  AWARD: Best golf movie. Runners-up:
  
  • Caddyshack (definitely the best comedy-golf-movie)
  • The Legend of Bagger Vance (an amazing philosophy film which happens to be about golf)
  • The Greatest Game Ever Played (mesmerizing)
  • Bobby Jones, Stroke of Genius (I can't quite decide what I think about this, since I've always been more a Gene Sarazen fan
• Sexy Beast. Ray Winstone is a genius, and if you've only seen Ben Kingsley in Gandhi and the like, well...holy shit, you'll die watching this.
  
  AWARD: Best movie in English requiring the use of subtitles (runner-up:The Full Monty. No, I haven't yet seen Gosford Park.)
• Lost in La Mancha. The story of how Terry Gilliam (of Monty Python fame) didn't quite get to make his film version of Cervantes' novel.
  
  AWARD: Best documentary. Period.
• Schindler's List.
  AWARD: Best movie that I never need to see again. (For a wonderful take on this very subject, see The Cat's recent post.) Runners-up:
  
  • Blood Diamond
  • The Constant Gardener
  • Goodfellas
• Bull Durham. I love baseball books, and I love baseball movies. They have to really get it, though, and not just be either stupid or hyper-critical of famous players. Bull Durham has just the right mix of knowledge, nostalgia, wit, sass, tenderness, foolishness, and hope-beyond-reason. And hot Kevin Costner!
  AWARD: Best baseball movie. Runners-up:
  
  • Field of Dreams. More Kevin Costner! And more nostalgia.
  • Major League. More silliness.
  • A League of Their Own. Tom Hanks & Geena Davis - Adorable Squared.
  • The Sandlot. Best kids' baseball movie, though I can never watch it again.
  • 42. The best Harrison Ford movie I've seen in years - though it's all about Chadwick Boseman, who nailed it.
  • The Natural. One of those movies that it kind of hurts to watch, but it's too good not to.
• The Big Blue (Le Grand Bleu). A Jean Reno movie, a deep-sea diving movie, a gorgeously filmed movie, an honestly funny movie (I swear there's a scene where the actors are spontaneously laughing, unscripted), a love story, and a tragedy. Unforgettable.
  
  AWARD: Best movie that makes me sob every single time I see it. Beautiful.
• Win a Date with Tad Hamilton! Topher Grace, Josh Duhamel, and Kate Bosworth. All kinds of cute.
  
  AWARD: Best movie you think will be dumb as dirt, but turns out to be a little thinky and better than you'd feared. Runner-up: Employee of the Month (yep, that's Dane Cook with Jessica Simpson. Trust me on this.)

Thoughts? Comments? Questions?

[the title quotation is by Pedro Almodóvar]