Murderball

[WilliamPitt]

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/050803

'Murderball' is Marvelous
By Bill Simmons
ESPN The Magazine

On the day I went to see "Murderball," the Red Sox were trying to deal Manny Ramirez, their $160 million slugger who'd requested a trade and started jogging out grounders so the team would take him seriously; Ricky Williams was mounting a comeback in Miami, where he left last year's Dolphins in the lurch to break Snoop Dogg's most-weed-smoked-in-one-calendar-year-by-a-celebrity record; and Terrell Owens was griping about a contract that he'd happily signed one year before.

See where I'm heading? This was another sobering sports summer: athletes living in a distorted reality, fans taking every slight personally, money hanging over everything. Like always.

And so "Murderball" comes at the perfect time. The movie breaks you down from the first frame, when we see Mark Zupan changing into his workout clothes. Looking a lot like the WWE's Undertaker, Zupan squirms around in his wheelchair, hoisting limp legs and yanking down his pants, dangling those same legs into a pair of shorts, then wiggling his butt so the shorts will reach his waist. There's no background music, no sounds other than a disabled guy trying to get dressed. And you feel for him.

That's the whole point. The movie wants you to feel for him. But the sooner you stop feeling sorry for the guys in "Murderball," the sooner you will enjoy the movie for what it is: a compelling story about quad rugby (basically, rugby with wheelchairs).

...more...

[KamaAina]

1. Too bad America doesn't get to see the Paralympics

they're held a few weeks after the main Olympic games, in the Olympic city, and are a part of the host city's bid. They feature a cross-section of Olympic events; I do not know if quad rugby is on the program.

Everyone gets to see them on TV -- except in the good old U.S. of A, where NBC apparently doesn't think world-class athletes with disabilities are as much of a ratings draw as, say, reruns of "Joey". Obviously, being in Boston, you get to see the wheelchair division of the Marathon each Patriot's Day (you know why they go off first? Because they're faster than the runners on foot!), but the rest of us are SOL.

P.S. It was even mentioned that the lack of Paralympic coverage may have earned New York's 2012 bid some demerits. In the words of senior IOC member Sir Nelson Muntz, "Ha-ha!"