Filed under: Boston Red Sox, Boston Bruins, Boston Celtics, New England Patriots
So as part of my “Patriots lost to Broncos and are not in the SuperBowl this year” coping mechanism, I made some impulse purchases to help cheer myself up. One of which was a DVD entitled City of Champions: Best of Boston. It was a little more expensive than my SuperBowl XXXVIII DVD but I was hurting too much to care. I am since over it(seeing as pitchers & catchers is three days away) but didn’t actually have a chance to watch the DVD until this weekend.
The DVD itself was just about what you would expect. It showed just about every highlight clip from every important or big Boston sporting event. The opening reel, set to “O Fotuna” successfully gave me goose bumps and was about as inspiring as the first time you ever heard “Eye of the Tiger”.
The following format of the movie consisted of a musical highlight reel focusing on a particular motif(e.g. championships, the retirement of Boston sports stars, etc.), then interview clips with certain Boston sports figures discussing a particular person or team, and then finally clips of that person, team, or event. Pretty much every clip or event that you would want is featured in some aspect on the film. Some are given more time and effort than others though.
My main complaint with the DVD is that it didn’t seem to have much rhyme or reason to when each clip or highlight reel came up. It was also pretty random in terms of which events were given a lot of coverage. It seemed that they just sort of combined a few Boston sports clips in no particular order sometimes, hoping that the viewers will be so excited to see highlights of their favorite Boston sports figures that they won’t care what order they are in.
One thing that I did really enjoy and found pretty original was the format of the interviews. They used interviews from about twelve or fifteen Boston sports personalities including Peter Gammons, Theo Epstein, Tommy Heinson, and Doug Flutie. However, rather than solely include each person’s comments on their own sport or team, they primarily use comments of these sports figures on the other sports franchises or people. For instance Jerry Remy comments on the Patriots, Theo talks about the Celtics, Doug Flutie on the Sox etc. It kind of seems awkward at first but then you realize all these people grew up around Boston. It also unifies all the Boston sports teams in a certain way, which gave me one of those warm fuzzy feelings and really made me proud to be a Boston fan.
Its also obvious that the producers of the movie are from Boston or at least consulted with Boston fans during the making of the movie. There is no crap about the Curse of the Bambino and they even include interviews with Peter Gammons, Jerry Remy, and Theo dissipating the phony myth. The movie also includes footage of some real local stars including Rocky Marciano(no Lou Merloni though). It was refreshing to have a local spirit to the movie rather than come cookie cutter or professional take.
One thing I realized was how lucky we have been to be Boston fans. The movie was over an hour long and I still didn’t think it even came close to fulfilling its potential as an all encompassing Boston sports documentary. This disappointment eventually turned to pride as I realized that no 108 minute documentary could ever fully cover each memorable Boston sports moment, team, or player. It literally would take a mini-series or DVD box set to fully cover the sports history in the Olde Town. I look at cities like Tampa Bay, Seattle, or Milwaukee and think that their all encompassing DVD highlight film could be limited to a SuperBowl run, dunk highlight reel, or intramural softball tournament that they and some of their drunk buddies came in third place in.
In any event, the movie itself was slightly disappointing but not necessarily by its own fault. The opening highlight clip is worth checking out although it would be better for a few people to chip in and buy it. It was also make a pretty good gift for big Boston sports fans, especially dads because they would probably appreciate it more and because they never had cool “D-V-D-s” when they were young to constantly rehash Boston sports triumphs at the click of a button. Final Grade: B
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