ESPN 2011 FILMS COLLECTION
Studio: ESPN
MSRP: $49.95, but Amazon has it for $31.99
Running Time: 480 minutes
What’s Going On?
The follow up to the highly successful 30th Anniversary 30 for 30 Film Series ESPN put up last year, they continued to make some really great documentaries in 2011. These films follow the same format of being about stories that took place during ESPN’s first 30 years in existence. Included in this set are: THE FAB FIVE, RENÉE, HERSCHEL, CHARISMATIC and CATCHING HELL.
Who’s In It:
Being all documentaries, there aren’t any famous actors to be seen here, but the documentaries do cover stories featuring such great athletes like Chris Webber, Jalen Rose, Herschel Walker, Moises Alou and many others. The films in this set were directed by Jason Hehir (The Fab Five), Eric Drath (Renée), Rory Karpf (Herschel), Steve Michaels (Charismatic) and Alex Gibney (Catching Hell)
If You Like…:
Truly compelling stories about life, because that’s what these stories are, they’re about life and not just about sports. There are stories here that we can all relate to in one way or another and you don’t have to be a sports fan to appreciate these films.
Special Features:
There are more 100 minutes of supplemental interviews spread throughout all five of the films. Most of the time, they only serve to present a little bit more information, but for the most part, the actual films are satisfactory enough.
The Technical Gist
Their all documentaries that are shot and presented in standard definition and feature a lot of footage from before High Definition was a must have for our film watching society of today. None of that is ever a problem though. ESPN Films documentaries all still manage to look really great whether on blu-ray or DVD.
The Verdict
One of the things you’ll hear me say from time to time if you get to know me is that I feel like sports stories, particularly documentary films are amazing to me because they highlight the most cinematic real life stories and make them seem truly epic. People who don’t like sports don’t often appreciate that aspect of these films that are too easily written off by cinephiles. This collection of documentaries warrants a very strong BUY from me.
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