From my film blog, Toronto Screen Shots:

Groundhoppers (Director: Eivind Tolås, Norway, 2005): Thank goodness for the internet. While reading about obsessive football (soccer) fans who attempt to visit as many football grounds as possible, I came across the title of this Norwegian documentary. I was able to get in touch with the filmmaker and convince him to send me a copy to review. As far as I know, this film was broadcast on Norwegian television, and played a few film festivals in Europe, but has never been seen in North America. But that’s ok, because the phenomenon of “groundhopping” probably wouldn’t make as much sense here. (The only thing comparable might be someone trying to visit all the Major League baseball parks).

Kjell Morten and Bjarte are two middle-aged brothers who spend all of their vacations in England, attending football matches. Their goal is to visit all 92 grounds of the teams that comprise the Football League. This includes the Premiership (20 teams), the Championship (24 teams) and Leagues One and Two (24 teams each), which together comprise the top four tiers of English football. As you can imagine, “groundhoppers” are usually men, usually single, and have a certain amount of time and disposable income at their command.

The two Norwegians have been at it for more than ten years, and are up to sixty-odd stadia visited. Perhaps stadia is too grand a term, for some of the lower league clubs play in some very modest circumstances indeed. Basing themselves in Rotherham, “one of Britain’s poorest cities” according to the film, they’ve adopted the local team, Rotherham United, nicknamed the Millers as their home team away from home.

At home in Bergen, though, it’s all about SK Brann, and one of the film’s most charming moments comes watching the brothers as they witness their team’s triumph in Norway’s own Cup Final.

All in all, this is a light-hearted look at a harmless (if inexplicable to most) obsession. I think if I had the advantages of living in Europe (generous vacation allowances, short distances, cheap transportation, and a wealth of football clubs), I’d be joining the boys in the stands.

I have attended football matches in three different countries, though: Canada, Uruguay, and Slovenia. Just a few hundred more to go…

More on Rotherham United FC (the Millers)
More on SK Brann
Groundtastic, a magazine devoted to football grounds
Football Grounds In Focus, The No.1 Groundhopping website ‘made for travellers by travellers’
Done The Lot - Fans who have visited all 92 English Football League grounds

John Patterson writes in The Guardian about ten times the Academy has, in his opinion, gotten it dead wrong. Especially funny is number 10:

Everybody loves an underdog, but this is ridiculous. Little Miss Sunshine had such a struggle getting made that one was inclined to forgive its messy script and its poorly integrated cast. That mood lasted until I got to the parking lot, by which time I’d forgotten everything about it. Until the Oscar nominations were announced. This mouse that roared should have been stomped on a long time ago. The notion that it’s fit to compete for an Oscar in any category - it doesn’t even come close - is further evidence of the Academy’s mile-wide streak of sentimentality and gullibility in the face of a canny Oscar campaign. If this beats The Departed, I expect Martin Scorsese to pull out a machine-gun and fire randomly into the voting members as they run screaming for the exits. And he’d be within his rights, too.

Tune in tonight!

Over on my main blog, I wrote about the recently-announced nominations for the Academy Awards in the area of feature documentaries, and I got to thinking that in our “winner-take-all” culture, we sometimes forget to revisit the worthy nominees who DIDN’T win in previous years. With that in mind, here’s a companion piece to that blog entry.

The following are the non-winning nominees in the category for the past few years. I’ve put an asterisk after the ones that I’ve seen as of today. I’ve also included the winner in white text (select with your cursor to see it) so you can quiz yourself to see if you remembered who actually won the Oscar:

2005

• Darwin’s Nightmare (2004)
• Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005)*
• Murderball (2005)*
• Street Fight (2005)
• Winner: March of the Penguins (2005)*

2004

• The Story of the Weeping Camel (2003)
• Super Size Me (2004)*
• Tupac: Resurrection (2003)
• Twist of Faith (2004)
• Winner: Born Into Brothels: Calcutta’s Red Light Kids (2004)*

2003

• Balseros (2002)
• Capturing the Friedmans (2003)*
• My Architect (2003)
• The Weather Underground (2002)
• Winner: The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara (2003)*

2002

• Daughter from Danang (2002)
• Winged Migration (2001)*
• Prisoner of Paradise (2002)
• Spellbound (2002)*
• Winner: Bowling for Columbine (2002)*

2001

• Children Underground (2001)
• LaLee’s Kin: The Legacy of Cotton (2001)
• Promises (2001)
• War Photographer (2001)
• Winner: Murder on a Sunday Morning (2001)

2000

• Legacy (2000)
• Long Night’s Journey Into Day (2000)
• Scottsboro: An American Tragedy (2000)
• Sound and Fury (2000)
• Winner: Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport (2000)

After February 25, another four worthy losers will join the list of films above. Why not track some of these down and let me know what you think?

What happens when you give 14 self-confessed nerds three months of intensive and professional football training and then have them play a leading national league team?

Australian television network SBS is running an eight-week series focussing on a group of “self-confessed nerds” and complete football novices who will be turned “from mice into men” with the goal of playing one of the country’s strongest clubs, the Melbourne Victory. I’m not quite sure what to make of this. Knowing the Australian reputation for machismo, I wonder if this is just an excuse for sadists to watch these poor kids get knocked around. Even the nod to “winning isn’t everything” seems like a subtle dig, since the site reads “winning isn’t everything to Nerds FC” (emphasis mine).

Let’s hope this is a positive experience for them and not something akin to schoolyard bullying. Maybe the “nerds” can teach the professional players something about robotics or circuit boards or naval history. You know, for the period AFTER age and/or injuries take their toll and the pros have to find something else to do.

UPDATE: The Global Game reports on a similar project happening in Malaysia, with a show called MyTeam. And I guess we could also mention Football Icon, which aired in Britain a while back. How do we feel about all these “regular guy” football shows?

Thanks to Michael for a great post about Vinko Bogataj, the Slovenian ski-jumper who was for years featured in ABC’s Wide World of Sports broadcasts.

Instead of repeating, I’ll just send you off to read his excellent blog. I started reading it while researching an upcoming vacation to Slovenia. Yes, I even root for underdog countries when it comes to my own leisure time!