Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!: Any Given Sunday (1999) - Stone's bloated sports epic is mostly for football fans

6/18/2021

Any Given Sunday (1999) - Stone's bloated sports epic is mostly for football fans

♥♥

+ Best Actor's Breakthrough of the Year: Jamie Foxx

Al Pacino's screaming, massive face among the faces of his co-stars in a background of dark-toned American football imagery makes up this poster for Oliver Stone's Any Given Sunday

The Miami Sharks' football team are under scrutiny during a dramatic season: The passionate coach, the owner, the city rulers, the quarterback star, the injuries, the fights ...

Any Given Sunday is written by John Logan (Hugo (2011)) and great New-Yorker co-writer/director Oliver Stone (Seizure (1974)), with Daniel Pyne (The Hard Way (1991)) contributing story elements.

It is a an enormously turgid, macho football movie with more shower scenes than many other sports pictures put together, - but it might also be an accurate portrayal of NFL football. It gets near to parodying itself as a sports epic, where the sprawling, character-focused, plot-less structure gives an eclectic experience of the football culture, where a game can feel like a life or death event, more important than anything else in the world.

The film has big, mannered performances (Al Pacino (Bobby Deerfield (1977)) goes berserk); a sexy and well-acting new star (Jamie Foxx (The Great White Hype (1996))); and Stone's cinematic grip on techniques and pizazz, which lifts Any Given Sunday a knee cap over strict banality.

Oliver Stone: 2016 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]

2016 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

2016 in films - according to Film Excess

Snowden (2016) - Stone's inflammatory political thriller is a powerful must-see

2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]

2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]

2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps/Wall Street 2/Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps (2010) - Stone's sequel is an entertaining spectacle

1999 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess

Born on the Fourth of July (1989) or, Beautiful Struggle

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 55 mil. $

Box office: 100.2 mil. $

= Big flop (returned 1.82 times its cost)

[Any Given Sunday premiered 16 December (California) and runs 162 minutes with a director's cut running 156 minutes. Stone went through several writers and books in the course of developing and refining the script. Cameron Diaz (Knight and Day (2010)) was paid 500k $ for her performance in the film. Shooting took place from January - April 1999 in Texas, including Dallas, and in Miami, Florida. The film opened #1 to a 13.5 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it remained in the top 5 for another 2 weekends (#5-#4) and grossed 75.5 mil. $ ( 75.3 % of the total gross). Roger Ebert gave the film a 3/4 star review, translating to 2 notches over this one. Stone returned with Commandante (2003, documentary), America Undercover (2003-04, documentary) and theatrically with Alexander (2004). Pacino returned in Chinese Coffee (2000); Foxx in Bait (2000); and Diaz in Things You Can Tell Just By Looking at Her (2000). Any Given Sunday is rotten at 52 % with a 5.60/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Any Given Sunday?

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Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!

Eagerly anticipating this week ... (17-24)