Great review. Still excited to see it on Monday.
Did they answer any questions worth mentioning?
Win! (Sports Documentary)-- Who's going to the Tribeca Film Festival screenings?
- Thread starter Grexicania
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Did they answer any questions worth mentioning?
I saw the film last night. I enjoyed it, although as an earlier poster stated, we all have our own lens on the beginning of the club, so there were some enlightening moments and others that were pretty basic. My wife (who is not a sports fan) enjoyed it, so the movie is well done enough to interest a general viewer.
(Spoiler alert)
I couldn't help but view the film in terms of Kreis as the doomed leader. There are small snippets in the film where it is clear that he wasn't able to mold the team in the style that he wanted. At other times, however, you can see the mistakes that were made in creating the roster. There is a scene where Kreis is overjoyed with himself over being able to draft both Grabavoy and Wingert. As we all know, both didn't pan out and were the subjects of much derision here and on reddit.
I was able to ask Reyna his thoughts on seeing a film where so many of the main characters were no longer with the club and how goes forward after seeing how the decision making worked and failed over the year. He gave a good answer, basically saying that transition is the name of the game in sports and that you have to learn from your past decisions and keep moving forward.
An Irish gentleman asked about the discrepancies in player salaries and how long MLS would continue to use the current salary structure. Reyna replied that he didn't see things changing for a while due to the league needing to continue to grow the sport.
A couple of people asked filmmaking questions, and then a fanboy got to finish off the night with some congratulatory platitudes for Reyna and Villa.
Soriano was there, and one of the funnier moments of the night was some random audience member loudly telling Joe Tolleson to sit down because he was blocking his view of the screen before the film started. I wanted to yell out, "You'll have to forgive him, he's used to being in front of a green screen.", but I wasn't that quick-witted.
(Spoiler alert)
I couldn't help but view the film in terms of Kreis as the doomed leader. There are small snippets in the film where it is clear that he wasn't able to mold the team in the style that he wanted. At other times, however, you can see the mistakes that were made in creating the roster. There is a scene where Kreis is overjoyed with himself over being able to draft both Grabavoy and Wingert. As we all know, both didn't pan out and were the subjects of much derision here and on reddit.
I was able to ask Reyna his thoughts on seeing a film where so many of the main characters were no longer with the club and how goes forward after seeing how the decision making worked and failed over the year. He gave a good answer, basically saying that transition is the name of the game in sports and that you have to learn from your past decisions and keep moving forward.
An Irish gentleman asked about the discrepancies in player salaries and how long MLS would continue to use the current salary structure. Reyna replied that he didn't see things changing for a while due to the league needing to continue to grow the sport.
A couple of people asked filmmaking questions, and then a fanboy got to finish off the night with some congratulatory platitudes for Reyna and Villa.
Soriano was there, and one of the funnier moments of the night was some random audience member loudly telling Joe Tolleson to sit down because he was blocking his view of the screen before the film started. I wanted to yell out, "You'll have to forgive him, he's used to being in front of a green screen.", but I wasn't that quick-witted.
Sidebar: I love that Tolleson story. I actually miss hearing him with all the home games. Unique sense of humor that most play-by-play guys would rather smother than let flourish.
I saw it last night as well, and don't have a ton more to add. A thoroughly unrigorous cinematic experience, but, that was to be expected. Like Ebert said, you should judge a movie for what it is, not what you want it to be.
Having said that, I'm not entirely sure what this movie wanted to be. It was neither uplifting triumphal sports drama nor revealing expose, while having elements of both. It did a good job early on of setting up various personal threads (Kreis, Reyna, David Villa, the fan), but those sort of fizzled as the film progressed. There were some telling scenes of administrative disconnect or (especially in retrospect) failure-in-motion, but these were hardly explored in depth. There was just enough of a hint of this kind of thing to give the appearance of it not being a complete propaganda piece, but at the end of the day it's a copyright CFG 2016 film and not an independent project. Maybe it's because I know how the season played out, but the motivational music and scenes around the goals being scored felt flat to me.
I think Kreis come off poorly, but not in an extreme way. Aside from one comment from Reyna about Kreis coming to him with personal doubts behind closed doors, they didn't really throw him under the bus either. But these players never looked truly inspired under his leadership. I'm not a prude by any sense of the imagination, but all of his cursing came off as faux-bravado. Like the scene where he says "who's gonna be the dick out there tonight?!" and David Villa is just sorta like "????." I actually kind of felt bad for him getting herded around like cattle of CFG in Melbourne. Ned Grabavoy similarly came off a great dad, but a total grump of a teammate.
Little things were cool, like seeing players discussing how TV deals might affect the CBA, or watching the expansion draft actually take place. Hearing the filmmaker say that the movie was originally designed to go up to the home opener, but then they decided to follow the story as the results dried up, explained a problem I had with the movie where it seemed very front-loaded with time spent on the lead-up to the season.
Having said that, I'm not entirely sure what this movie wanted to be. It was neither uplifting triumphal sports drama nor revealing expose, while having elements of both. It did a good job early on of setting up various personal threads (Kreis, Reyna, David Villa, the fan), but those sort of fizzled as the film progressed. There were some telling scenes of administrative disconnect or (especially in retrospect) failure-in-motion, but these were hardly explored in depth. There was just enough of a hint of this kind of thing to give the appearance of it not being a complete propaganda piece, but at the end of the day it's a copyright CFG 2016 film and not an independent project. Maybe it's because I know how the season played out, but the motivational music and scenes around the goals being scored felt flat to me.
I think Kreis come off poorly, but not in an extreme way. Aside from one comment from Reyna about Kreis coming to him with personal doubts behind closed doors, they didn't really throw him under the bus either. But these players never looked truly inspired under his leadership. I'm not a prude by any sense of the imagination, but all of his cursing came off as faux-bravado. Like the scene where he says "who's gonna be the dick out there tonight?!" and David Villa is just sorta like "????." I actually kind of felt bad for him getting herded around like cattle of CFG in Melbourne. Ned Grabavoy similarly came off a great dad, but a total grump of a teammate.
Little things were cool, like seeing players discussing how TV deals might affect the CBA, or watching the expansion draft actually take place. Hearing the filmmaker say that the movie was originally designed to go up to the home opener, but then they decided to follow the story as the results dried up, explained a problem I had with the movie where it seemed very front-loaded with time spent on the lead-up to the season.
I have an extra ticket for the 5pm TODAY showing. Happy to give away - PM me if you want it, ill meet you by the theater at 430.
I can't stand the thought of sitting through this film. But at the same time, I'm happy you guys are telling me what happens in it.
#itscomplicated.
#itscomplicated.
Waiting for the iTunes release so I can fast forward through all those Jesus Kreis moments.
Bottom line, the movie isn't for anyone on here. Its like a ra ra introduction for non-nycfc fans.
Can't disagree with anything said previously on this thread. I was in hysterics during the expansion draft scene as the Wingert-Grabavoy "coup" unfolded. The film was light on new information, but it was nice to get a better sense of the atmosphere and the personalities involved. Reyna came off pretty well, but it was interesting how meek he was and how easily he folded when Soriano delivered the news about Lampard.
They actually showed that scene? I may end up watching this, but like our young Lion I'll likely wait until it is available streamed from somewhere.
I wonder what the board and behind the scenes views are on Lampard now, since it looks like he basically being paid to be on holiday
I got the impression that CFG was not prepared for the economics of MLS. There was one scene where Reyna basically had be given 30 scouting reports for guys that were impossible for the team to afford because of the cap.
This is infuriating. I've never been part of the faction that maintained foreigners and people without prior MLS experience could not succeed here. I've also never been a part of the crowd that has argued CFG is so fecking smart and successful with ManC that they will take this league by storm.
But I did assume CFG would have a minimum ability to understand the basic concept of a salary cap and work within it.
It's complicated at the edges.
It's complicated if you plan to skirt the rules and slide along the border of compliance.
But the basic f@#$ing concept that you have a set budget and cannot go over ain't that damn hard to understand.
We are apparently run by morons who had to learn (1) they need to alter their spelling and occasional slang to write to an American audience, (2) not everyone in NYC would be excited by an exact MC jersey replica, (3) having the NYCFC Twitter account celebrate Fatso's first goal after we got screwed on New Year's Day was a bad idea, and (4) we have a salary cap! It's like they don't even fucking know we are a different team in a different city in a different league with our own customs, rules, and interests. Is everyone in Manchester this damn stupid!?!?!?
I didn't get the sense that they were unaware of the salary cap. At the risk of throwing spoilers out there, I think that the scene you're talking about (where Reyna is talking to somebody on the phone in front of a set of scouting reports) is actually about being restricted from approaching players unless they've been scouted by CFG, vs. players the NYCFC scouts / agents had seen themselves.
It definitely didn't feel like a CFG-adoring puff piece to me. They came off as sort of low-grade business school-y to me. There were loads of Powerpoints and talks about a "new model" and showing the world that the real model was a better one, but they didn't talk specifically about the benefits of their scale. The decision to rob NYCFC of Lampard at a relatively germinal stage of the club for the relatively incremental benefit of having him as backup at MCFC doesn't feel well thought-out or rigorous, and I got the sense that they take the strength of their model based on their size as given, rather than having specific, rationalized plans for taking advantage of it.
If this is a more accurate explanation of the scene, then that obviously tempers my reaction to the prior description.
The scene I was talking about happen after that one. I don't want to say that they were unaware of the salary cap, but there were just a couple of scene when they were talking about the cap and the CFG suits looked like deer in headlights. It didn't seem like there was a master plan other than ok we will spend this amount on the DPs and go fill the roster with other players.
And to go off your low-grade business school comment, how about you put the fucking phone in your pocket when you are talking to your players before the first game in the history of the club.
