Miracle (Full Display screen Version)

Great movie
Good one for the whole family

Where Sports Cliches Came From
This movie is riddled with clichés. In fact, it seems that so many sports film clichés found in the 80s, 90s, and 2000s were somehow inspired from this true story. The thing is, so many of these clichés actually happened…very little was dramatized. And while I’m not a fan of clichés and normally push a film down a notch in the ratings, this film makes up for it’s many clichés by remaining true to its source material and for showing us the state America was in, enhancing the importance of this now-legendary game. Personally, I could watch this film over and over again. I’ve never had an opinion about Kurt Russell and I don’t know that much about Herb Brooks, but I know enough about coaches to say that the former portrayed the latter very well. It’s sad that the real Herb Brooks died in a car accident during production. But since a great coach only gets a team so far, I will now commend the decision to hire the players for their hockey skills rather than their acting abilities…I think everyone was able to do just fine because they were in their element out on that ice. When they called themselves a “team” or a “family”, I believed them. This has often been called the greatest sports film of all time and I agree with this opinion…I would recommend this film to anyone. Sure, the games were sometimes rushed, but the film could only be that long. They’re still enjoyable and it was great to have Ken Dryden and Al Michaels commentating as they had done back in 1980…and yes, Michaels’s famous line is included perfectly. Enjoy.

THE Hockey Movie
“Miracle” is much more that just a true account of an improbable and what should have been a virtually impossible – upset gold medal victory – in the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid. Like a perfect storm the chronicles of Herb Brooks (an intriguing and remarkable man) and the 1980 US Olympic Hockey Team is more than just a “story”. At a time when the Rissian threat was real and in the midst of the cold war, a bunch of amatuer, rag tag – but talented – US “kids” from college – beat the unbeatable and the “professional” Red Army / USSR Hockey team. It shouldn’t have happenned – but coach Brooks conviced his inferior but hard working kids – that they COULD. The casting is as good as the movie – all players / actors in the movie that were cast played hockey at some level. Being from Boston I could relate to the local players and their families who sacrificed so much for the opportunity to play on this team. Kurt Russell is excellent as Coach Brooks. My favorite scene is when Mike Eruzione (the team captain) decides to respond to coach Brooks while the team is being taught “a lesson.” The team comes together and Brook’s plan as coach does too. You don’t have to love hockey to enjoy this movie – but any kid that ever played at any age or at any level MUST see this movie. It is as inspiring as any movie you will ever see!

calssic
This is a true feel-good movie, and more or less true too.The quality of the disk and the viewing went off without a hitch.This is a good, fun film to watch and the quality is up to the standards we want.

que dire d un film historique ou l histoire c est réellement passer et en plus sur le hockey qui est ma passion . meme si vous n aimez pas le hockey c est un film a voir

great & saw them

One of my favourite movies. Growing up as a pairs figure-skating “rink rat”, I had several hockey-playing boyfriends in my teens, they tending to view female pairs skaters like hockey goalies, in that they admired their courage but thought both groups were a bit crazy to do what they did. So while not a fan of major team sports in general, I do love hockey. As a Canadian, I’m willing to overlook the rah-rah Americanism of this film, partly because the story is so exciting, and partly because it was filmed in my province of British Columbia and I’ve skated in several of the rinks used and recognized many of the outdoor settings. I’ve watched “Miracle” many, many times, and find so much of it is “Band of Brothers” (also a favourite of mine) in microcosm. A group of very young men (average age 21) gradually emerges from thousands of would-be volunteers to form an elite troop with a mission. (USA 1980 Olympics hockey team/Easy Company of paratroopers. The Olympics gold medal during the Cold War/victory in WW2.)They’re pushed through intense training that is borderline sadism by a leader determined to make them the physically-fittest group possible. (Coach Herb Brooks/Captain Sobel.) An assistant leader tries to be a calming influence and takes their side. (Assistant Coach Craig Patrick/Lt. Winters.) Some members of the group to whom the viewer has become attached are lost/cut from the team along the way, and some are seriously injured. There’s a resident hothead who has to be reined in. (Jack O’Callahan/Bill Guarnere or Joe Liebgott.) Amidst the exciting speed of hockey practices and games, there’s a quiet, contemplative scene of the group mentally preparing themselves for a serious mission. (The team in the locker room before their most important game, which is not the one for the gold medal/Easy Company gathered together before a dangerous patrol just as the war is winding down.) And there’s the opposing force, stronger than they are in some ways. (The dominant USSR hockey team/the Nazis who outnumbered the paratroopers in numbers and artillery power in the WW2 Battle of the Bulge.) And the exhilaration of victory. Plus the unusually-strong bonding of both the real-life men, and the actors who portrayed them.Extra praise for the camera work in “Miracle”, which gets right among the action on the ice, showing the speed and skill and raw physicality of the sport. The cast are all strong in their roles, particularly Kurt Russell as Herb Brooks, the few actors-who’d-played-hockey in the key speaking parts, and the hockey-players-who-learned-how-to-act as the rest of the team and their opponents, who learned to just relax and be natural and forget the cameras were there. And the smallest details were as accurate as the film-makers could manage.My idea of the perfect weekend would be to binge-watch “Miracle” and the “Band of Brother” series again for the umpteenth time. Both are worth rewatching many times just to notice details not seen the first time, and gradually be able to pick out individuals who all blur together at first — all young Caucasian men, most of them dark-haired, and all wearing uniforms and helmets, with faces either sweaty or mud-streaked. (And as eye-candy for female viewers, there’s Michael Mantenuto’s hair in “Miracle”, long, dark blond, and incredibly thick and wavy — even if you know, sadly, that after that movie and a couple of others Mantenuto went on to give up hockey and acting to become a Special Forces soldier and then committed suicide at 35 with PTSD.)