What is your opinion of the movie McFarland, USA?

I recommend a book that came out last year called “Running to Glory “ by Sam McManis. It’s an undiscovered gem. It’s a cross+country season with Eisenhower High in Washington. The team is 90% Latino and is coached by a Irish ex pat named Phil English. No Hollywood ending but it definitely shows what a great coach can do.

As a cop in real life, Dimacio Diaz poisoned children with drugs in Bakersfield and was given only a 5 year sentence. He should have gotton Life Imprisonment with NO PAROLE.

It’s a good message movie. I like “true life” stories where they follow up on the characters in later life.

mwh wrote:

no cool handle wrote:

My older son watches the movie 2-3 times a week, and takes it a little too seriously, but enjoys it quite a bit. He's a solid athlete, and tries really hard in running, but he's not as fast as some of his friends. He runs 2-3 days a week and pretends to be different kids from the team.

Cool story, but that's a bit extreme to watch the movie as many times per week as running.

he's 9. he watches it the nights before he runs the next morning.

no cool handle wrote:

mwh wrote:

Cool story, but that's a bit extreme to watch the movie as many times per week as running.

he's 9. he watches it the nights before he runs the next morning.

Your son is obsessed

I loved it. I am enjoying it right now with some ice cream.

pffft wrote:

It’s a good message movie. I like “true life” stories where they follow up on the characters in later life.

I agree

I liked Hoop Dreams and I liked this movie. I grew up in the 70's's in a largely hispanic town in California on the wrong side of the tracks too. It was like hanging back at home all again. As bad as some of the worst Cholos were , I really have no regrets for myself. I live in a zip code envy place now and it's clear to me that the world is a ghetto no more no less pretty much all zip codes. it's actually easier for me to see the charm in a place like Mcfarland.

But the movie is about as good as a movie gets for me. My kids liked it too. Everybody likes it.

I also like those types of movies. It wasn't so much the movie, but the story for me. It was good, but I didn't find it great. Or maybe it was the movie doing just on OK job portraying the real story. A couple similar movies I enjoyed more, though not ab running but rather baseball with kids of the same age, were Final Season and Perfect Game. Both based on true stories.

Final Season was about a boys high school baseball team in Iowa that won the state championship year after year, in the 90s, and then the school district wanted to merge their small school with a larger school district. The small town didn't want to merge, both for social and, economic and baseball reasons, and the story was about their final baseball season and it had a nice follow up of the characters.

Perfect Game was about a Little League team from Mexico who defied odds to make it to the Little League World Series back in the 50s I think, despite barely having enough money to make the trip across the border, and then based on the title you can figure out what happens in the championship game, but this was before the series was a big deal like it is today with the ESPN interviews, and each game on TV, the big international role etc.