Secretariat: The Movie, Whoa!

[MaTH716]

Originally Posted by Merlinsky

May God inspire a woman like that to bet on racehorses. Talk about dumb money.

Yeah I did a double take when I realized the budget was so different. Another point about the shooting of the movie, I heard the director said they tried to shoot the racing with better cameras, but it looked lousy so they did it with cheap $800 cameras and it supposedly looked better. No idea how bad it must've been to not go with the original footage.

The Seabiscuit book was such a phenomenon. People who didn't normally follow the sport got interested in the film because the book was big. There's another book about a horse being adapted for the screen. Steven Spielberg's doing a film based on the novel War Horse. http://www.filmofilia.com/2010/05/06...rgs-war-horse/

I also think that people embraced Seabiscuit and Red Pollard (for that matter) because of their underdog status/story. It was a REAL likeable story that was easy to root for. There was a true high created for the end of the movie (even though they ruined it by having him come from like 20 lengths out to win).
I really believe that people who don't follow the sport can't appreciate how good Secretariat was. And from what I'm hearing the rest of the storyline around the movie sounds ficitional. So it just sounds like a tough movie to really embrace. I guess they leave the theater thinking that Big Red saved the farm, which would really detract how good he was on the track. That's bad for the sport. I would almost rather have people watch the ESPN sports century on Secretariat. I thought that was a great piece that really hit the spot on how good he was and what he really meant to Penny Chennery. Obviously if you a fan of the sport, the Bill Nack book is a must.

I still plan on seeing it, but I am really not expecting much.