Movies to Make You Get Off the Couch

I have been trying hard to get in better shape lately. Its hard because watching TV and eating pure garbage is much more fun, and easier. The way I combat this is by watching movies that make me want to get up off of my ever growing posterior and go the gym. In the spirit of making us all healthier I share these works of film motivation.

Sports Century Montage

Around the turn of the millennium ESPN did a countdown of the greatest sports icons of the 20th century. As part of that countdown the created this montage of the greatest moments of sports. I loved watching and it was one of the first things I ever looked for on YouTube. If you don't love sports this montage shows you why you should. It encapsulates all of the drama and the importance that sport brought to a century. It reminds us of the moments when Jesse Owens and Joe Lewis had two halves of our divided United States cheering together. It shows us Jackie Robinson taking the field even before Rosa Parks took her seat. It shows us the Olympic hockey team creating a miracle on ice, Joe Dimaggio, Muhammed Ali, John McEnroe and Michael Jordan. If you watch only one of my suggested motivational clips this is the one to watch, if does not motivate you to work out it will at a minimum make you cheer.

SportsCentuary -Simply Great.

Rocky IV

I could have easily selected any of the Rocky Series for this article, but Rocky IV has the best training montage in my opinion. I know there is no Mickey, and no raw egg eating, but there is a big Russian and lots of snow. Watching Rocky climb a mountain in knee deep snow, after doing pull ups in a Siberian barn contrasted by Dolph Lundgrin (Ivan Drago) working out in the sterile environment of the Soviet Union's training compound all set to John Cafferty's inspiring anthem "Heats On Fire" just motivates the crap out of me. If you are a man and you watch this and you don't feel like pulling an ox-cart of Russian peasants up a mountain or at a minimum going for a brisk run in the park, check downstairs something might be missing.

ROCKY IV-Training Montage

Hoosiers

This film about a small town Indiana basketball team taking on impossible odds to compete for the state championship, plus Gene Hackman receiving a second chance on life reminds all of us who are former athletes(or just were once in better shape) that we can get a second chance on our own lives. Besides warming your heart this movie should motivate you to go run some ladders on your nearest basketball court.

Hoosiers- Brings a tear to your eye

Any Given Sunday

This is a very complex movie. I think its one of Oliver Stone's better films, and one that gets little recognition. It shows a much more raw unsavory side of pro football, but also humanizes superstars. It shows that football is sport of gladiators who actually do love their team and the game they play.

Everyone who views this film will be able to find a piece of themselves in one of the members of the fictional Miami Sharks football team. It might be the young unknown becoming superstar played by Jamie Fox that reminds those of just starting out that we don't know everything, and that we are building on what those who came before us have already created. It might be LL CoolJ's running back who reminds us of the risks we no longer take, Lawernce Taylor's linebacker who is proving his worth, or Dennis Quaid who just wants take his team down the field.

Al Pacino plays the head coach of this team out of control. He is a drunk that nobody loves, but who has a deep passion for the game of football some where in his messed up life. This is one of my favorite Pacino roles and his speech at the end should awaken all of us to "...fight for those inches around us..." by going to the gym. Warning this is Pacino and Oliver Stone so its a little(a lot) crude.

Any Given Sunday-Pacino's great speech(this section is not super crude, but does have a naughty word or two)

Rudy

For all of us who had to work hard for something we were not meant to have, Rudy is the movie for us. If you have not seen this movie there is a spot in your heart that has been reserved for watching a hobbit trying to play for Notre Dame(of course lately Frodo could may have helped the O-Line or at the least given the QB the ring so he could hide). If watching Rudy does not fire you up to go run under a set of stadium bleachers and relive your own dreams of glory, almost nothing will.

Rudy- A tribute video to movie about Rudy...its okay

Lucky Shirt

My mother is staying with us this weekend, and I had a load of shirts in the dryer that needed to be put away. The only one I cared about was my Yankee jersey that needed to be hung up in the closet in the room where my mom was sleeping. I hung it up and put it in Maggie's closet.

Colt:I am just going to hang this in your closet tonight, so if anyone looks in there they will think you are sporty.

Maggie: Why would anyone look in my closet? And what they will think is that I no longer care about color coordination, you jersey is with all of my pink shirts. Can you put it with the colors it belongs with?

Colt:Its fine.

Maggie: It feels out of place.

Colt: Its a boys sports jersey among a group of girls pink shirts...its having the time of its life.

Maggie: My shirts aren't like that.

Colt: Yes they are.

Maggie: You don't know.

Colt: I had a sports coat in there for three months, you think I didn't hear stories?

Maggie: You're freaking crazy.

Wii Fit Can Eat my Shorts

I decided to try the Wii Fit the other night. I have put on a little weight, and have been working out and eating better to try and get down to where I was when I came home from my mission. I climbed on the Wii Fit Balance Bored for my initial weigh in , and when the Wii Fit finished it said in a cute mocking little voice "That's Obese" then I swear to everything I heard it laugh. I then be screamed at the top of my lungs "ITS YOUR FAULT YOU ELECTRONIC BASTARD!!!" I was just called fat by a video game, one of the very things that lead to my newly developed big bones. Anyway the moral of the story is my Wii Fit and I not speaking, and the balance board is being used for Shawn White Snowboarding Road Trip.

Pokes

This conversation took place on the drive to St George last night as Maggie was playing on her phone, names have been changed to protect the innocent.

C: Mary never became my friend on facebook, so I couldn't poke her.

M:I don't like the way that sounds

C: Its okay you know Mary. We were going to poke each other because we have no idea what that function means.

M: Quaid just poked actually

C: and see thats okay because he's gay.

M:  I was just poked by a gay man...and I have no idea what it means.

Connected

For the past couple of weeks I have been biking the 8 miles from my apartment to work. I have had to get up a little bit earlier and pack the stuff I will need for the next day the night before. I have had to eat wiser during the day because a heavy lunch sits like a stone on the ride home. I have been snowed on, rained on, nearly hit by several kamikaze UTA busses, and I almost run over one homeless man sleeping in the bike lane.

I have gained several things from this new experience. I have more energy at work, and sleep better at night,. I have really enjoyed the smug feeling of being better than other people because I am part of the solution as opposed to those of you who are part of the problem.

More than that I have enjoyed feeling connected to my new home. I have been living in Salt Lake for over a year now, and it has never felt real. When I was in DC for under a year I felt at home. I felt like I was a part of that city. I went to events, met new people there, felt like I belonged there. I never felt “at home” while I was on my mission in Oakland, California, because as much as I strived to, its hard to feel a part of place when you are living with a 9:30 curfew, no dating, no going out, and a having to stand behind the car to back up (what city wants a geek like that anyway?). A mission was a different experience, and not one that can easily compare to living in a new place as part of normal society.

I have done many of the same things in Salt Lake that I did in DC, with out the same results. I have been to museums, attended the Utah Symphony, gone to plays, made new friends, and I have even become an avid skier. All of these did not ever make me feel like I knew Salt Lake or that I was a part of the Wasatch Front Tapestry. I am from St George. I am a Southern Utahan who likes his rocks red, and his homes to be all white stucco. That changed when commuted to bike.

When I started biking I was no longer trapped in my car as just another UDOT stat on I-80 West Bound. I was on the ground level of the city. I rode through the downtown with its high rise office buildings. I biked down South Temple past my future residence, the Governor’s Mansion. I pedal past Temple Square and the Capitol Building. I also see my fellow Salt City residents sleeping on sidewalks, or waiting for a Bus or Trax train to stop. They are no longer moving pictures framed by a car window, they are all real now.

I think one of the reasons I felt so connected to Washington DC in such a short time is I have always wanted to be there, but I also walked to work every morning from my studio on Constitution to my office in the Longworth Building on Independence. I had to bump into my fellow interns, along with reporters, representatives, and various office staff. I had to feel connected because I was. Riding my bike to work has done the same: it has connected me to my home of Salt Lake.