The Clubhouse (July 23rd 2024)
Welcome to The Clubhouse! This week, we kick off our Big Ted Lasso Rewatch, check out the new Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders series on Netflix and head to the movies for a horror double bill.
WELCOME 🎟️
Welcome to The Clubhouse at Balls on Film! 👋🏻
The goal of this Substack is to review every movie tagged under ‘Sport’ on IMDb. That’s probably more than enough movies to keep me writing here for a lifetime. Sometimes, however, there’s a movie that I come across that’s not quite a sports movie, but that features enough sports that I’d like to highlight it here. There are also so many sports television shows and sports documentaries that seem to be released on streaming every week. I wanted a place to highlight those too, and also where I can dive into what non-sports stuff I’ve been watching, reading and listening to.
That’s how The Clubhouse was born. This will be pretty free-flowing and relaxed in terms of structure. If you enjoy the ‘Halftime’ portion of the regular Friday edition of Balls on Film, then you can expect more of the same here in The Clubhouse. Going forward, I’m also planning on introducing some additional community-based features too. This will hopefully be an ever-evolving feature that will grow and change from your feedback - The Clubhouse is for Clubhouse members, after all! 😊
Enough rambling from me. This week, we’re kicking off our Big Ted Lasso Rewatch, jumping into America’s Sweethearts on Netflix and talking about some other non-sports stuff I’ve been watching recently.
As always, please get involved and leave a comment below with your thoughts on Ted Lasso or anything else from this week. Be sure to let me know what you’ve been watching too, sports-related or otherwise.
THE BIG ‘TED LASSO’ REWATCH: EPISODE 1 - ‘PILOT’ ⚽️
Ted Lasso seemed to come along at just the right time. Lockdown was in full swing, it felt like the world was ending and the news just felt like one disaster story after another. Out of the darkness stepped a little show from Bill Lawrence (Scrubs, Cougar Town) about an American football coach who goes to England to manage a struggling soccer/football team, all based on a character from a series of NBC commercials. It doesn’t exactly sound like something that would set the world on fire, but Ted Lasso ended up being just the tonic that was needed at the time. It was lightning in a bottle, and throughout lockdown, more and more people began to discover the show through word of mouth. I lost count of how many people I’d recommend it to, who’d watch it and then recommend it to several others, and so on. By the time season two was released, the show was a monster hit that had captured hearts around the world. In fact, it’s still remains firmly in Apple TV’s top 10 most-watched shows more than a year after its conclusion.
Over the next 34 weeks, I’m going to revisit each episode. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve watched the show from start to finish, and it brings me more and more joy each time. I can’t wait to get into it all over again.
If you’ve never seen Ted Lasso, then what are you waiting for? Stop reading this, go watch episode 1 and come right back.
Season 1, Episode 1 - ‘Pilot’ - American football coach Ted Lasso is hired by a wealthy divorcée to coach the English soccer team AFC Richmond.
⚠️ Spoilers ahead ⚠️
Ted Lasso does a lot in its thirty-something minute pilot episode. It sets up the basic premise of the show, introduces us to all of the characters that we’ll come to know, love and hate over the course of 34 episodes, and also lays the groundwork for many plot details that will emerge way further down the line. I’ve always regarded it as a strong pilot episode, but watching it again having seen the rest of the series and noticing so many little details that seemed so insignificant at the time, I’d go as far as to say it’s downright masterful.
The episode opens not with our title character, but with Rebecca Welton (Hannah Waddingham), new owner of AFC Richmond. After divorcing her very wealthy, unfaithful husband Rupert, Rebecca has gained ownership of Rupert’s English Premier League team as part of their divorce settlement. Her first decision as owner is to fire the current coach, in a hilarious scene that serves as the perfect introduction to Rebecca. She eviscerates the outgoing manager and proceeds to hire Ted Lasso (Jason Sudeikis), an American football coach who recently led a Kansas college team to a national championship, and who has no experience or real knowledge of soccer whatsoever.
From here, we are introduced to Ted and his assistant Coach Beard (Brendan Hunt). They arrive in London and meet Rebecca, Higgins (Jeremy Swift) - Richmond’s director of communications, and Nate (Nick Mohammad) - the team’s shy and overlooked equipment manager. Rebecca surprises Ted by informing him that a press conference has been arranged that he has to attend immediately. Ted’s lack of knowledge about the sport and his affable nature results in ridicule from the journalists, players, and fans. Rebecca steps in to defend Ted and tackles the angry mob with the same ferocity in which she fired the old coach earlier. Things are looking good for AFC Richmond and as an audience, we’re think we know what the show is all about at this point in the pilot. Rebecca, however, later reveals to Higgins that she actually intends for Ted to fail, aiming to ruin the team as revenge against Rupert. The team is the only thing Rupert truly loves, and she sees this as the perfect way to get back at him.
We also briefly meet the team, namely Roy Kent (Brett Goldstein) - the team’s ageing, grumpy and feared Captain, Jamie Tartt (Phil Dunster) - the cocky, young, selfish superstar with no respect for anyone else and Jamie’s girlfriend, Keeley (Juno Temple). The show introduces us to the rest of the team in episode 2, but with Roy and Jamie’s rivalry being so integral to key events in the first season, it’s important for the show to establish them early on.
The episode ends with Ted back at his apartment, on the phone with his wife, where we learn that they are currently separated, in an emotional and sombre end to the pilot.
What the pilot of Ted Lasso does so well, is lure the viewer into a false sense of security. We’re very much like the journalists attending Ted’s press conference up until the final few minutes of the episode. Until that point, you’re kind of underestimating the show and Ted much like the journalists, fans and players are underestimating him. Everything points to the show being a silly, light-hearted fish-out-of-water story and then the powerful one-two gut punch comes at the end, with the reveal of Rebecca’s real motive behind hiring Ted and the personal reasons that led him to actually accept the job. I’ve watched that scene countless times, and it never fails to make me emotional. It’s such a shift in tone, but one that lets us know that we’re in for an emotional rollercoaster and not just a feel-good, light-hearted comedy show. It also highlights how effectively the show has already established Ted as one of the most likeable characters in television history, even after just one episode. You really feel for him, as he lays in bed alone at the episode’s end.
Observations:
I mentioned earlier that there are so many small details in the pilot which seem insignificant on first watch, but far more meaningful when you’ve seen more of the show. Look closely for the changes in the audio when Ted is being grilled by the press as a prime example of this, as well as much smaller details like the mention of the painting in Rebecca’s office. So good.
I laughed so hard on rewatch at Higgins’ constant guilt-induced acid reflux, which is even present here in episode 1. Initially, I don’t think I noticed this until much later in the season.
It’s interesting watching the pilot now, and seeing all of the seeds being planted for Nate’s storyline and character arc even from the first episode. I can just imagine the writers plotting all of the ways in which this story was going to play out, and how they were going to break our hearts back when they wrote this, and all of us being none the wiser.
The music choices in Ted Lasso are absolutely top-tier and it masterfully uses the soundtrack to greatly enhance the more emotional moments - whether it’s a joyful or more sombre one.
Hannah Waddingham has such a commanding screen presence. I could not imagine anyone else playing this part.
Did anyone else think that there was a chance they were going to go down the route of some kind of romance between Ted and Keeley initially? Watching the pilot for the first time, I was sure that’s where it was headed, but it’s obvious now that those things were just Ted being a good human being and more seeds being planted for a devious scheme by Rebecca later in the season. Seriously, I can’t say enough about how good this show is at setting the scene for what’s to come much, much later, and in such a subtle way too.
All three seasons of Ted Lasso are available to stream on Apple TV+.
AMERICA’S SWEETHEARTS: DALLAS COWBOYS CHEERLEADERS 🏈
My wife and I were scrolling Netflix looking for something easy-going to watch after a particularly hectic week, and we landed on America’s Sweethearts. We hit play, thinking that it would make for some good background noise, but halfway through the first episode we found ourselves firmly invested.
The series offers an in-depth look into the world of one of the most iconic cheerleading squads in professional sports - The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders (DCC). It takes us all the way from the rigorous audition process, the intense training regimen and through the NFL season whilst highlighting the personal stories of the cheerleaders who are all striving to make the team.
If you hit play on America’s Sweethearts thinking that you’re in for an easy watch about the world of cheerleading, then you’re in for quite a surprise. The series quickly peels back the curtain on a toxic world that’s filled with misogyny and people undertaking gruelling work for very little money. The whole thing feels very exploitative under the guise of opportunity, and I found myself quickly going from being in awe at the athleticism of the cheerleaders and the tradition and history of what they are all striving to be a part of, to feeling utterly grossed out at how badly they are compensated by comparison.
It does verge into cult-like territory at points as you watch these women devote their lives to the Dallas Cowboys above all else. It’s an eye-opening series that I’m sure intends to paint the organisation and the DCC history in a positive light. There’s a big focus on history, values and sisterhood but the themes of mental health, depression and the ways in which the older regime who are now in charge do nothing to break the same cycle of how they were treated hangs over the whole thing like a dark cloud. It’s a constant reminder of what’s behind the end product that you see in the stadium and on television. There’s one scene in particular featuring a Dallas Cowboys stadium tour guide that left me feeling so disgusted that I wanted to take a shower after it.
America’s Sweethearts is both joyful and heartbreaking. It feels like both a showcase and exposé at the same time and I didn’t know whether to cheer or feel sad at times. It’s both an entertaining and important watch that shines a light on a world that most of us know nothing about beyond the glitzy facade you see on television.
America’s Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders is now available to stream on Netflix.
NON-SPORTS STUFF I’VE BEEN ENJOYING 🍿
Somehow, I still have time to enjoy plenty non-sports based entertainment. I definitely watch too much TV! Here’s some other recommendations and things I’ve been enjoying recently:
Presumed Innocent (Apple TV+)
Watching Jake Gyllenhaal unravel further and further each week in Apple TVs twisty courtroom thriller is nothing short of gripping, despite how utterly silly the whole thing is. I constantly want to shout at the TV as the character goes against the advice of just about everyone trying to help him, and makes increasingly dumb decisions each week. Rusty is also a pretty unlikeable guy for the most part too, so I find myself not really caring whether he goes to prison or not - but I am utterly hooked nonetheless.
Magic Rays of Light (All Podcast Platforms)
Magic Rays of Light (MRoL) is a weekly podcast exploring the world of Apple TV. The show is hosted by Sigmund Judge and Devon Dundee, former colleagues of mine from ScreenTimes.net and two very good friends. The podcast, which is now part of MacStories.net, is such a fun listen and always engaging. This is all due to Sigmund and Devon, who break down all of the latest Apple TV news in a very accessible manner, and review all of the latest TV releases and Arcade games. As well as news and reviews, Sigmund and Devon do a wonderful job of highlighting the integration of technology into artistic endeavours, and the ways in which Apple TV enhances not only how we consume content, but the creativity behind it. Make sure you check it out!
Longlegs
The marketing for Longlegs has been incredible. As I walked into the cinema, I genuinely felt like I was about to experience something dark and disturbing without knowing much about the plot at all. It’s one of those rare occasions where the movie lives up to the hype - Longlegs is one of the creepiest, most disturbing things I’ve seen in a while. It’s been stuck in my head ever since I left the cinema, and there’s some truly dark and unsettling imagery from the film that I’ll probably need a scrubbing brush to clean from my brain. Calling Longlegs an outright horror is probably a bit unfair too. It falls more into the detective/serial killer genre along the lines of Se7en or Silence of the Lambs - but there’s just this palpable sense of dread and uneasiness throughout the whole thing. Nic Cage is absolutely terrifying and gives the most unhinged performance of his career. It’s the stuff of nightmares that only he could pull off. That opening scene is one of the most memorable in horror movie history.
In theatres now.
In a Violent Nature
This one has a fairly simple premise: a slasher film where we follow from the perspective of the killer - an undead monster reminiscent of Jason Voorhees. We follow him as he stalks through the woods, searching for victims and picking off people one by one. This often involves long scenes of quiet walking from a third-person perspective and rather gruesome death scenes. It’s like you’re playing Skyrim with a horror mod, and I appreciated a film trying to do something totally different and unique. There‘a lots here that I really liked and it creates some great tension throughout, but it runs out of steam a bit by the end. It’s also not for everyone, and about 30 people walked out of our screening after half an hour or so. It’s more like horror ASMR than anything else.
In theatres now, streaming on Shudder soon.
Movie Pyramid
The latest online quiz with easily shareable emoji results is here, and it’s perfect for movie lovers. I’ve been addicted to this over the last week, and all of my family and friends are playing too. In the game, you need to enter and select a movie for each cell using the clues that correspond to the selected row. Each row is a different clue. The goal is to think of the least common answers possible, to obscure movie knowledge is going to serve you well here! There’s a new game every day too, and it’s a lot of fun.
THE ROUNDUP 🎟️
Thank you joining me this week. As I mentioned previously, The Clubhouse will be an ever-evolving feature here at Balls on Film. As we go forward, let me know what you like, what you don’t like and anything you’d like to see me cover here in the future.
Next week, we’ll continue our Ted Lasso rewatch with episode 2, and dive into the new Simone Biles Rising documentary on Netflix. Of course, I’ll also see you on Friday for our weekly sports movie deep-dive. This week, it’s The Karate Kid - not only one of my favourite sports movies, but one of my favourite movies of all time.
Until next time!
~James
That stadium tour scene in AMERICA'S SWEETHEARTS was stomach churning. On par with some of the horror movies I've seen. As someone who works in casting, I'm fascinated by the DCC audition process. If you're down for some fun (and eye-opening) early era reality TV, you might enjoy popping into a few episodes of DALLAS COWBOYS CHEERLEADERS: MAKING THE TEAM.