Little 5 is no excuse for sports montages

With Little 5 quickly approaching, we are all reminded of the 1979 gem, "Breaking Away." As directed by Peter Yates (the genius behind "Krull"), the film tells the story of Dave Stoller (Dennis Christopher), a high school graduate and "cutter" bicyclist who yearns for nothing more than to be an Italian. Much like innumerable other films of its ilk, "Breaking Away" is chock-full of the excessively tired "sports montage." For those not in the know, a sports montage is a series of sequences depicting a young, impressionable athlete training for an impending event usually set to a horrendously generic/lame pop nugget. \nI loathe the sports montage. Sure, it's a quick and effective way to convey a butt-load of information to an audience, but it's annoying as all holy hell and has been done to death. The greatest proponent of the sports montage is writer/director/editor/cinematographer/producer John G. Avildsen. The man practically invented the sports montage with his 1976 effort "Rocky," and further honed the technique alongside Daniel-san and Mr. Miyagi in "The Karate Kid." While these films are good, they came about early in the trend. Remember Avildsen is the same man who subsequently directed "Rocky V" starring Sylvester Stallone's annoying progeny, Sage, as well as Luke Perry's bull-riding epic, yes you heard me correctly, Luke Perry's bull-riding epic, "8 Seconds" (crappy sports montage city!). And rarely do Avildsen's montages make a shred of sense. For example, look at "The Karate Kid." How in the hell is waxing on and off going to help Daniel-san trounce high school bully Johnny (immensely talented character actor William Zabka)? If anything, I'd like to see a montage of Avildsen being pummeled by Ralph Macchio and Stallone for having subjected viewers to these lame sports montages for so damned long.\nThe sports montage even goes so far as to pervade flicks not having the slightest thing to do with sports. Most prominent among these films is the cheesy sub-genre of dance flicks popular in the early to mid-'80s, i.e., "Flashdance" (1983) and "Footloose" (1984). While I enjoy Jennifer Beals' pink legwarmers as much as the next guy, and honestly, could watch Kevin Bacon flip around a barn all day, there's no denying these flicks, and the "sports montages" that inundate them blow. \nLuckily, filmmakers have finally discovered just how lame the sports montage is. In David Wain's razor-sharp satire of '80s summer camp films, "Wet Hot American Summer" (2001), two of the film's protagonists are seen training for a subsequent meeting with a girl. Short shorts, spastic dancing, uncontrollable armpit hair, man-on-man love and a wise, talking can of mixed vegetables populate the scene to hilarious effect sending up the whole damned sports montage debacle.\nAlso, on a recent episode of "South Park" entitled "Asspen," Kyle trains for an impending ski race against the much older bully with a considerable chip on his shoulder in an inspired sports montage set to the subtly titled tune "We Need a Sports Montage!" The more directors who desecrate this time-tested turd of a cinematic technique the better.\nFor wannabe filmmakers who harbor hopes of eventually making a film, I have this suggestion: by all means include the sports montage within your film, just subvert it. Athletes/dancers/ whomever-the-hell-your-protagonist-might-be should smoke cigarettes like Dennis Quaid's character in "Breaking Away," drink like a fish, tell their Miyagi-esque mentor to "piss off" and train from the confines of a comfy couch with video game controller in hand. And for you makeshift videographers out there: don't compile sports montages of this weekend's race -- I'm a journalist, I'm good at tracking people down and I've been training.