There’s a bit of a fog in my memory of how I got from enjoying the sports film Friday Night Lights, giving it s score of five out of five, and writing about it favourably, to buying and watching the entire box set of the television series of the same name. The TV show has excellent reviews and I think part of it might have been the participation of Connie Britton who will forever be Rayna James in my eyes but is no less awesome for that… but what could I possibly like about a series focusing on a small US town with an obsession for American Football?

A lot of the reviews for this book are complaints that it’s nothing like what you’d expect from a John Grisham novel - there’s no courtroom drama to be found. But if you go into it knowing that, then it’s quite a good, relatively short novel. It tracks that difficult thing of going back home after a lengthy absence when things are so different and yet, also very much the same. There’s a lot of insight into the challenges of being a hometown hero, and when things go wrong, and burying the past before moving on. Great characterisation and very readable, but have to agree that not a lot actually happens. You just have to go with it to get the most out of it.

This is a short novella from David Baldacci, and at first I wasn’t sure I was going to finish it, but it did grow on me as the mystery started to unravel. Two college football players start looking into the death of a superstar player from a previous generation, and the answers end up being much closer to home than you would think. Not bad for a short read.

So far the record continues that Denzel Washington has never let us down (although I wasn’t that fussed about Training Day). This is a great sporting movie with plenty to say about racism - it’s a bit contrived in that sense, and a bit ‘yay football solved everything’ but there are some good characters and plenty to dig into. I have to say, I would never have expected DW to be outshone by a nine-year-old but Hayden Panettiere is so good in this! Mouthy little precocious child and absolutely hilarious throughout. A lot of fun.

This is such a brilliant film, great fun with a cast of incredible actresses just bumbling their way to the Superbowl. It’s emotional from the start and only gets more and more so as layers are revealed. You wouldn’t expect Tom Brady to be much of an actor, but he gets away with it, and you can tell he means it when he does his little speech.

This isn’t a particularly ground-breaking movie, the story of a coach down on his luck that reluctantly takes over a kid’s team and makes them believe in themselves, etc, etc. The only difference being this was based on a true story after Coach Peyton was suspended from the NFL (I actually would have liked to know more about all that business, but I guess that’s not what the film was about).

I really quite enjoyed this movie for what it is - Dawson’s Creek but with added football. I read a review that says this is an odd little time capsule from an odd time in American (and general) history. A time before it was really known how much damage these high contact sports can do, and it was generally okay for a guy to steal a cop car and drive around with some girls naked.

I love a good sports film, and this had everything a good sports film needs - the heroes, the villains, the hope, the glory, the triumph and tragedy, and a last gasp, all eyes pinned on the final moments… to then deliver the results one way or the other. But on top of all that, it also had some interesting drama. I’m not gonna come out and say these guys are the best actors I’ve ever seen, but you really felt for them being stuck in this small town where football is considered the only way out.

It being Super Bowl weekend, we opted to go for a sports film, that is blatantly about the NFL even if they’re not allowed to actually say it. It was long, but for the most part enjoyable. The story was good, great cast, and although some of the actual football scenes were quite drawn out, the music made them interesting.

We know now that the NFL tried to quash some or all of this movie, and that the story behind this is no doubt a lot, lot worse. That explains why once the concussion findings have been published and the news is out there, the film gets a bit wobbly in its pacing - almost like it can’t decide whether to go full out on the good versus bad guys, and instead sits nervously in between the two.

With Jerry Maguire being such an unwatchable disappointment, we moved straight on to another sports films (iTunes having put together a collection for us to work our way through). I’d not heard of this one, or the story behind it, but was tempted by the trailer and the fact that Matthew McConaughey is always a welcome addition to the Film Watch stable.

This, I know, is a classic film, and it was quite cheap to rent in the iTunes store, so we thought we’d give it a shot. One that Tom Cruise is particularly well known for, with catchphrases that I have used without actually knowing the reference for. It also fitted in with our returning enthusiasm for sports films, after the success of Draft Day.

I absolutely loved it. I had to pause ten minutes in to google what the whole draft thing was about but once we established what the point of the film was, it was brilliant from there on in. Tense, enthralling, with a handful of relationships around the edges to keep it interesting. I didn’t necessarily buy the relationship between Costner and Garner, but I thought she was fab.

As a Sandra Bullock fan, I should have wanted to watch her Oscar-winning performance in this true story of lives being changed. However, knowing that it was likely an emotional one put me off because I built up that wall of never crying at anything ever.