whose life would you rather watch a movie about...tyson or the klitschkos?

[edgarg]

It's much more complicated than that. The Fighter is a very good film because of all the family dramas and because Ward had success in the end against all the odds (as well as because of brilliant direction and excellent acting). It's a similar story with the greatest boxing film ever made (IMO), Raging Bull. Lots of interesting drama in LaMotta's life and in the ring, and success against the odds, plus one of the greatest directors in film history directing it and one of the greatest actors of all time acting the lead role. Plus the New York Italian-American (or Irish-American, in the case of Ward) back story adds interest to it as well.

Neither Ward nor LaMotta were blessed with great talent, just with great heart and interesting personalities and back stories.

Tyson's life story was quite interesting up to the age of 21 but was boring as hell from then on - he just became a self-centred, narcissistic idiot who threw away everything he had despite being given all the chances and all the talent in the world. There's nothing in his story or his relationships after that that would make a feature film interesting.

The K bros' story is a pretty uneventful rise to the top with a few setbacks early on but no real drama and no really interesting relationships.

Neither Tyson nor the K bros really had success against the odds - the odds were stacked heavily in their favour. In Tyson's case, he eventually had failure against the odds. And when someone lucky enough to be supremely talented blows his talent and blows a huge fortune, that isn't great drama, it's just pathetic.

A great fighter's life story does not necessarily make for a great feature film, and it's much more complicated than just bad news outselling good news. Gandhi was a very good film but he was as close to being a saint as anyone in the last century, so your analysis is far too simplistic.

I don't know where you got the idea that Ghandi was close to a "saint" . He was ANYTHING but, a very very complicated and difficult person both to know and to deal with. He was a political agitator, that was his great role in life. I lived through all his public years and I KNOW. I suppose you know he was a lawyer.

Apart fron the fact that I've also read several deeply investigative books on him.

[jreckoning]

I've always wanted to read or write a book about bums, journeymen, and so called tomato cans.

If there was ever an autobiography/biography of Reggie Strickland or someone like that, I'd love to read it.

[edgarg]

DAVE RADO, I see you think "the Raging Bull" is the #1 boxing film. I think it was far too heavy on the makeup and greasepaint, effects etc.

Personally I think the best and most realistic picture about boxing was "The Set Up" I believe starring Robert Ryan, who played a great role. It was only a low budget film, but very much underrated even though once it was VERY highly regarded.

Boxing fans don't seem even to recognise the title nowadays, all they think of are the latest releases.

[ROSS CALIFORNIA]

You can always count on the white school boys Steelhammer2011 & Freedom to promote their boring ass clean living Klitscko brothers in any thread concerning Tyson. Bottom line, the Klitschko's will be remembered by some, but Tyson will be remembered by everyone. Tyson has legendary status world wide, something the Klitschko's only have in their countries. What does that tell you?

[Dave Rado]

I don't know where you got the idea that Ghandi was close to a "saint" . He was ANYTHING but, a very very complicated and difficult person both to know and to deal with. He was a political agitator, that was his great role in life. I lived through all his public years and I KNOW. I suppose you know he was a lawyer.

Apart fron the fact that I've also read several deeply investigative books on him.

Wow, you're funny. Everyone has their haters. You're one, and you have obviously read books by others. I know several people personally who were close friends of his.

In any case, whatever you think of him personally, the fact is that the film portrayed him as a good guy and it sold very well, and that was the point I was making, that the main character doesn't have to be a bad guy for a film to sell.

[Jack Napier]

HBO movie on Tyson was ok
movie from 2008 was very good too
let's see a Klitschko movie now
show them tag teaming Hayden

[Dave Rado]

DAVE RADO, I see you think "the Raging Bull" is the #1 boxing film. I think it was far too heavy on the makeup and greasepaint, effects etc.

Personally I think the best and most realistic picture about boxing was "The Set Up" I believe starring Robert Ryan, who played a great role. It was only a low budget film, but very much underrated even though once it was VERY highly regarded.

Boxing fans don't seem even to recognise the title nowadays, all they think of are the latest releases.

The Set-Up is a superb film, but it's a sort of noir-ish Rocky-type film, not a film about real people. The characters are more one-dimensional, IMO, than those in Raging Bull. I have no idea why you think there was too much make-up in Raging Bull. I don't know of any respected mainstream film critic who has ever made that criticism.

The characters in Raging Bull are more multi-faceted and three dimensional, IMO, than those in The Set-Up - and Raging Bull is a pretty accurate portrayal of the life of a real fighter, Jake LaMotta.

Raging Bull gets a 98% rating on the Rotten Tomatoes website, which means that 98% of mainstream film critics (not boxing film critics, mainstream ones) who have reviewed it gave it good reviews. Very few films in any genre get anything like such a high rating. That means that most film critics consider it one of the best films ever made in any genre, which for a film about boxing is a remarkable achievement. The Set-Up gets an 83% rating, which is also very good, but Raging Bull's 98% is truly exceptional, especially as a far larger number of reviews of RB exist than of The Set-Up - older films tend to get artificially high ratings because of the small sample sizes..

"Body and Soul", which is even older than The Set-Up, gets a 100% Rotten Tomatoes rating, BTW (though on a very small sample size), so if you're into old films, I'm surprised you didn't mention that one.

In any case, neither The Set-Up nor Body and Soul are relevant to this thread. I brought up Raging Bull and The Fighter because they are about real boxers, and I was commenting on why I think LaMotta and Ward made good subjects for feature films, whereas IMO, neither Tyson nor the Klitschkos would.

[joe strong]

35-11 Tyson so far