Took my son and some of his football-teammates to see Invincible , a fictionalized account of the career of Vince Papal e , the “Football ‘Rocky’,” the “‘Rocky’ Rookie,” etc.—”The oldest rookie in the history of the NFL to play without the benefit of college football experience (other than kickers).”—Wikipedia. The movie portrays Vince as a loser from the Philadelphia backstreets who, by a fluke, gets to play in the NFL. That’s close enough to true for a movie.

I enjoyed the movie. There are sappy stretches, as you’d expect, some sprayed-on gritty backstreet stuff, a slight–you’d hardly notice–dash of Hollywood Leftism (heartless corporations laying off workers), & the ups and downs were pretty predictable, but the thing worked for me. Citizen Kane it ain’t, but I connected with the story & joined in the audience applause at the end. (A thing I rarely do in movie theaters–I mean, what, exactly, is the point of applauding a movie? Like, on the minuscule chance that someone involved in making it might be in the theater?)

This–me liking the movie, I mean–is the more noteworthy as I still know diddley about football. I think this is only my second football movie ever, the first being the old Burt Reynolds / Bernadette Peters Longest Yard (“I’m just as far from Tallahassee as you are, honey…”) I never could resist a Burt Reynolds movie, even the really silly ones.

Correction to last graf: not quite diddley. I’m starting to pick things up from watching Danny’s scrimmages. His first actual game is next weekend.

Side pleasures of the movie: Lots of mid-1970s pop on the soundtrack. Oh boy, that took me back. Jim Croce! The Carpenters! (Derb dabs away a tear.)

And come to think of it, I never did see what was so tremendous about Citizen Kane.