Secretariat 2010

Bojack Horseman? Are you here Bojack?

Excellent. It almost made me cry - what a story!

Much like life, this movie could've done w/out the Christian overtones. Regardless, Secretariat was the greatest racehorse who ever lived and one of the finest athletes to ever take part in any sport, and this movie was a tribute to him. I also appreciated that Ms. Chenery was able to overcome the detractors in her life and live her passion, b/c w/out her, Secretariat may have never stepped foot on a racetrack.

No better way to present what a heartfelt/upbeat true sports story than have Disney do it. This film fills every emotion from start to finish. The pace the plot points are presented are very well spread out and of course betrayed so well with all of the well known actors. What an inspiring movie about a house wife who has to take the reins of her father's failing horse ranch after her mother passes away and ends up landing a foe that goes on to be the greatest race horse of all time and bringing life and profit back into the ranch.

I know nowt about horses or horseracing, but damn, that was good.

Wonderful story of a crazy fast horse. It was pure Oscar bait, but I enjoyed it.

I thoroughly enjoyed the performances of Diane Lane and John Malkovich, the film itself may not match those two but it still makes for a pleasant time.

This is another sports drama from Disney and another film about horses, of which they have been a fair amount down the decades from the studio. It fails to reach the (very) high levels of 1976's 'The Littlest Horse Thieves' and 1991's 'Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken'.

However, with that noted, 'Secretariat' still produces a fine time. Lane and Malkovich are very good together, Lane particularly stands out. Margo Martindale is involved once more, playing a sweet and lovely character as she always does - she's perfect for those roles. Nice to see James Cromwell, also.

The cinematography is solid, as is the pacing of events. It does feel a little light of serious story at times, but that's hard to avoid when you're dealing with something as interesting but repetitive as horse racing. In the end, it's a nice story about Secretariat and Penny Chenery.

Randall Wallace is an excellent writer who wanted to try out directing and it shows. Secretariat has a great story and good actors but Wallace fails to put it all together neatly. There are some really curious directing choices, camera angles and music pieces that did not make any sense and stopped the pace dead in its tracks. Some of the more perplexing moments was the Oh Happy Day montages. Unless it was horse's favorite song it made no sense to have that song twice in the movie, both times distracting from what happens on screen. Complete disconnect. There are students in film school that are cringing at these moments. There's no flow, no purpose. Like Wallace was trying stuff out. Makes me a bit angry because movies like this deserve to be told by a top notch storyteller who can handle the material. There are no second tries and no remakes for horse movies and it's a shame we are stuck with this forever. Just imagine what this movie could have been in the hands of a more experienced filmmaker.