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Reviews
Barcelona '92: 16 Days of Glory (1993)
Excellent! Surpasses the first two!
This film remains true to the original 16 days of glory (some of the original music is re-used) while at the same time provides a fresh, behind-the-scenes look at the epic external and internal struggles of the athletes of the 25th Olympiad as only Bud Greenspan can. Television does the best it can to provide an inside look at the Olympic games, but this after-the-fact documentary provides a truly touching look at the true face of Olympic competition. The film also had the luck of covering a truly unforgettable Olympic games. The opening montage that showed the changes in the world between 1988 and 1992 was brilliantly orchestrated and the visual and auditory appeal of the film is quite thrilling. In particular, the way the Olympic song was timed directly in sync with the Spanish archer firing the flaming arrow into the Olympic cauldron sent deep chills down my spine when I saw it, as well as in subsequent Olympic years when it was re-aired. Though it is not currently in print, if you have the means, I highly suggest picking this film up. It does justice to the true drama of the games and then some.
Animalympics (1980)
not a gem, but not bad either
I first saw this film on the Disney Channel circa 1993. I was about 7 years old at the time, I remember it was right after Disney Channel had aired "Barcelona '92: 16 Days of Glory", meaning I had Olympics on the brain when I first saw it, a bit of a bias. I was enthralled by it at first, the whole film had a kind of surreal, mesmerizing quality to it and the music was great as well. Of course I had no idea who Billy Crystal, Gilda Radner, Harry Shearer, Michael Fremer, Graham Gouldman were. After seeing the film several years later, I thought it had its flaws, and some dialogue and scenes were questionable to say the least for young viewers. All of the spoofs on the old TV personalities like Howard Cosell, Keith Jackson, Pele, Jackie Stewart and Barbera Walters were rather funny. This film basically took the same approach as "Animaniacs", making the humor appealing to kids, while at the same time adding an element of satire, to appeal to the older generation. While this film is by no means a stroke of genius, it has its many flaws (compounded by the fact that it was never theatrically released because of the U.S. boycott of the Moscow Games in 1980), it is definitely worth a look.