7. Fever Pitch (2005)
It's a story of a boy meets girl, boy falls for girl, boy practically cheats on girl by being in love with someone else (in this case, Johnny Damon and David Ortiz), and both overcoming obstacles by going nuts for the 2004 Boston Red Sox. This is another case of "Yes, we know how it ended, but that's not the point!" (or at least, I hope you know how it ended - I'm finishing off this article during Game 6 of this year's World Series). Fever Pitch is the kind of movie that appeals to my roommate because she loves baseball movies about underdogs. It's the kind of movie that appeals to my family because we get to relive the triumph of our home team without having to stop for commercials and watch post-game analysis. We even watched it in a nearly-empty theatre in Salt Lake City where no one else sang along with "Sweet Caroline" and chanted the cheers during the game scenes. It's a scary story to live through on the Red Sox side. If you don't know why yet, go watch the movie and you'll see why. It's so uncertain how the whole thing will go down that the filmmakers actually had to change the ending when the Red Sox had the greatest comeback in baseball history. What worries me is how much I see of myself in the person who is initially deemed hopeless because of how obsessed he is with baseball.