Kicking and Screening

As most of you know, there’s never been an interview that didn’t look good to the My 2 Cents duo. Sure, it was mostly symbiotic, but Munk and the Mick didn’t have standards for who was on the show. Hence why Steffi Jones found herself telling us why she wanted to look like J-Lo. But I digress.

Similarly, we rarely turn down an opportunity to pimp something for one of our friends. In this case it’s Greg Lalas, a guy who wears more hats than Sam Jackson, but in this case is one of the organizers of Kicking and Screening.

As you (should) remember from last week, I pointed you in the direction of K&S, a film festival in D.C. next week. It follows possibly the biggest game on U.S. soil since ’97 when Tab Ramos scored to beat the same (in name at least) Costa Rican side and qualify the Yanks for France ’98. So why not continue what should be a great week of soccer with four diverse films about the beautiful game?

And since it’s the beautiful game, that means Ladybugs didn’t make the cut, as it was apparently narrowly edged out by The Big Green, a Sunday afternoon matinee.

The highlight is a midnight screening of Victory at E Street Cinema with Werner Roth, who played the German captain, in attendance. I’m assuming Sly was busy working on Rocky 18 or Rambo 12.

As we work backwards, Friday showcases a reading by M2C friend Grant Wahl, which is always a good time, as well as John Harkes -- probably not in his Scottish brogue -- and The Guardian columnist Richard Adams. The film that night is Sons of Sakhnin United.

Thursday kicks off the event with a bang and will be the one event I’ll be checking out. Having seen Zidane, apparently I have a penchant for documentaries about French players as Les Yeux dans les Bleus follows the French team through their winning campaign in France ’98. I’m betting Steve Sampson won’t appear in this one.

Proceeds will benefit a couple of local charities, D.C. Scores and United for D.C., but this is a great chance to show off the popularity of soccer in the nation’s capital.

If you’re still not sure, perhaps this Victory inspired promo will get you energized to go see a movie:

Some other quick thoughts heading into the weekend:

- Some D.C. United players were shown in their birthday suits for ESPN The Mag. With that hardware keeping the pic from being NSFW, it’s a good thing they didn’t ask New York’s players to pose.

- Jeff Cunningham scored #17 on Wednesday to keep FC Dallas on fire. He’ll certainly have plans this January with the national team, though I doubt he makes it to South Africa. If he does, or wins the Golden Boot (which looks likely at this point), FCD needs to put out a bobble head next year. Maybe that will get attendance into the five figures. And it would certainly be better than using the opposition’s owner as your promotion.

- Is this the worst weekend of NFL matchups in the history of the league? Cincinnati at Baltimore is the only decent game during the 1 o’clocks while Denver hosting New England is the best game by far of the day. When there’s a possibility of seven games with one team laying double-digit points, expect quite a few snoozers. At least there’s always fantasy.

- We’ll be back next week with a look back at the U.S. loss to Honduras. My prediction is 2-1 for Los Catrachos. My cynical side again wonders if Bradley employs a 4-3-3 without Dempsey as the penned in option, justifiable or not, on the right to prove that it won’t work as it didn’t in Costa Rica in June. I’d prefer us going for the win, as a tie is relatively meaningless assuming the Ticos handle T&T at home. Here’s hoping Tim Howard can stand on his head and make Wednesday meaningless with a Landon Donovan penalty, because that’s how he rolls.

- Pat Walsh