(In honor of Mother's Day, we're launching a series of posts today written, in part, by our mothers after we asked them one simple (yet very complex) question: What's your favorite movie and why?)

Momma Snider's preferred method of watching TV and movies is to sit on the couch with her laptop or her art projects and keep one eye on whatever my dad is watching. But sometimes a movie grabs her complete attention. She loves scary movies (nothing R-rated, please), and she has a weakness for Adam Sandler. We both loved Waitress and Hairspray last year, a somewhat rare convergence of our opinions. And Mom and I agree on another film, too....

"I love Remember the Titans. It's set in my senior year in high school, so the music reminds me of high school. I'd love to get the soundtrack. [I don't think she intended that as a hint, but I took it as one anyway.] It's such a warm story. I have trouble comprehending that in 1971 in some parts of the country there was still that kind of racial junk going on, but I guess it was like that in the South. It comes on TV a lot, and we have it on DVD -- and VHS -- so every time it comes on we start watching it, and then we get frustrated with the commercials and put on the DVD. And Denzel Washington! I love Denzel Washington."

Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden's Sugar, the follow-up to their critically acclaimed Half Nelson, has finally been picked up for distribution. Variety's Mike Jones reports the film has been acquired for theatrical distribution by Sony Pictures Classics, which seems like a good fit for the film. HBO Films, which financed the film, retains television rights.

Sugar, which premiered at Sundance earlier this year, felt at the time like a tough sell after Half Nelson; it still does. The film, which is subtitled, tells the tale of a young baseball star from the Dominican Republic who crashes after getting moved up to the big leagues. It's really very much a coming-of-age kind of tale about this young boy who grew up poor but talented, always believing baseball to be his one ticket out.

Welcome back to another edition of Insert Caption -- the game even Tony Stark would love if he wasn't a fictional character and completely made up. We're reversing the order of things for this installment; last week's winners are listed down below and after the jump, while this week's caption is, well, look down. Yup ... Speed Racer time! And this week we're giving away sooo much, it's impossible to list it all without running out of gas, er, space. One grand prize winner will race away with one Limited edition Speed Racer tool box loaded with a Soul Industry Tee, Hot Wheels 1:64 Mach 6, 1:64 Racer X, 1:24 Mach 5 and a Pullbax™ Mach 5; plus Speed and Racer X Lego Mini-figures, one Speed Racer t-shirt and so much more. Additionally, two runners-up will take home a prize package containing more shirts, backpacks and lots of other goodies. See the official rules for complete details and sound off below ...



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Last week, we asked you to give us your most creative captions for a photo from the new movie Iron Man (which, in case you didn't know, is quickly becoming one of the best reviewed superhero movies of all time). In exchange for your words of wisdom, we decided to toss a brand new LG "the V" cell phone -- plus a super cool Iron Man poster -- to 10 of you. 10! Why? Because we're completely out of our minds -- that's why! (And because we love our readers more than anything. Awww.) Congrats to our ten winners, listed below and after the jump.

1. "As you can see, Flavor Flav and I are now engaged." -- Nathan T.

2. "That's right, it's all fun and games until someone trips and falls on a Lite Brite..." -- Eric W.

3. "I want you to draw me like one of your French girls wearing this ... only this!" -- Martin E.

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And here's another street-ballin' flick that wants you to know how tough it is to make it in life when the only thing not lyin' to your face is that dirty old basketball. Ball Don't Lie had a lot of potential and some sweeet b-ball sequences, but annoying editing and several mis-placed flashbacks ultimately hurt the film, which boasts appearances by Nick Cannon and Rosanna Arquette -- both of whom populated just about five to six minutes of the 102-minute feature. Chris "I'm Starting to Use My Real Name Instead of Ludacris" Bridges also shows up as a mentor who doesn't do much mentoring, except for schooling and then being schooled on the cement court.

He's not the only one: When it's not dazzling us with some fancy footwork, Ball Don't Lie schools us in the pitfalls of a broken foster care system; one that finds our hero, Sticky (newcomer Grayson Boucher), moving from one dysfunctional situation to the next. At some point, Sticky meets a girl who works at Foot Locker -- tries to find enough money to buy her a necklace for her birthday -- and then he gets beat up by a guy with a gun. The end. I don't mean to be harsh toward the movie, but it just doesn't serve a purpose -- it didn't go anywhere. I never read the book this was based on (written by Matt De La Pena), but I'd like to think it contained a little more than "What a sad situation for that poor boy."

It's hard to imagine the basketball junkie who won't fall madly in love with Adam Yauch's new documentary, Gunnin' for That #1 Spot, simply because it's a very sincere and admirably straightforward story about eight young men and their passion for the game. Sure, all eight of the high school basketball wizards have their dreams set on NBA fame, but at this early point in their career, these guys just enjoy the game that much. At this point it's not about money, contracts, or endorsements. It's almost time for all that jazz, but what's most important right now, in these formative years, are teamwork, dedication, and talent.

Easily the best movie of its kind since Steve James' Hoop Dreams, Gunnin' is a refreshingly basic affair: We're introduced to eight of the nation's finest high school basketballers, and then we accompany the kids on a trip to Harlem's legendary Rucker Park. It's there that the young players, most of whom come from very different backgrounds, will get together for the joyous experience of playing on a world-famous neighborhood court with some of the best players imaginable. Hell, what competitor wouldn't jump at a chance like that?

For those of you who are hard-core soccer fans, this new feature should come as a treat. Variety reports that Sony Pictures Entertainment has picked up the rights to a new biopic on English soccer coach Brian Clough called The Damned United. John Adams director Tom Hooper is helming the feature, from a script by Peter Morgan. You might recognize Morgan's name from films like, oh, The Last King of Scotland, The Queen, The Other Boleyn Girl, and Frost/Nixon.

But there's also a great cast attached to the flick. We've got Michael Sheen, who was excellent in his portrayal of Art Honeyman in Music Within, playing Clough, while Jim Broadbent, Timothy Spall, and Colm Meaney take on other parts that haven't been divulged. The film is based on the novel from Dave Peace, and will be set in 1974, but flash back to the '60s to tell the story of "Clough's ill-fated 44-day reign as coach of Leeds United, then one of England's most successful soccer teams." From what I can discern, he came in, criticized how the team played, alienated some of the team's star players, led his team to a one and six record, and then got sacked.

I'm far from a big soccer fan, so I have no idea how these things whip up into an interesting feature, but I would be surprised if this wasn't a solid film, considering the talent involved. But what about you fans out there? Is this a story meant for the big screen?

It can't feel great to be known as the guy who blew a primetime career simply because he couldn't keep his big mouth shut. But, there is still hope for Isaiah Washington, and The Hollywood Reporter announced he has picked up his first feature film role since being fired from Grey's Anatomy. Washington has now signed to star opposite Forrest Whitaker in Tim Story's sports drama, Patriots.

Patriots is based on the true story of Al Collins (played by Whitaker); a high school basketball coach. After the disaster of Hurricane Katrina, Collins put together a local team consisting of kids displaced from their schools and homes, and led them to the state championships. Washington will play the assistant coach who helps lead the squad to the championships.

I can't be the only one getting tired of all these inspirational sports movies. It's gotten to the point where they are bleeding together into one long Hallmark Movie of the Week, but for the ESPN set. Although, I should have expected nothing less from the writers behind Remember the Titans and The Great Debaters (debating is kind of a sport, right?). Patriots will begin shooting on location in New Orleans later this week, and will arrive in theaters later this year.

No list of great baseball movies would be complete without The Natural, starring Robert Redford. His best performance ever? Maybe not -- but it's certainly a lot of people's favorite. Because of that classic film, Redford is forever connected to our national pastime, and so it's a little exciting to see that he's about to produce another baseball movie: a biopic of Jackie Robinson.

It was Robinson who broke through Major League Baseball's race barrier when he joined the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. Despite constant racist attacks by opposing players (and, at first, his own teammates), he went on to win the first-ever Rookie of the Year Award and to be a star player throughout his 10-year stint with the Dodgers. Redford will play Dodgers manager Branch Rickey, who supported Robinson from the beginning.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the project (which we talked about here and here) has the support of Robinson's widow (Robinson died in 1972), as well as Branch Rickey Jr. and Major League Baseball. It will be co-produced by ESPN Films, with Thomas Carter directing. Carter's last film was the true-life basketball story Coach Carter, and the three writers listed at IMDb have extensive biopic experience. The flick has all the hallmarks of a loving, faithful, not-too-controversial biopic, and that's fine with me.

No, this isn't an acting gig for the two directors, nor is it a new collaborative effort to come after a little Zack and Miri porno. It is actual, real-life sports blogging. Yahoo/AP reports that both Jason Reitman and Kevin Smith will join The Hills' Lauren Conrad, and country music star Dierks Bentley to write blogs professing their love of hockey for the National Hockey League's website. This is cool and all, but where's Mike Myers?

Well, at least there's the Juno director and a man who loves watching kids say "aboot." Reitman says: "I'd come to really love the game and I was just a little upset because I felt there was more of an opportunity, for particularly Americans, to know about the game and follow the game." For the director, who is a fan of two teams that didn't make the playoffs (the Canucks and the Kings), he plans to "write a kind of mythical blog about what the Canucks and Kings would be doing had they still been in. In my version, for the first time in NHL history, the Canucks and the Kings will be the first two Western conference teams to actually meet in the Stanley Cup finals." There is no word on what Smith's plans for the blog are, but considering the fact that the filmmaker is an old-school blogger, it should be fun.

As Leatherheads arrives in theaters, you're going to be hearing the phrase "screwball comedy" a lot, either in the barrage of pre-opening publicity or in review after review. "Screwball comedy" implies a certain snap and rotation -- a velocity to the gags and a vector to the plot -- but the people who made Leatherheads don't quite have the strength of arm or skew of angle to make Leatherheads truly screwball; it kind of fizzles out on the way to the plate. And that's not to say Leatherheads is charmless or unenjoyable or ill-made; it just isn't quite as good as the pedigrees and passions of the people involved would have you think it will (or, frankly, should) be.

This is not an April Fools joke! Because Extreme Ops and Supercross left you clamoring for more, writer-director Chuck Russell will soon bring you another extreme sports action film, this one set in the world of "aerobatics" -- stunt flying. As in planes. (Sounds like an expensive hobby.) Northern Lights will "follow the adventures of three young pilots, each determined to be the best at extreme flying." It's not clear whether this or Mandrake will be Russell's follow-up to The Scorpion King.

Variety describes the sort of stunt flying they have in mind as involving the pilots "taking their planes to 10 Gs and 300 mph, upside down, 10 feet off the ground." I don't know much about airplanes, so it's not clear to me whether this will involve something like the adorable plane in the picture that accompanies this post (which is what I found when I googled "aerobatics," though the idea of one of those doing 10 Gs seems off), something like the high-tech machines we saw in Stealth, or something in between.

In any case, this unfortunately sounds like one of those projects where a lot of people spend a lot of money bringing to the screen something that's not just terribly cinematic. How much dramatic tension can there be in watching people try to pull off stunts in an airplane? And will it really be that exciting to watch stunt piloting enhanced by a big effects budget? I guess we'll see soon enough.

Here it is. Just as it was gratifying to see all the hallmarks of the X-Files franchise in the X-Files 2 trailer we linked to yesterday (it's since been pulled, but will no doubt reappear in studio-sanctioned form soon), it's great to see all the David Mamet staples pop up here. Hey, there's Ricky Jay, and Joe Mantegna, and Rebecca Pidgeon! Magic tricks! Macho posturing! Hints of cons, and cons within cons! Best of all, we get to hear a little bit of that unmistakable clipped Mamet-speak:

"Excuse me. Uh, who's the...?"
"It's alright. Come in."
"I believe I..."
"Hey Joe, take the lady's coat!"

Music to my ears. And far from straying from his usual milieu with the mixed martial arts angle, Mamet seems to have used it to create another of his shady underworlds where nothing is as it seems. For fans of the man's work, watching this trailer is like settling into a comfy old recliner.

I totally think it'd be fun to hang with George Clooney for the day. Not even for the attention, the women or the chance that Perez Hilton would write silly little things all over a photo of George and I. Fact is, the guy just looks like he has a good time with life (granted, good looks and millions of dollars probably help some). Above you will find an exclusive clip from Moviefone's latest Unscripted installment featuring Mr. Clooney and his Leatherheads co-star John Krasinski.

Not only did they ask each other questions YOU left for them right here on this very blog, but they also revealed plenty in the "unscripted" questions they asked one another. Who won a thousand bucks in a one-on-one basketball game behind the scenes: Clooney or Krasinski? Whose perfect date consists of drinking and yelling? And why do the boys care so much about Fifi from San Francisco? (Where are you Fifi -- you're a star now!) Check out the clip above, then head on over to Moviefone for the entire Unscripted interview. Fun stuff.

Leatherheads tackles its way into theaters on April 4.

Welcome back to another edition of Insert Caption -- the game even your parents can't resist playing! Last week, we asked you to strap on your hottest piece of exercise wear in order to give us the wittiest caption for a photo from the new film Run, Fat Boy, Run. Things didn't get too physical in the comments section, and I think we all agreed that Simon Pegg was definitely NOT bringing sexy back. However, according to our winner Christina D., he might be bringing something just a tad less ... manageable.

1. "So...Bleeker. Juno got you pregnant back?" -- Christina D.

2. "Simon heard Hans' pickup line and smirked at the irony that he actually had tickets to the gun show." -- Eric W.

3. "I knew I recognized you... You were in the Olivia Newton John Video 'Physical' huh?" -- Josh B.

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This week we're sticking with boys who like to get dirty and sweaty. Not boys, men! Men who like to play with balls. (I think I'll stop here.) Yes, we're here to talk about Leatherheads -- that upcoming old school football flick starring George Clooney, John Krasinski and Renée Zellweger. The three sports behind our favorite captions will walk away with one Leatherheads poster, one Leatherheads t-shirt, one Leatherheads hat and one Leatherheads calendar. Not to mention you'll score a winning touchdown with our staff. So lace up gang, and give us everything you've got! (And maybe, just maybe, we'll take the whole team out for ice cream after the game.) Sound off below ...

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Adam Carolla screams "average" to me. He's not quite handsome, not quite unattractive. He's not quite hilarious, not quite lame. He's not quite engaging, not quite grating. He's just ... average. So how the hell did the guy pull off such an above average little movie?

In The Hammer, Carolla plays Jerry Ferro, a once-promising amateur boxer. He's turning 40 and things are looking pretty bleak. His only friend (a very funny Oswaldo Castillo) barely speaks English. He's in an unsatisfying relationship. His construction career is going nowhere. And he just used a maxi pad as a coffee filter. (Don't ask.) When an old-school boxing coach (Tom Quinn) asks him to be the sparring partner for a cocky Olympic hopeful (Harold House Moore), Ferro figures he's got nothing to lose. Before you know it, Ferro's competitive spirit has returned, and he is training to return to the ring himself.