For as big of a man-crush as I have on Michael Jordan, ‘Space Jam’ didn’t quite have the same impact on the world of film that he did on the game of basketball.

With all this hoopla being made over the important sports match between the Patriots of New England and the Giants of New York, I’ve been thinking about how many damn sports movies there are.

We’ve been privy to movies about mentally challenged people playing sports (“Radio”), dogs playing sports (“Air Bud”), and even Sundance Kids playing sports (“The Natural”). Although their topics may vary, they all share one very crucial element; I hate them all with the fiery passion of a thousand suns.

Well, not quite all of them. Any sports film with the words “Raging” and “Bull” in the title are fine in my book. Then again, Scorsese set out to make a movie about a man whose life was filled with Shakespearean tragedy, and it just so happened that he was a boxer.

Whenever I see any movie about a sport, I immediately groan a sigh of apathy. “Field of Dreams” makes me sleepy, “Caddyshack” makes me wish I were watching a funnier Harold Ramis movie, and “Rocky” forces me to question the existence of a God that would allow it to win Best Picture over “Taxi Driver“ and “All the President’s Men.”

Maybe I despise movies about sports because they all tend to shovel the same boring motivational stories down our gullets.

If I want to be motivated, I don’t need coach Nick Nolte from “Blue Chips” yelling “Dunk it!” every fifteen seconds. In all fairness though, most basketball coaching revolves around ordering Shaquille O’Neal to throw it down every possession.

What’s even better is when athletes attempt to break the barrier between sport and film, which usually results in hilarious disasters. For as big of a man-crush as I have on Michael Jordan, “Space Jam” didn’t quite have the same impact on the world of film that he did on the game of basketball. Maybe that was because the movie didn’t feature enough Charles Barkley.

It’s alright with me if movies use sports as a plot device. In “Match Point,” Woody Allen’s best film in decades, tennis is used as both a plot device as well as an overriding metaphor for many of the themes that the movie explores. Allen didn’t force audiences to watch a 20 minute fake tennis match filled with arbitrary slow motion and an unrealistically climactic ending.

I’m usually against the whole notion of “separate but equal,” but when it comes to sports and movies, I say that they should stick with their own kind. Just as I don’t need movies about sports, I don’t need sports to take elements from movies.

The XFL tried to make the game of football more exciting and cinematic, and that turned out to be about as successful as the big dig. On the plus side, we did get to see a guy with the words “He Hate Me” on his back. That was kind of cool.

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