Chariots of Fire

The movie itself is pretty bad, actually: bad writing, bad editing, bad sound. Of course, none of the film's many flaws occurs to you until much later, because all during the experience you can't get over how flagrantly autistic and BADASS Ian Charleson looks running like a wet-trousered child, arms pinwheeling, face in rapturous spasm, at top speed toward God, Sonny Jesus and the 400-meter world record. And the producers deserve their credit, too. Living, breathing Eric Liddell (now quite dead, in fact) really did run like that, flopping and gasping and generally having a seizure in mid-stride:
I would watch any movie, no matter how bad, to see that man run around and preach about the sabbath. But why make running about anything at all? I may be mistaken, but I always thought that running for no reason whatsoever was the only proper motivation to do so? Which is why, despite my being handicapped and American, I can appreciate and (applaud) the irony that Lord Andrew, the super-aristocrat who befriends our runners at Cambridge and takes bronze in the hurdles, actually beat Harold Abrahams at the quad run--and he's the only one who runs, as he says, because he finds it "fun."