E Pluribus Unum

...can't be all bad.

And Any Given Sunday is, in fact, a terrific movie -- probably the best football movie ever made, one of the best sports movies ever made, Oliver Stone at the top of his game and just an all-around classic movie in its own right. The story is great on so many levels -- youth vs. age, black vs. white, underdog vs. overdog, corporations vs. the little guy, footballers as modern gladiators, old school vs. new school, jazz vs. hip-hop. And given all that, it avoids the cliche, it avoids the expected. It's got action and intensity as well as sublety and surprise.

And, of course, Al Pacino and Jamie Foxx:

And if you're a football fan, you're in heaven when you watch Pacino look across the gridiron at the opposing coach and you see that it is, holy cow! Johnny Unitas.

P.S. If you watch this film clip all the way through, you'll want to know that Al Pacino's speech ends with this: "You're very, very young and you're very, very stupid."