Through some accident of weather and culture, I ended up watching the 1993 movie Cool Runnings with my family this evening. For those of you too young to know (like my kids), it tells the (dramatized) story of how a Jamaica bobsled team competed in the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, Alberta.

It was not bad. It didn’t age as badly as I might have expected. A few observations:

• I forgot how prominent Calgary was as the setting. I’m heading there next month it will now be “the place from Cool Runnings” for my kids.
• The USSR and East Germany participated in the 1988 Winter Olympics.
• The Swiss bobsled team in the movie were smoking (literally and figuratively).
• The score was composed by Hans Zimmer.
• John Candy, god rest your soul (my kids recognized him as the “guy from Home Alone”).

I did appreciate that my kids assumed the stars of the movie would win the big race, and they didn’t, but it was still triumphant.

After the movie, we looked up the how ‘true’ the based-on-a-true-story was. I enjoyed this quote from Wikipedia:

“The film depicts the team carrying the sled to the finish line to a slow-building standing ovation: in reality, the team walked next to it and received some sporadic applause.”

Wikipedia

A few other gems from the Wikipedia article:

• Disney wanted Kurt Russel to play the coach, but John Candy insisted and took a pay cut to play the role (it was his last)
• Cuba Gooding Jr., Jeffrey Wright, and Eriq La Salle were considered for roles of the bobsled team.