I’ve had a number of people mention this short film to me that played on IFC in June during their Short Film Collection program. Here’s a little blurb about it:
Soccer! Sugar! Rebellion! Oh my! "Cleats" is an epic comedic romp on the greatest battlefield of them all – a suburban soccer field! Everybody is here; the coach who just wants to win, the rival team with slick moves ("web of death!"), the team’s only hope with a severe case of ADD, and the loner who just wants to be accepted. You’ll fall in love with the cast of characters, and root for the Cleats of Imminent Doom all the way through to the very last goal. The film is written and directed by Craig Hammil.
A soccer dad in Texas thought it was okay. But others have gotten a kick out of it:
And have you guys ever watched the Independent Film (IFC) channel? We saw a short film called The Cleats of Imminent Doom, about two girls soccer teams in a championship game. *dies* ItwasthecutestfuckingthingI’veeverseen.
But beyond that there is little about it on the net. Most of the people who have asked if I’ve seen it have been local friends in person who were rolling on the floor laughing while watching it. There isn’t a whole lot about it on the web. Found the casting call for it though – the things you find online…
So has anyone seen this? Its not anywhere on IFC’s website or in their July schedule of short films. Too bad.
UPDATE: IFC is showing "Cleats" in October as part of the IFC October Short Film Collection II.
Loading...
July 11th, 2005 at 12:39 pm
Hi,
I found your blog from a link about “Cleats of Imminent Doom†to mine. I’m afraid I was too hard on the fun little film; hope you get to see it sometime.
Enjoyed reading your archives – it’s great to read about someone so dedicated to kids’ soccer. I’ve been carting kids to practice and games for a decade now but I’ve never been involved with the administration. Y’all put in so much work – it’s fascinating to read about.
Your post “Talk about humbling†was interesting. I’ve always thought about the difficulty of moving up from the recreational level to the challenge level (we call it “select†in North Texas). It’s like a completely different sport – not so much skills as speed, teamwork, and, especially, so much more aggressive with more contact.
To me, the way to move kids up is to have them attend extra camps put on by other organizations. These often emphasize passing and moving into space without the ball – which is difficult to work on with a recreational team. Also, simply having some lessons by different coaches with different philosophies and drills seems to help a lot.
Well, good luck with the season – my son signed this week with a new select team after sitting out a year with knee pain – and keep up the good work.
July 12th, 2005 at 10:47 am
Glad you like the site. Not much in the way of posts so far – but now that the Fall season is kicking off, I expect to have lots to post.
Funny you mention camps. Our league is sponsoring our first summer camp and I’m sitting out here in the registration tent catching up on things. Internet enabled cellphones are a wonderful thing! We had 120 kids sign up for our first camp so we’re very happy with the response.
Well, lots of things happened this week so time to get some new posts up!
August 6th, 2005 at 5:39 pm
Wow – I can’t believe it – Cleats has an entry in IMDb. Go figure.
August 16th, 2005 at 5:49 am
[…] So I’m checking out my site stats this early morning and in addition to a LOT of search hits for The Cleats of Imminent Doom, which I hope IFC shows again soon, I seem to get a number of hits related to Soccer Mom’s. So on a whim I saw a hit for ‘I am not a Soccer Mom’, ran it on Google, and came across this post from the Java Diva which sums up, quite well IMHO, what many parents claim when saying ‘I am NOT a statistic, one of those soccer parent things’ […]
October 2nd, 2005 at 5:13 pm
I saw “The Cleats of Imminent Doom” today and I liked it. But what really interested me were the characters. I recognized one, Derik, who is played by Dieter Blair Shmitz the 2nd. Dieter also plays on Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County on MTV. Dieter’s best friend Stephen also plays in this short film. He was only show briefly and therefore wasn’t in the credits. I just thought I’d share this information. Check for yourselves.
October 13th, 2005 at 3:52 pm
[…] The Cleats of Imminent Doom is a short film by Craig Hammill, which aired on IFC back in June. It’s about a girls soccer team playing in a pivotal match in a soccer tournament and all the interesting personalities you find at a youth soccer match. A number of people who saw it in June asked if I had seen it (I hadn’t) and said that they loved it. It must be generating a lot of ‘buzz’ even months after it was shown. I wrote about the film in early July and that one post gets Google referrals from searches for ‘Cleats of Imminent Doom’ almost every day. […]
June 9th, 2006 at 11:38 pm
Where could I buy this movie.I love it so much. The first time I saw it I fell in love with it and have wanted to buy it ever since, but I am not able to find it anywhere. Any adviceon where I could buy the movie?
June 10th, 2006 at 5:44 pm
Brittany,
I have not seen this for sale anywhere. Most people catch it on IFC (it shows up every couple of months) I had to get a friend to Tivo it for me before I finally saw it.