Audience Member
With retro tunes and presentation in addition to very personal accounts from relevant individuals, 'Once in a Lifetime' succeeds in transporting you back to this period when the 1907-85 New York Cosmos strived to engrave 'soccer' into the American culture. It is interesting to see how aspects of the modern game can be linked to them such as football's current position in the US, the relentless transfer market exploits of clubs such as Real Madrid and the mixed consequences of creating top-heavy leagues. However, despite it undeniably producing spells of entertainment (e.g the signing of Pelé), your overall opinion will eventually come down to the extent to which you're eager to learn about the content.
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
02/06/23
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Audience Member
A bunch of men bickering about a failed project. Hyped at the start of the film as something that changed football forever even though it did anything but. I've seen far better documentaries.
Rated 2.5/5 Stars •
Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars
01/28/23
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Audience Member
An excellent documentary that takes you to a time and place that no one who lived it wants to forget. This pro soccer team ahead of it's time is what electrified soccer in the USA.
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
02/07/23
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Audience Member
Once in a Lifetime is a great documentary giving the American public a view into how the WORLDS sport almost became Americas sport in the 70s. The story is fascinating and the rifts that still exist between many of the people involved in the NASL and the Cosmos are played out on camera too comedic results. However Once in a Lifetime has one major flaw that makes it hard to really give it the credit it should deserve. How do you make a documentary about the Cosmos and the NASL and not interview the man who made it what it is? Pele needed to be interviewed. Beckenbauer, Messing, Roth and Chinaglia are great but without Pele the NASL never would have happened. Rumors are his asking price for footage was outrageous but again in order to gain credibility as a legitimate documentary it had do be done otherwise you are left with the entertaining yet lacking Once in a Lifetime.
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
01/27/23
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Audience Member
Maybe Better If You Care About Soccer
When I was growing up, I knew people who were in soccer the way some kids are in Little League--before the Soccer Mom was a demographic all its own. It was a bigger deal in LA, because it's a bigger deal in the countries to the south. When I was in high school, the US hosted the World Cup, and some of the matches were played at the Rose Bowl. When I was in college, I had a friend whose generic Sports answer for Trivial Pursuit was, depending on whether the answer required a man or a woman, either Martina Navratilova or Pelé. I know a little bit more about the sport known in the United States as soccer, but not a whole heck of a lot. Sports in general have never interested me, and soccer is essentially never televised in the US, so I don't even get sucked into watching it with friends the way I have football or baseball--or even figure skating or Australian rules football. Therefore, all of this was news to me.
In 1971, a group of executives for Warner Communications decided that what New York City really needed was a world-class soccer team. This documentary, narrated by Matt Dillon for some reason, is the story of how it came to be. We talk a great deal about Warner president Steve Ross, about how he took a sport that the average American couldn't care less about and crafted a team out of semi-pro American players and whoever he could get from Europe. In 1975, they finally succeeded in wooing Pelé to the United States and the Cosmos, and with his arrival, the team really took off. They would go straight from their games to Studio 54. The locker room was filled with so many celebrities that player Franz Beckenbauer said that the atmosphere in the locker room made him feel as though he was in Hollywood. Only when Pelé retired, the fortunes of American soccer in particular and the New York Cosmos in particular started a decline that is only just beginning to turn around.
This movie did not make me overcome my lack of interest in soccer. I think they're right that paying Pelé $100,000 to get his perspective would not have improved things. (When they reference him in the end, they play a cash register sound over the image.) I think possibly that if they had focused exclusively on the soccer end of things, I would have just turned it off completely. I did find the business and sociological aspects more interesting--the most interesting soccer-related bit was the person speculating on why Americans have never been as into soccer as the rest of the world. (We like our sports less free form; the two big American sports all have plays, after which action stops before we move on to the next bit.) I scarcely know a good move from a bad one, though some of Pelé's acrobatics were visually impressive, if nothing else. Heck, even most of the celebrities they showed were more recognizable to me, and I don't pay much attention to certain aspects of '70s culture any more than soccer.
The arc of the New York Cosmos is not an unusual one. It was the old story of the fad that people thought would be a lasting passion. Oh, yes, there was a problem with overexpansion, but the death of the New York Cosmos (though they have been resuscitated recently) would have come about as quickly without all the failed teams started in the wake of its success. Heck, Studio 54 followed about the same trajectory, if you think about it, even unto the fact that there was a faint whiff of questionable finances in the Cosmos toward the end, though probably nothing actionable. Wildly successful, and full of the best of the best, but its initial probability couldn't last, and everyone was banking on the belief that it would. Then, of course, there were the people trying to copy the success without knowing what had caused it in the first place--possibly without it being possible for anyone to understand what caused that popularity in the first place.
The sad fact is, no one is likely to learn much of anything from the fate of the New York Cosmos. After all, the New York Cosmos didn't learn from those who went before them, either. I don't think I'm intended to get from this documentary what I did, but I think that's the only thing a non-sports lover can. I would imagine someone who really cares about the sport might well enjoy this movie for its sports merits, but I don't know enough about soccer to say. Unfortunately, I didn't find much to recommend it as someone who knows as much about film as I do, either. It's really only interesting to me as sociology, and there are better works of sociology out there. I have watched worse, too, of course, but I think the best reason to watch this is if you know more about soccer than the first paragraph indicates that I do. As the first paragraph indicates, that wouldn't be terribly difficult.
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
02/12/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Excellent, concise and detailed telling of the story of the New York Cosmos, and the North American Soccer league. This documentary included a great collection of footage, and a sported an almost full cast of relevant interviewees. Only the star of the show was missing in that department, the genial Pele. I love the quotation at the beginning that "Americans don't have the attention span to watch a sport which is free flowing and continuous" That never occured to me , although somehow i doubt it's a problem for Matt Dillion whose narration was very good. Finally, i had no idea about the 'North American Shootout'. I've heard of something similar as a suggestion for a replacement of the penalty shoot out , but had no idea it has actually been used in football. I enjoyed the footage of some of these, and thoroughly enjoyed the full 90 minutes of this documentary
Rated 4.5/5 Stars •
Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars
01/28/23
Full Review
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