Once in a Lifetime: The Extraordinary Story of the New York Cosmos

One of the bubbliest, most rollicking, and most surprising documentaries you'll ever see.

I am a soccer fan, but you won't have to be one to enjoy this movie. If you like anything about the 1970s--the music, the disco scene, the cheesy TV graphics--you'll love this movie.

It's premised on the nearly-insane vision of multimillionaire media mogul Steve Ross to make soccer a big time sport in the USA. It led to absurd spending, classic sports excess, and surprise, surprise--sold out stadiums! The whole thing was a roller-coaster destined to crash from the very beginning, but my it's fun to watch happen.

The cinematography is quick, flashy, and usually tongue-in-cheek. The interviewees inform, hedge, dodge, bicker, and blame. You end up with a partially contradictory but often balanced view of what happened with this wildest of teams. The personalities of this movie are its most endearing quality.

It all makes for an entertaining story for non-enthusiasts, but an epic story for anyone with any liking for this game. There are a few factual discrepancies (the largest of which was that the NASL had accomplished a few things in cities other than NY before Pele ever got there), but they're more than compensated for by the insight the film gives to its central topic.