Cool Runnings turns 20
HUNDREDS of fans converged on the Plaza Theatre in Calgary, Canada last Sunday to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Cool Runnings, the hit movie based on the exploits of Jamaica’s bobsled team at the 1988 Winter Olympics in that Canadian city.
The special showing was staged by the Reel Fun Film Festival. It was attended by two cast members of the 1993 comedy, Leon Robinson and Doug E Doug, who mingled with fans before the show and signed Calgary Winter Olympics memorabilia.
Robinson and Doug, however, did not watch the matinee.
“Last night I watched it, and I was like ‘OK, that’s enough,'” Doug told the Metro Calgary newspaper. “You start to get critical of yourself. You’re not watching what people are watching. You’re just thinking, ‘Wow, my head looks big. My dreadlocks look messy’.”
A recent poll by streaming and DVD rental service LOVEFiLM, ranked Cool Runnings as the number one feel-good movie of all time, beating out classics like Forrest Gump, Groundhog Day and It’s A Wonderful Life.
Funded by Disney for US$12 million, Cool Runnings starred Canadian actor John Candy as coach of a novice bobsled team. Rawle D Lewis and Malik Yoba also starred in the film which was shot in Calgary.
Cool Runnings grossed more than $15 million at the box office and made even bigger stars out of Jamaica’s bobsledders who returned the seventh fastest time in the heats of the four-man event.
They eventually crashed out but their symbolic walk across the line drew sustained applause from spectators.
The movie’s soundtrack featured songs by several Jamaican artistes including Jimmy Cliff, who covered Johnny Nash’s I Can See Clearly Now and Diana King who reworked Bob Marley’s Stir It Up.
