Movies To Watch This Weekend To Prepare For The Final Four

The 2015 Final Four is this weekend, with Michigan St. facing Duke and Kentucky squaring off against Wisconsin on Saturday, April 4, and the winners of those two games playing for the national championship on Monday, April 6. Whether your bracket has been busted or you’re still in the running to win your pool, the Final Four is more fun if you’ve got a team to root for. A perfect way to get in the mood for sports boosterism is by spending two hours watching a screen delivering content related to your squad. Thus, here are some movie recommendations to go along with whichever of the Final Four you favor.

DUKE

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Natalie Wood’s final film was the 1983 sci-fi thriller Brainstorm, which featured scenes shot on Duke’s campus. Christopher Walken starred as the inventor of a device that can record the sensory and emotional feelings of its subject. Reading the feelings of your opponent is a useful strategy in basketball, and indeed most any competition, so Duke fans should watch this movie and hope that their Blue Devils take heed to this approach.

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KENTUCKY

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For Kentucky Wildcats fans, the clear choice here is anything from the filmography of UK alum/superfan Ashley Judd. For classic Judd, the crime thrillers in which she is mentored by the likes of Morgan Freeman (Kiss the Girls, High Crimes) and Tommy Lee Jones (Double Jeopardy) are natural choices. But if the Wildcats face the Blue Devils in the final, avoid Kiss the Girls, which was filmed in Duke’s home of Durham, NC.

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MICHIGAN STATE

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Michigan State’s campus is in East Lansing, just east of capital city Lansing. Not that many films take place in Lansing or East Lansing, as the Great Lake State’s cinematic presence is more prevalent in Detroit or Michael Moore’s hometown of Flint. But for some reason, the 2010 Dwayne Johnson-starring family comedy The Tooth Fairy took place in Lansing, making it perfect for getting yourself in the mood to cheer on the Spartans.

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WISCONSIN

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Wisconsin’s nickname is the Badgers, so the obvious choice here is “Weird Al” Yankovic’s foray into cinema, UHF, which features the immortal line, “Badgers? We don’t need no stinking badgers!” That sentiment may sound anathema if you’re a Wisconsin fan, but it should get you fired up enough to declare that the Final Four does need some stinking badgers.

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