. I missed this when it came out.
"Repton Boxing Club" by Alasdair McLellan for British heritage label Sunspel, featuring Ryan Pickard (2011)
Boxing is one of those old-school sports I feel like I should be repelled by -- just the thought of a broken nose makes me cringe -- but even knowing next to nothing about it I find the whole enterprise totally fascinating and even romantic. (And this is not because I watched Rocky as a kid, because I didn't.) There's so much ritual to it, and so much reverence for the past. From an outsider's perspective it seems like it requires a physical and mental discipline that verges on the religious. Maybe it's so ugly that it comes full circle to beautiful.

While we're on the topic of beautiful destruction, another movie I want to see again:

Raging Bull (1980)