Return to the days of disco balls, .44-caliber killers, and the brief, brilliant flowering of major league soccer in America with Paul Crowder and John Dower's exuberant documentary about the New York Cosmos. Once in a Lifetime recounts the rise and fall of New York's beloved North American Soccer League franchise through archival footage, interviews with team players and executives, and a hip-shaking 1970's soundtrack. What started out as an ill-conceived effort by Warner Communications honcho Steve Ross to market soccer to New York's immigrant community turned into one of the most spectacular traveling roadshows of the Studio 54 era. The film traces the steady growth of Cosmomania from the team's early days dodging bits of broken glass on its home field on Randall's Island through the acquisitions of Pelé, Franz Beckenbauer, and other international superstars that briefly made the Cosmos-and soccer-the talk of Gotham. It was a deliciously weird time, when New York teetered on the brink of fiscal and moral collapse and when the words "I'm with the Cosmos" magically got you into all the hottest places. Once in a Lifetime is an infectiously entertaining roller coaster ride through one of the most fascinating periods in New York City history.

John Dower and Paul Crowder