By Joe Valdez

What the *&#! Are They About?
C.C. Baxter (Jack Lemmon) — accountant for Consolidated Life, or more specifically, “Ordinary Policy Department, Premium Accounting Division, Section W, desk number 861” — has made his West 60s apartment available to four executives who treat Baxter’s home as their extramarital playground. His neighbors, a Jewish physician and his wife, form the impression that Baxter is “a notorious sexpot” who scores with a different woman each night. Baxter is so accommodating with the arrangement that he sleeps on a bench in Central Park when an admin manager (Ray Walston) calls from a bar around the corner and requests use of the bachelor pad.

Baxter’s cooperation earns such high marks at the office that personnel director J.D. Sheldrake (Fred MacMurray) learns about the apartment. In exchange for membership in the key club, he decides Baxter is executive material. To celebrate his promotion, Baxter works up the nerve to ask out kooky but alluring elevator operator Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine) completely unaware she’s the girl Sheldrake intends to take back to his place. Baxter finds out and receives a coveted promotion in return for his discretion, but has to choose between his climb up the corporate ladder and his feelings for Miss Kubelik.

Jerry Maguire (Tom Cruise), a top agent at Sports Management International — “I handle the lives and dreams of 72 clients and get on average 264 phone calls a day” — is stricken with a bout of conscience late one night. He authors a “mission statement” calling on his peers to take fewer clients and make less money for the greater good. His vision inspires single mom Dorothy Boyd (Renée Zellweger), the only member of SMI who volunteers to leave with Jerry when he’s fired by his smarmy protégé (Jay Mohr). Jerry manages to take two clients with him, including the #1 pick of the forthcoming NFL Draft: Frank Cushman (Jerry O’Connell).

When Cushman defects on the eve of the draft, Jerry & Dorothy focus on their remaining client — a wide receiver for the Arizona Cardinals named Rod Tidwell (Cuba Gooding Jr.) — and the contract extension the irascible athlete and his wife (Regina King) need for the future of their family. Jerry calls off an engagement to his driven fiancée (Kelly Preston) and to keep her from leaving L.A., rewards Dorothy’s loyalty by marrying her, much to the disconcert of her divorced sister Laurel (Bonnie Hunt). While his friendship with Rod empowers both men professionally, Jerry realizes his missteps with Dorothy threaten to make all of it meaningless.

Writing
The Apartment had fermented in the mind of writer-director Billy Wilder since 1945, when he wrote himself a note after seeing Brief Encounter. David Lean’s classic dealt with the affair between a married man and a married woman, but Wilder was more intrigued by the character that lends the lovers the use of his apartment and had to crawl back into a warm bed all alone. Unable to get around the Production Code or the Catholic Church’s Legion of Decency in 1948 or 1949, Wilder found tolerances had shifted dramatically in the wake of Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe and Little Richard. By the 1960s, audiences were ready for a movie with implicit sexual content.

Eager to make another film with Jack Lemmon following the success of Some Like It Hot, Wilder and co-writer I.A.L. Diamond dug out their ideas for The Apartment. According to Diamond, the story was drawn from the Hollywood scandal in which producer Walter Wanger shot talent agent Jennings Lang when he discovered Lang was sleeping with his wife, Joan Bennett; an employee at MCA had provided the apartment where his boss and mistress were shacking up. Wilder & Diamond brought The Apartment to producer Walter Mirisch, with United Artists footing a budget. A script was finished only four days before filming began November 1959 in New York.

Many consider The Apartment to be the best comedy Billy Wilder ever made. It is, but it’s still one black cup of coffee. While at his peak in the 1950s (Sunset Blvd., Ace In the Hole) Wilder was not content writing jokes; he wrote films about murder and deceit that had a lot of humor in them. The Apartment turns on lies, a suicide attempt and the corruption of the American dream, but the vital wit in Wilder & Diamond’s script make it all go down with a teaspoon of sugar. Their structure is waterproof — nothing is introduced that isn’t paid off later — and arrives at a happy, Hollywood ending without threatening to insult the intelligence of the audience.

Jerry Maguire came in the wake of writer-director Cameron Crowe’s poorly received second feature, Singles. By the time Warner Bros. released it in the fall of 1992, even some of Crowe’s friends accused him of exploiting the Seattle music scene. The disconnect Crowe felt from people he’d once known well would bleed into his next script. He’d been studying the work of master filmmakers like Ernst Lubitsch, Preston Sturges and Billy Wilder. The film that impacted Crowe the most was The Apartment, which he loved so much — in its comic yet biting portrait of a working stiff and his love for an elevator operator — it quickly became Crowe’s favorite film.

After spending a year researching “stiffs with briefcases”, a friend showed Crowe a photo in the L.A. Times of a sports agent and his client. Far from a jock growing up, Crowe was drawn to the frenzied, big money backdrop of professional sports and with the help of sports attorney Leigh Steinberg, spent the next three years interviewing agents, athletes and owners in the pros. Along the way, producer James L. Brooks suggested they begin Jerry Maguire where an ‘80s movie would have ended: the guy who finds “the religion of goodness.” That guy would then spend the rest of the movie dealing with the consequences of his new philosophy.

The beauty of Jerry Maguire is in the dexterity of Cameron Crowe’s screenplay, which is about a bachelor romancing a single mom, the bonding of an agent and his male client, and a look at the business of pro sports in the 1990s. With Crowe’s perfectionist attention to detail, heartfelt wit, and ambition, any one of those stories would have probably made a good film. Here, we get all three. It’s also funny, with supporting characters of supporting characters entering and exiting to tremendous effect. The movie may have too much heart, but that’s just Crowe; he doesn’t pour sugar on for effect, but seems to really feel as much as his film does.

Writing edge: Jerry Maguire

Casting
After Jack Lemmon agreed to reteam with Billy Wilder in the role of C.C. Baxter, the director chose Shirley MacLaine to play Fran Kubelik, who accepted on the basis of a plot synopsis and the 30 script pages that had been finished. MacLaine was perhaps best known for the Rat Pack comedies Some Came Running and Can-Can, but Wilder hoped to push her dramatically. Paul Douglas — who’d appeared in A Letter To Three Lives — was cast as Mr. Sheldrake, but a couple of days before filming began, died of a heart attack. Wilder & Diamond both arrived on Fred MacMurray, who’d worked for Wilder on Double Indemnity in 1940.

Jack Lemmon & Shirley MacLaine have an undeniable chemistry on film. The only contemporary equivalent I can think of is Tom Hanks & Meg Ryan, except that Ryan has little emotional range and annoys me greatly. Like Hanks, Lemmon beautifully plays the dreams and struggles of an average guy with impeccable comic skill and without making him seem like a loser. MacLaine is a superb comedienne in her own right; this might be the finest role of her career. As for the limited supporting cast, it is fun to see Fred MacMurray play a rat bastard, as opposed to driving a flying car for Disney, while Ray Walston turns in terrific work as the conniving Mr. Dobisch.

Cameron Crowe wrote Jerry Maguire for Tom Hanks, who graciously declined in part because he didn’t buy Jerry’s marriage to Dorothy. Winona Ryder was a frontrunner to play the Shirley MacLaine part, but after four months of auditions, Ryder, Bridget Fonda, Marisa Tomei and Mira Sorvino were all passed over. The offbeat and melancholy quality of the virtually unknown Renée Zellweger sold her to the filmmakers. Crowe and Cruise made a personal plea to Billy Wilder to accept the part of Jerry’s mentor Dicky Fox, but the 89-year-old retired director brusquely declined. An executive VP of Intellectual Property at Sony Pictures named Jared Jussim filled the role.

It sure is hard to enjoy Jerry Maguire these days. Some ill-advised media outbursts have transformed Tom Cruise into the most despised movie star in the land. Renée Zellweger has been branded with mousy parts and Cuba Gooding Jr. has gone from Academy Awards to Daddy Day Camp. As celebrities, they get thumbs down, but as actors, each turn in fine performances. Credit goes to Crowe, James L. Brooks and casting director Gail Levin for filling the other roles. Bonnie Hunt, Jay Mohr, Regina King, Kelly Preston and Beau Bridges are amazing to watch here. Todd Louiso is a laugh riot as Chad the Nanny, while Jonathan Lipnicki (the kid) turned the whole movie. A parade of pro athletes appear as themselves to neat effect.

Casting edge: Even

Production value
While Billy Wilder initially shot exteriors for the apartment on West 69th Street, autumn in New York proved so chilly and unreliable after dark that the footage was reshot on a soundstage at Goldwyn Studios in Culver City. The artifice of the apartment and its sidewalk doesn’t detract from the story one bit, perhaps because in black & white, they don’t look nearly as phony as they would have in color. Production designer Alexander Trauner did a magician’s job creating the illusion of spectacular depth inside Consolidated Life by constructing desks and chairs that got smaller and smaller the further into the background they were positioned.

No style looks more dazzling to me in a movie than black & white film stock framed in anamorphic format. La dolce vita, The Hustler, Jules et Jim and The Haunting are just a few titles from the early 1960s that I can watch over and over just in terms of their presentation. The shadows of black & white film just have a dreamlike quality that resonates deep within the imagination, while the epic vertical horizon of anamorphic scope seems inherently suited to movies, even intimate dramas like The Apartment. If I was a big time film director in the ‘60s like John Frankenheimer, I would have shot in nothing but black & white anamorphic. Joseph LaShelle lit The Apartment.

Jerry Maguire commenced filming March 1996 in more than 70 locations in the Los Angeles area, as well as in Tempe, Arizona. Janusz Kaminski — who became Steven Spielberg’s preferred DP starting with Schindler’s List – lit the film. Production designer Stephen Lineweaver constructed two major sets at Sony Studios in Culver City: Dorothy Boyd’s home and the interior of Sports Management International. Costume designer Betsy Heimann does a yeoman’s job doing what I typically ignore unless it’s a period film — costume design — finding the right wardrobe for sports agents, single moms, a kid and others in the same film.

Cameron Crowe is not a filmmaker who has ever seemed concerned with camera lenses or effects, but Jerry Maguire was directed with a tremendous amount of finesse. Beyond the script and casting, what I like most about Jerry Maguire was how neatly it encapsulates worlds that on the surface would seem totally exclusive to each other — locker rooms and broadcast booths, suburban living rooms and backyards, hotels and airplanes — and makes them feel alive. Jerry’s journey as a character is how he navigates each of these worlds and how he comes out on the other side. Crowe does an underrated job of taking us on that journey visually.

Production value edge: The Apartment

Music
The Apartment and Jerry Maguire are films of different eras. Other than the fact that one is in black & white and the other in color, in no other area is the year they were made more obvious than in the musical arrangements. Billy Wilder turned to Adolph Deutsch to compose the musical score for The Apartment. The results — other than a fine piano theme, “The Jealous Lover” written by Charles Williams — are undistinguishable from any other movie made 20 years prior. In fact, I would be hard pressed to recall music from any Wilder film of the period.

Next to Quentin Tarantino, no filmmaker today has a better vinyl record collection than Cameron Crowe. Jerry Maguire marked the first time in his career he really started putting the stamp of his personal tastes in rock ‘n roll or folk music on his films. “Magic Bus” by The Who, “I’ll Be You” by The Replacements, “Secret Garden” by Bruce Springsteen, “Shelter From the Storm” by Bob Dylan and “Wise Up” by Aimee Mann are all used to great effect. Singer/ songwriter Nancy Wilson would compose two acoustic guitar themes: “We Meet Again (Theme from Jerry Maguire)” and “Sandy”.

Music edge: Jerry Maguire

Cultural impact
Opening June 1960, The Apartment would earn $6.5 million in the U.S. and $2.7 million overseas, making it the 8th highest grossing movie released in 1960. It would earn ten Academy Award nominations and win five: Best Art Direction (Alexandre Trauner, Edward G. Boyle), Best Editing (Daniel Mandell), Best Original Screenplay (Wilder & Diamond), Best Director (Wilder) and Best Picture. A musical comedy based on the film — Promises, Promises — ran on Broadway for four years beginning in 1968, while Wilder’s sophisticated brand of human comedy and drama continues to inspire filmmakers. The Apartment was even Billy Wilder’s favorite among his own films.

Hitting theaters December 1996, Jerry Maguire was a blockbuster. It tallied box office of $153.9 million in the U.S. and $119.6 million overseas. After Singles, Cameron Crowe wanted to make a movie that people would want to watch on TV at night, and TNT has granted him that wish with repeat broadcasts of Jerry Maguire over the years, minting “Show me the money!” in the popular consciousness. This was the peak of Tom Cruise’s popularity: Rosie O’Donnell devoted an hour of her daytime talk show to her adoration of Cruise and his latest film, which was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Picture (only Cuba Gooding Jr. took home an Oscar).

Cultural impact edge: Even

Winner: The Apartment

The Apartment is, was and always will be a beautifully made motion picture. To the credit of Cameron Crowe, when it comes to comedy, a love story or a read on the fine print of the American Dream, Jerry Maguire is actually a slightly better written and directed film. But for reasons mostly beyond anyone’s control, it’s become bloated with the baggage that massive success can bring. I much prefer watching Jack Lemmon & Shirley MacLaine in beautiful black & white widescreen than hearing “Show me the money!” one more time.

Your thoughts?

Synopsis
“I prefer metaphysics to theology,” says the voice of Annie Savoy (Susan Sarandon) as she puts on her lipstick. “See, there’s no guilt in baseball. And, it’s never boring. Which makes it like sex. There’s never been a ballplayer slept with me who didn’t have the best year of his career.” Annie walks to the baseball diamond in downtown Durham, where a rookie sensation named Ebby Calvin LaLoosh (Tim Robbins) is set to make his professional pitching debut. Exhibiting “a million dollar arm and a five cent head,” LaLoosh strikes out 18, walks 18 and beans the Bulls mascot twice. In an attempt to mature their wild prospect, the organization buys out the Triple A contract of journeyman catcher Crash Davis (Kevin Costner), busting him back down to the bus leagues so he can mentor LaLoosh.

Unable to decide who she wants to make her project for the season, Annie invites Crash and LaLoosh – whom she nicknames “Nuke” – back to her place. Despite Annie’s agility juggling quantum physics and sex, Crash walks out on her. “After twelve years in the minor leagues, I don’t try out.” Annie tries to groom Nuke into a major league pitcher by working on his mind in the bedroom, while on the field, Crash attempts to instill in the kid respect for their craft. The veteran ultimately earns the respect of his pupil by revealing he spent 21 days in the major leagues once, “The hotels all have room service. The women all have long legs and brains.” Nuke strings together a winning streak, which Crash urges him to honor by not sleeping with Annie until he loses again. Though infuriated at first, this gives Annie time to get better acquainted with Crash.

Production history
Ron Shelton spent his professional baseball career in the Baltimore Orioles farm system – mostly at second base – from 1967 to 1971. He was traded to the Detroit Tigers, but with spring training cancelled due to a player’s strike, Shelton began looking for another line of work. He earned a fine arts degree at the University of Arizona and hoping to become a sculptor, settled in Los Angeles. By 1980, Shelton was writing screenplays for a living. Under Fire and The Best of Times – both directed by Roger Spottiswoode – opened in 1983 and 1986. Having directed second unit on each film, Shelton decided he was ready to become a director. He began to rework a script he’d written in 1979 titled The Player To Be Named Later, based on his five years riding buses in the minor leagues.

Actor Kurt Russell, who’d also spent the early 1970s as a Double A second baseman – with the California Angels – was one of the people Shelton approached for input. Russell recalls, “The great thing about baseball, I said to him, is baseball is the only sport played by men for women. All other sports are played by men for men, that I know of. Man, team sports. Because baseball players, we’d just as soon have 50,000 women in the stands. We couldn’t care less if there was a guy there … That’s what they’re about. And Ron wrote it from – which in that regard was the point of view that you really need to understand baseball – the point of view of the woman who is with the ballplayer. That’s the point of view to write a baseball story from, which he did, which is why Bull Durham I think is one of the best made.”

Shelton’s research took him through North Carolina. He recalls, “I wanted to see if things had changed in the minor leagues since I had played because in the major leagues they had changed dramatically. Big money had entered the big leagues and players who used to be very accessible major leaguers were now becoming prima donnas in many cases. We can all remember when ballplayers were more like us, then they became rock stars and unapproachable. But I discovered the minor leagues had not changed a bit. They were still close access to the stands and guys sending notes into the stands, guys hanging on for dear life for their careers.” Wondering how he would tell a story about the minor leagues, Shelton imagined it being narrated by a woman. He started with the line, “I believe in the church of baseball.”

Eight weeks after returning from the road, Shelton had a new version of The Player To Be Named Later. “Every single studio turned it down twice. They kept saying, ‘Nobody cares about baseball. Women will hate it.’ I kept saying, ‘It ain’t about baseball.’” Being a first time director did not endear Shelton to the studios, but his witty, sophisticated, character driven script got the attention of Kevin Costner, who was mulling an offer to star in the football melodrama Everybody’s All American. Costner instead committed to Shelton’s project, but could only give him 30 days to lock down financing. On Day 29, Shelton sent the script to Orion Pictures’ New York office. The West Coast executives had passed, but a studio executive named Bill Bernstein read it on a Thursday and by three o’clock the next day – Day 30 – greenlit Bull Durham.

Susan Sarandon had already won the part of Annie Savoy. For Nuke LaLoosh, the studio suggested Anthony Michael Hall. Costner and Sarandon lobbied for Tim Robbins, an actor who’d only been featured prominently in one movie, and that had been Howard the Duck. Shelton recalls, “I had to fight very hard for the casting of Tim because of his one credit and the studio said that no one would believe that a woman of Susan Sarandon’s class would ever get involved with somebody like Tim and of course, they now have three children together.” Unable to film in ballparks while their seasons were in swing, Shelton was given five weeks to be ready to shoot. In October 1987, on a budget of $7.5 million, Bull Durham was filming in Durham Athletic Park, home to the Durham Bulls.

Shelton recalls, “The Durham Bulls were a famous old minor league team that had been around forever. Bull Durham Tobacco was made in that town and it was a chewing tobacco as well as a rolling tobacco. And I chose Durham because of the look of the town, the closeness of the warehouses surrounding the ballpark, that southern, urban feel to it. Also for practical reasons; all the other minor league teams were very close and you could ride to them.” Because the stadium grass was already changing color, it had to be painted green. To hide the fact that the surrounding trees were also turning brown in what was supposed to be a summer movie, much of the baseball was played at night, but it was so cold, the breath of the actors was clearly visible.

Shelton received little support from the studio. “While I was filming it, they hated it. They fired my cinematographer and did all kinds of obnoxious things. By the time I screened it for them, I thought they were going to kill me. Then they saw it and said, ‘This thing is great! We had no idea!”’ Opening June 1988, many critics agreed. Gene Siskel & Roger Ebert gave Bull Durham two enthusiastic thumbs up. Ebert: “What I felt as I watched this movie was – there have been so many baseball movies that have been so corny, especially if you love the game of baseball – this movie feels authentic, smells authentic and plays authentically and it is genuinely a funny, funny movie.” Siskel: “They say everybody has one story to tell and to write what you know about? This guy Shelton sure did it.” The film went on to gross $50.8 million at the U.S. box office.

In 2001, Sports Illustrated ranked Bull Durham #1 on its list of the Greatest Sports Movies of All Time. Commenting on the film’s reception, Shelton stated, “I think that it might be first sports film ever made by a guy who actually played as opposed to sat in the stands. I think as a player you see the game differently. As a kid I grew up hating sports movies and I thought if I ever get to make one, I’ll at least make one that I like. What I tried to do was concentrate on the moments between the big plays and leave the big plays for television. I think that’s why perhaps people responded to that movie and my other sports movies; they get to see the drama that they can never see on television.”

Opinion
While the film’s status among sports lovers would probably be enough to cement this as a modern classic, what makes it worth seeking out is that even if you’re no fan of baseball, and share even less enthusiasm for Kevin Costner, it’s impossible to miss how rich Bull Durham is in sophistication and sensuality, two qualities that have become about as rare in Hollywood as the no hitter is in baseball. From the opening line of dialogue, Ron Shelton is clearly making a film for adults by adults, one that goes somewhat over the top in its monologues and doesn’t necessarily adhere to reality when it comes to relationships, but does deal with the thoughts and ideas of grown folk in some of the sharpest, most hilarious dialogue written for the screen in 20 years.

What elevates Bull Durham way above the jokey and hokey sports movies is that Ron Shelton seems far more interested in human desire and creativity than his sporting knowledge, even while handling both aspects of his script masterfully. This is likely the last film we’ll see where a redhead ties her man up in bed and while he’s immobile, reads Walt Whitman to him. The film would have been a minor masterpiece with Kurt Russell as Crash Davis, but Costner is decent here, handling the brooding mystique, subtle goofiness and shorter line readings (Crash declaring, “I like this song,” as Ike & Tina Turner play on a jukebox). The supporting cast is an A+ all the way down the line, notably Tim Robbins as the dopey phenom and the late Trey Wilson as the baseball manager burdened with being too much of a nice guy.

Ryan Cracknell at Apollo Movie Guide writes, “As in the other sports-themed films he wrote and directed, Ron Shelton pays keen attention to dialogue. It’s not Tarantino slick, but instead a good blend of street snap and clever twang. This goes a long way in establishing the film’s greatest strength, its characters. They’re a motley cast of dreamers, realists and those who are just hanging on. While few in real life get the chance to play professional baseball at any level, the struggles of the various Bulls players still seem like everyone’s struggles, and they seem timeless. There isn’t a character in Bull Durham that doesn’t remind you of someone you know.”

Lisa Skrzyniarz at Crazy For Cinema writes, “Bull Durham is a hilarious, sweet and sexy film that uses the talent of its three stars to their best advantage. They work so well together, it’s like a comic ballet … The screenplay is sharp, witty and sexy. The baseball sequences a joy to watch. The film crackles with unrestrained energy and unresolved attraction. It’s rare to find a film made for adults that’s funny, romantic and something both men and women can enjoy. Even though it’s about baseball, it’s anything but boring.”

© Joe Valdez

Synopsis
“How long do we have to keep watching this crap?” whines a pampered beauty (Anitra Ford) while her boy toy Paul Crewe (Burt Reynolds) lays next to her in bed. Crewe finally has enough of her harangue, throws on the clothes she bought for him and snatches the keys to her Maserati on his way out. When she tries to stop him, Crewe pushes her onto the floor. Whipping through the streets like a speed demon, Crewe outfoxes the law and parks his ex’s sports car in a bay. He then finds his way to a bar to wait for the Highway Patrol.

Dealt a minimum eighteen month sentence at “Citrus State Prison,” Crewe is brought before the dapper but sadistic Warden Hazen (Eddie Albert). Hazen hopes the former All Pro quarterback will coach the warden’s pride and joy: a semi-pro football team consisting of the guardsmen. Captain Knauer (Ed Lauter) and his baton convince Crewe that his input is definitely not needed, while his fellow prisoners shun him. The joint’s best smuggler, Caretaker (James Hampton) explains why: “You could have robbed banks, sold dope or stole your grandmother’s pension checks, and none of us would have minded. But shaving points off a football game, man, that’s un-American.”

The warden threatens to deny Crewe’s parole unless he leads a team of convicts in a tune-up game against the guardsmen before the start of their season. A hulk named Samson (Richard Keil) and “the baddest cat in the joint” – a black belt named Shokner (Bob Tessier) – recognize the once-in-a-lifetime chance to have a free crack at the guards. Crewe confides to their coach – former pro baller Nate Scarboro (Michael Conrad) – that this is just a game to him. All he wants to do is survive it. Scarboro contends that this isn’t a game to the warden. “He’s givin’ us this chance to be free for a few hours, try and be men again, so he can destroy us.”

Production history
The Longest Yard began with a character producer Al Ruddy knew, an All American football star who was drafted number one by the Rams. He married a woman of great wealth that Ruddy had gone to USC with, but the All American blew out his knee. Ruddy ran into the couple at a mens store in Westwood, where the star was trying on tweed jackets. “And he says to her, ‘Well, should I take the blue or the green or the brown?’ She says, ‘Take all three because when I kick you out you’ll need them.’ So I started hypothesizing taking that character with a rich woman, beats her up, ends up in jail and gets one last chance, one last chance to find dignity for himself.”

Ruddy ultimately went to Utah to visit Burt Reynolds on the set of The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing. He didn’t have a script, just a story, which he pitched to the rising star. Reynolds – who’d played halfback for Florida State University – loved the concept and suggested Ruddy direct it. The producer knew someone better. With a screenplay commissioned by Tracy Keenan Wynn, Ruddy landed Robert Aldrich. Even though the most recent film Ruddy had produced – The Godfather – was playing to record box office around the world, Paramount remained so dubious about the commercial prospects of The Longest Yard that the studio shuttered the movie three weeks before filming was set to begin.

Shooting finally commenced in October 1973 at Georgia State Prison in Reidsville. Without the budget to hire the actors he’d worked with in movies like The Dirty Dozen, Aldrich substituted Ernest Borgnine with Michael Conrad in the role of Nate Scarboro, and instead of Richard Jaeckel, cast Ed Lauter as Captain Knauer. Equally unknown to movie audiences were the pro football players who made their acting debuts in the picture: Dino Washington, Ernie Wheelwright, Ray Ogden, Pervis Atkins and Sonny Sixkiller were cast in the Mean Machine, while Ray Nitschke, Joe Kapp and Mike Henry played guardsmen.

The script was so hard-edged that Crewe was shot at the end, but Aldrich – having never directed a comedy – dumped that idea and used Reynolds’ charm to lighten the mood. Released August 1974, audiences embraced the movie, while critics dismissed it. Over time, The Longest Yard topped lists of the best sports movies of all time. For its reissue on DVD in 2005, Ruddy recalled, “The interesting thing about the movie is this was the first sports movie that had ever become a big commercial success at the time. This kicked off a whole genre of movies. Paul Newman did Slap Shot, there was suddenly twenty sports movies. Nobody wanted to do this movie … Nobody wanted to touch sports.”

Opinion
The Longest Yard may seem chock full of juvenile mayhem with little substance, but it’s endured as a classic because of how short tempered, surly and gloriously mean it is under the surface. Paul Crewe throws his girlfriend to the floor, endangers the city of Savannah by tearing around in a Maserati and shows nothing but contempt for both authority and the men he’s serving time with, playing one against the other for his own personal benefit. Somewhere in there, he discovers his dignity and gets one play to turn his life around. Rarely will you see a movie combine raucous humor, gritty drama and slick entertainment as beautifully as this one does.

Instead of looking for the joke, the writers, directors and actors seem fully committed to playing football here. The 47-minute grudge match which concludes the film works both as a piece of technical virtuosity – with Aldrich and editor Michael Luciano utilizing split screens and slo-mo – as well as brass tacks filmmaking that shows the game unfold as if we were in the bleachers. As for the players, they seem like they’re trying to stomp each other as opposed to play acting. The final scene – where Ed Lauter has a second to use between humanity and brutality – puts the film in the caliber of a Sam Peckinpah western as opposed to a mass entertainment cranked out by Hollywood.

Vince Leo at QWipster’s Movie Reviews writes, “Clearly, The Longest Yard is a bit of a mixed bag, alternately silly and somber from scene to scene in a way that doesn’t always mesh.  The direction by Robert Aldrich is perhaps the biggest reason why film scholars have occasionally praised the film, although one could presumably argue that Aldrich simply didn’t know how to make a sports movie and instead made a political movie instead.  There is an existential quality to the film that makes it transcend being a mere ‘pros vs. cons’ football flick.  There is a moral center to it that is sometimes difficult to grasp, yet always present, showing that you can take a man’s freedom but you should never take a man’s dignity along with it.”

Mike Sutton at DVD Times writes, “On the surface, The Longest Yard is simply a vehicle for Burt Reynolds and, as such, it is a triumph. Reynolds was one of the first actors to enjoy being a celebrity to such a degree that his public persona gradually became tangled up with his characters. Though always capable, when the spirit moved him, of genuinely interesting performances – Deliverance, Hustle, Starting Over, Boogie Nights – Reynolds has always seemed most at home when playing something not too far from himself. Indeed, Paul Crewe could be Reynolds’ own comment on his fame as half-beefcake, half-clown.”

© Joe Valdez

Synopsis
As an old man threads a fishing line on the Big Blackfoot River, a narrator (Robert Redford) begins: “Long ago, when I was a young man, my father said to me, ‘Norman, you like to write stories.’ And I said, ‘Yes, I do.’ Then he said, ‘Some day when you are ready, you might tell our family story. Only then will you understand what happened, and why.’” Moving back in time to 1910 and the town of Missoula, Montana, the Reverend Maclean (Tom Skerritt) teaches his sons fly fishing the Presbyterian way, against a metronome. Seven years later, the strong willed Norman (Craig Sheffer) and the charismatic Paul (Brad Pitt) test their mortality by shooting a rowboat down the local falls.

Graduating from Dartmouth six years later, Norman returns to Montana. His mother (Brenda Blethyn) apologizes for his brother’s absence from the homecoming, while his father presses Norman for details of what he plans to do with his life. Norman seeks out Paul, now a reporter with a taste for staying out late, drinking and gambling. Though his brother is perilously in debt, Norman seems unsure how to best extend help. They bond over a shared love of fly fishing. When his relationship with a feisty Methodist named Jessie (Emily Lloyd) turns serious and he accepts a teaching job in Chicago, Norman asks Paul to come with them. His troubled brother makes the decision to stay.

Production history
Retiring from teaching English literature at the University of Chicago in 1973, Norman Maclean wrote a book that had been gestating for thirty-eight years. Titled A River Runs Through It and Other Stories, it wasn’t fiction – tracing Maclean’s relationship with his brother Paul between 1910 and 1935 in Montana – but it wasn’t quite a memoir either, devoting more print to the art of fly fishing than to family history. Published in 1976, the book was embraced by critics. Four years later, author Tom McGuane sent a copy to actor Robert Redford, citing the book as an example of fine western writing. Redford recalled, “I read it, and the arrow went in right away. I thought, ‘I really want to do something about this.’”

“There were such deep parallels to my own life. And the ethic that shaped these people’s lives shaped early America’s life. It was a sort of Christian ethic of stoicism in the face of adversity, a sense of honor and grace, not asking for help, not complaining. This was a slightly troubled family that, like so many others, dealt with silence as a virtue and strength as a weapon. They had enormous difficulty expressing feelings and emotion.” Despite winning an Academy Award in 1981 for directing his first film – Ordinary People – Redford discovered that Maclean had no intention of seeing his book turned into a movie.

Redford recalls, “I think the reason Norman resisted for so long was that he was fearful the book would be turned into pornography, a story of a brother going bad, gambling and whoring and then getting killed. He also was afraid that his deeply loving family would be portrayed as disturbed. I assured him that was not my intention.” Redford offered to come to Chicago on three occasions – letting two weeks pass between each visit – to talk to the author. “He kept challenging me. Asked me how I could really understand the Scots ethic since I was really Scots-Irish.” Maclean ultimately agreed to option film rights for A River Runs Through It to Redford.

Following a pass by William Hjortsberg – a literary contemporary of Tom McGuane’s – Redford turned to Richard Friedenberg to adapt a screenplay. Friedenberg had won an Emmy in 1986 for scripting the Hallmark Hall of Fame production Promise, which also dealt with brothers whose relationship is forged by fishing. Friedenberg moved some of Maclean’s events up ten years to when the brothers were becoming men, while strengthening the character of Jessie, whom the screenwriter saw as a strong-willed, Roaring Twenties flapper. Maclean’s daughter Jean Snyder recalls, “Friedenberg worked very hard to get real events into the film. He drew on other writings of my father and on research into my mother’s family as well.”

A five year struggle to secure financing ended when Columbia Pictures agreed to a reduced budget of $12 million. With Redford in the director’s chair, shooting commenced June 1991 in Montana. The fishing scenes were filmed south of Bozeman on the Gallatin River, south of Livingston on the Yellowstone River, and south of Big Timber on the Boulder River. The film premiered quietly at the Toronto Film Festival in September 1992. Opening in theaters the following month, critics responded favorably, while word of mouth among moviegoers unaffected by the film’s measured pace propelled A River Runs Through It to grosses of $43 million in the U.S.

Opinion
As a filmmaker and as a chairman of the Sundance Film Festival, Robert Redford has been called out by the left as being stodgy and attacked from the right as being self-important, and while A River Runs Through It did little to silence his critics, the film remains Redford’s finest work as a director, rising to the status of a classic for its pure storytelling craft, which is as natural and deeply affecting as the Big Blackfoot is to the Macleans. With a meager budget (by Hollywood standards,) it’s also more majestic in its design and far richer in its humanity than Redford haters may have wanted to admit at the time.

It can be said that neither Craig Sheffer or Brad Pitt – who doesn’t look a day older than the 27 years he was here – ever break out and make these roles their own, but stillness and the space between words is what Maclean’s book was all about and what makes the film so powerful. Both actors are superb in their performances. There’s a great deal of wit here, namely during a disastrous fishing expedition Jessie pressures Norman to take her vain Hollywood brother (Stephen Shellen) on. The film captures all sorts of natural moments that pass between families through the years, while cinematographer Philippe Rousselot won a well deserved Academy Award for his pristine outdoor lighting.

Don Willmot at Filmcritic.com writes, “A River Runs Through It is part travelogue and part tragedy, and running right through the middle of it, of course, is the river, a painfully obvious yet still touching metaphor for time’s inexorable flow. The impact does build, and no one will mock you if you find yourself in floods of tears as Redford reads Maclean’s final haunting words and gives us one final sparkling river vista. It’s beautiful, it’s sentimental, it’s nostalgic, it’s the West. Just let it wash over you.”

“The on-location filming in the Montana wilderness is breathtaking, and the scenes of the fly-fishing were exceptional. However, partial nudity, an overabundance of profanity, and an excessive amount of drinking and smoking ruin this film. A River Runs Through It is based on a true life story, but it isn’t even exciting. The movie drags is in many parts, just plain boring,” writes Ryan Kelly at Christian Spotlight In Entertainment.

Margo Reasner at DVD Verdict writes, “The slow pace of this film is going to lose some viewers looking for more action and the middle part of the film dealing with Norman’s love interest may lose viewers that like the rest of the film. However, if you like drifting down a river and watching the scenery float by on a warm sunny afternoon then this film will be for you; if you like shooting the rapids while hanging on for dear life then you might want to pass on this one.”

© Joe Valdez

Synopsis
“In the old days, I remember a wind that would blow down through the canyons. It was a hot wind called the Santa Ana, and it carried with it the smell of warm places. It blew the strongest before dawn, across the Point. My friends and I would sleep in our cars, and the smell of the offshore wind would often wake us. And each morning, we knew this would be a special day,” says our narrator (Robert Englund). In the summer of 1962 on a beach in Malibu, three friends assemble on the shore to surf.

Matt Johnson (Jan-Michael Vincent) is regarded by the kids as a living legend, but has little desire to serve as a role model and spends most of his time drunk. Jack Barlow (William Katt) is a loner, an old soul in a young body. Leroy the Masochist (Gary Busey) is the resident wild man of the bunch. The Point’s elder statesman – Bear (Sam Melville) – builds surfboards for the kids. He predicts the coming of a swell so strong that the courage of the friends will one day be tested.

Jack falls for Sally (Patti D’Arbanville), a recent transplant to the West Coast. He invites her to a party at his mother’s house, which is invaded and wrecked by crashers from the Valley. On a fateful trip to Tijuana, Matt’s plucky girlfriend Peggy (Lee Purcell) announces she’s pregnant. She’s the only one ready to really embrace adulthood. By the fall swell of 1965, the boys have received their induction notices from the Draft Board. Some employ various tricks to get out of service, but Jack chooses to go to Vietnam willingly.

By the winter swell of 1968, Matt has pulled himself together and become a semi-responsible family man, quietly lamenting the passing of his glory days on the Point. Jack returns home to discover Sally has married. Leroy is devoted to waves and little else. Spring 1974 comes and sees even more changes in the lives of the men, but when once in a lifetime swell predicted by Bear comes to the Point, it unites the friends one last time.

Production history
John Milius had scored a critical and commercial hit with a movie he wrote and directed – The Wind and the Lion – while an adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness he’d written in the late ‘60s – as Apocalypse Now – was set to start shooting in the Philippines under the direction of Francis Coppola. With the success to make nearly any movie he wanted, Milius turned to a subject he considered the most important in his life; his days surfing and growing up in Malibu.

Milius had at one time envisioned Big Wednesday as something he might write as a novel. Realizing the visual magnificence inherent to surfing, he brought in childhood friend and surfer Dennis Aaberg to remember everything they could about their youth and to write a screenplay together. Warner Bros. agreed to produce the memoir to the tune of $12 million. With an eye on casting actors who “all looked kind of heroic,” recreational surfers Jan-Michael Vincent and William Katt were selected, as was Gary Busey.

To substitute the actors for the big wave sequences, Jay Riddle & Billy Hamilton, Peter Townsend and Ian Cairns doubled for Vincent, Katt and Busey respectively, while Jalama and Cojo Bay – both near Point Concepcion in Santa Barbara County – stood in for Malibu. Released in May 1978 with anticipation that the epic might elevate Milius to the status of his friends Coppola, Spielberg and Lucas, Big Wednesday was reviled by critics, many who still had an ax to grind over the politics in movies Milius had written like Dirty Harry.

Milius recalled, “I was devastated. I wanted to join the French Foreign Legion. Boston and Chicago liked Big Wednesday. And Hawaii. But the rest of the United States? Not so good.” Though the film was ignored at the box office, many surfers came to regard it as the best ever narrative about their sport. Other moviegoers caught on as well, including Quentin Tarantino, who put Big Wednesday on a short list of his favorite movies of all time. An event commemorating the film’s 20th anniversary drew 8,000 fans to Santa Monica.

Milius sums up the film’s appeal on the DVD audio commentary: “Surfing is a sport you do alone. You judge yourself alone. The only competition you have is yourself. You don’t bring anything back. There are no trophies, no antlers. You ride the biggest wave and the wave just dissipates on the beach. And so, it is a thing that’s internal. But what is strange about surfing is that the thing you remember most are the relationships. So really, it is something that is best done alone, but it is also something that builds incredible camaraderie and friendship. It is a brotherhood.”

Opinion
Big Wednesday practically defines the category “cult classic.” There may be little political material, and the coming of age story is tame by today’s standards, but there’s not much middle ground to occupy here. Moviegoers have either dismissed Big Wednesday for its flat characters, its melodrama or its inaccuracies – like a twenty-foot swell in Malibu – or been struck by the beauty of its mythos and its atmosphere, which capture the feeling of old time surfing better than any movie ever made.

Borrowing a page from Sam Peckinpah, Milius is less interested in exposing reality and more interested in exploring archetypes; larger than life characters achieving some sense of destiny against adverse forces. Instead of a plot, the story unfolds as any memoir would, as a series of loosely knit recollections. The characters aren’t as important as the memories: a house party smashed up by crashers, a dangerous excursion into Mexico, civil disobedience against the Draft Board. Milius and cinematographer Bruce Surtees capture these moments with real visual panache.

Gary Busey and Lee Purcell stand out among the young cast, while Jan-Michael Vincent – who deserves to be next in line for a Quentin Tarantino career intervention – gives the best performance, as the fallen star athlete in search of redemption. The water photography by Greg MacGillivray, George Greenough and Dan Merkel is as world class as the surfers, which includes a cameo by Gerry Lopez. Basil Poledouris composed a tremendous musical score, at times relaxed in Polynesian strings, other times as rousing as a samurai epic.

Terry Kemp at DVD.net writes, “Big Wednesday is to guys what Beaches is to the gals – almost. It is a story about friendships and the changes that we go through as we mature. The film would have worked almost as well in any other number of sporting arenas, but there is the added bonus of the cinematography and the beauty, power, and lure of the sea. The film may take a while to appear as if it is going somewhere, but your patience will be rewarded.”

“Not everyone will appreciate having their surfing served up with such a generous helping of philosophy and there’s certainly a sense in which Milius is over-egging the pudding … Yet it remains a considerable achievement, a rites-of-passage movie which has an individual vision and a genuine passion, in which juvenile hijinks are kicked aside in favour of a thoughtful reflection on how people can come to terms with the disappointments of everyday life,” writes Mike Sutton at DVD Times.

Warwick Gaetjens at DVDActive says, “This film is honestly a welcome change from the mind-numbing thoroughfare that is streaming out of Hollywood currently, I don’t mind being taken for a more intellectual ride nowadays – I must be getting older, that’s what it is. The best thing that this film shows is that even old men were young once too as it shows the passage of time that we all eventually go through.”

© Joe Valdez

Synopsis
Shooting baskets in the yard of Attica State Prison, Jake Shuttlesworth (Denzel Washington) is called for a visit with the warden (Ned Beatty). Jake is notified that the governor is a huge basketball fan and a booster of his alma mater, “Big State University.” The warden verifies that Jake’s son Jesus (Ray Allen) is now the number one high school basketball prospect in the country. The governor has given his word that if Jake can convince his son to sign a letter of intent with Big State, Jake’s sentence will be reduced.

With a week to go until the signing deadline, Jake returns to Coney Island with an ankle bracelet, a menacing chaperone (Jim Brown) from the board of corrections and a letter of intent for his son to sign. While Jake’s 11-year-old daughter (Zelda Harris) is happy to see her father again, Jesus isn’t interested in reconciliation. He refuses to forgive Jake for the death of his mother. Jesus hasn’t decided which college he wants to sign with yet, but nearly everyone in his life appears to have a vested interest in the boy’s plans.

His girlfriend Lala (Rosario Dawson) is scared of being left behind and urges him to speak with a sports agent who’s paid her off. His uncle (Bill Nunn) is suspicious of where Jesus gets his money and demands his piece of the pie. His coach has kept Jesus in money from an anonymous party, hoping for a hint of which school he’s leaning toward. Coaches John Thompson, Dean Smith, John Chaney, Roy Williams, Nolan Richardson and Lute Olson appear on video to remind Jesus, “This will be the most important decision in your life.”

Only a diminutive teammate (Hill Harper) and a neighborhood ganglord (Roger Guenveur Smith) who guarantees Jesus protection seem not to want something from him. Beyond the accident that took his mother’s life, Jesus resents his father for how hard he pushed him as a child on the practice court. Jake does his best to make up for lost time – revealing he named Jesus after Earl Monroe, not Jesus Christ – but with his time up, issues his son a challenge; a game of one-on-one for his signature on the letter of intent.

Production history
Writer-director Spike Lee had always thought his first sports film would be a biography of Jackie Robinson, but after struggling for two years to find the financing necessary to tell Robinson’s story, Lee had to put the project on hold. In 1996, his wife told him that he should write an original screenplay, something in his own voice. Jungle Fever had been his last attempt at this and that had been six years previous. Once Lee started writing again, the first thing that came to his mind was basketball.

Lee wanted to avoid sports cliché, “that hokum Hoosiers, Rocky kind of sports movie. No underdogs, no team from the sticks.” Knowing that every NBA player who spotted him courtside at Madison Square Garden would be on his case if he made a bad movie about basketball, Lee also wanted to avoid the inaccuracies of many recent hoops flicks. “Those films, everybody’s dunking. And you can tell they got trampolines off to the side and guys are flying through the air like it’s a karate movie or something.”

Once he finished the script, Lee Fed Exed it to Denzel Washington, who sent word two days later that he would star in the picture. This got Disney to commit $23 million in financing. Washington made the package even more appealing by cutting his fee in order to get the movie made. Lee had been worrying about who he was going to cast as Jesus. “I don’t think there’s an actor today that could’ve exhibited the skills to look like he could be the best high school athlete.” Lee drew up a list of every NBA player who looked like he could still be a high school senior.

Kobe Bryant had off-season commitments. Tracy McGrady auditioned but was found too reserved. Allen Iverson auditioned as well, but his acting chops didn’t impress anyone. Management for Kevin Garnett and Stephon Marbury wanted a guarantee that one or the other would be offered the part. Travis Best, Walter McCarty and Rick Fox auditioned and all won supporting parts. Lee approached Ray Allen during halftime of a Bucks-Knicks game and ultimately offered him the role of Jesus. Allen had never acted before, but went to work with an acting coach eight weeks prior to filming.

He Got Game opened in May 1998 on more screens (1,300) than any Spike Lee film to date, and though it debuted number one at the box office, the movie faded fast from public view, grossing $21.5 million in the U.S. As with most of Lee’s work, critics either loved it or hated it. Roger Ebert wrote that it was Lee’s best since Malcolm X, adding “Spike Lee brings the spirit of a poet to his films about everyday reality.” Bruce Diones at The New Yorker wrote, “Spike Lee offers up more cliché-ridden street angst.”

Appearing on The Charlie Rose Show, Lee’s take on He Got Game was this: “I think this film is about parents and children. It’s not just sports dads. It could be stage mothers, I mean, it could be parents pushing their children to be lawyers or doctors or ballerinas or ice skaters. I think all children need to be pushed by their parents, but, at some point, pushing has to stop or it becomes very harmful to the child.”

Opinion
Some complained that like several of Lee’s films, its portrayal of women seemed unflattering, while the script featured too many subplots, one focusing on Jake’s relationship with a hooker (Milla Jovovich). While neither of those charges is unfounded, they overlook how masterfully He Got Game flows between satire and father-son story, between a scathing indictment of the recruitment of student athletes and the redemptive power Lee finds in the game of basketball. The result is a real labor of love and one of the finest films of Lee’s career.

As a document on the pressures top high school prospects face from colleges, agents, hangers-on and haters, the movie exhausts every angle and takes absolutely no prisoners. Denzel Washington is in Training Day mode playing a man whose anger has undermined his relationship with his son. His climactic hardcourt duel with Ray Allen is a purely awesome piece of filmmaking. Public Enemy provided two terrific songs, and in an inspired choice, Lee utilizes the music of composer Aaron Copland to stirring effect.

Keith Phipps at The Onion A.V. Club writes, “There’s not a relationship in He Got Game that feels right, especially the one between Washington and Allen, and if that doesn’t work, neither does the film. It doesn’t work, in large part because neither is allowed to develop into a character … He Got Game makes a few feints in the direction of religious allegory, but it’s ultimately just a heavy-handed morality tale, complete with cartoonish stereotypes and streetwise, been-there, done-that types who pop up to deliver lectures.”

“Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing was excellent. Ever since then, his films have captured some of that excellence in part, but never the quality of the whole. He Got Game is great for looking at a sense of time and place and at the web of relationships that describes the community in the film, reasons enough for setting this film above many others. But gaps in other departments keep this Spike Lee Joint from being another masterpiece,” writes Marty Mapes at Movie Habit.

Rob MacDonald at Apollo Movie Guide writes, “He Got Game is a film of highs and lows, from beautiful on-court scenes to pointlessly gratuitous scenes like the one in which a pair of balloon-chested babes offer sex to Jesus. There are moments of great passion that are followed by scenes that are terribly juvenile or over-sentimental. And the use of Aaron Copland’s ‘inspirational’ music sends some scenes over the edge. Spike would have fared better to stick with Public Enemy.”

The music of Aaron Copland set to the images of one of the best documentarians making feature films, Spike Lee. View the opening credits sequence for He Got Game.

© Joe Valdez

Synopsis
In Stockton, California, Billy Tully (Stacy Keach) wakes up in a fleabag hotel next to a fight magazine and a pint of whiskey. With nothing else to do, he grabs a gym bag and heads to the YMCA, where 18-year-old Ernie Munger (Jeff Bridges) wails on a punching bag. Tully asks the kid if he wants to spar. Ernie inquires whether Tully’s a pro. “I used to be. I’m all out of shape now.” Despite claiming he’s never been in a boxing ring, the kid impresses Tully with his speed and his legs.

After pulling a muscle, Tully plants himself on a barstool. He meets a devil-tongued lush named Oma (Susan Tyrrell) who’s even more soused than he is. Meanwhile, Ernie follows Tully’s advice and goes to see his former manager Ruben Luna (Nicholas Colasanto). Ruben mentions that Tully was once his best fighter, until he got married to a woman who ruined the boxer’s peace of mind. Ernie’s potential – plus his clean cut looks and the fact that he’s White – convinces Ruben that the kid could be a great heavyweight draw.

While trying to keep his teenage girlfriend Faye (Candy Clark) happy, Ernie trains for his first fight. Tully makes ends meet by picking melons at twenty cents a sack. Ruben piles Ernie and three other fighters (“Four sure winners!”) in his Chevy and drives to Monterey for a series of three-rounders. All four kids lose. When Tully runs into Oma at the bar again, she informs him that her loyal boyfriend has been sent to jail. Getting drunk with her, Tully promises, “You can count on me.” They quickly move in together.

When Ernie gets Faye pregnant, he hangs up his boxing gloves and finds work in a walnut orchard. He crosses paths with Tully and the men decide they could do a lot better by climbing back in the ring. Tully makes it as far as a professional fight this time, which he narrowly wins against a Panamanian suffering from gastrointestinitis. But Tully still holds a grudge against Ruben for mismanaging his shot at a belt when he was in his prime, and soon, the lure of the bottle proves too great.

Production history
Leonard Gardner was born and raised in Stockton, where he’d toiled as both a boxer and a field laborer before graduating from the creative writing program at San Francisco State College. His first novel wove the tale of a hungry young fighter with the woes of an old pro long past his glory days. Published in 1969, Fat City was nominated for a National Book Award alongside Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five. The novel’s success sparked a bidding war in Hollywood, with film rights ultimately going to producer Ray Stark.

Monte Hellman was hired to direct Gardner’s screenplay adaptation. After spending weeks scouting locations and conducting research, Hellman opted for a deal with Cinema Center that promised him more money. 64-year-old John Huston – whose directing career had been, at best, checkered for twenty years – came on board. Asking cinematographer Conrad Hall and production designer Richard Sylbert if they understood what the film was about, Huston informed them, “It’s about your life running down the sink without being able to put the plug in to stop it.”

Hall took up the challenge by lighting scenes as they would be lit in real life, with low visibility inside the bars and the outside world blown out when you emerged into the sun. Ray Stark wanted Hall fired for making the film too dark to play at drive-ins, but Huston stood by his DP. The producer had already vetoed Huston’s choice to play Tully – Marlon Brando – but Stacy Keach’s performance ended up being second only to Brando’s in The Godfather for many critics in 1972. Strong reviews didn’t help the film at the box office, where audiences ignored it.

Opinion
Fat City has grown in esteem among film noir enthusiasts, sports fans, and lovers of ‘70s movies, but what makes this a minor masterpiece is how beautifully it moves between despair and levity, with a rhythm that honors real life as opposed to melodrama. The script crawls right into the gutter with a man throwing his life away with booze and bad decisions, yet Gardner also demonstrates a genuine spirit for humanity in the rhythm of his dialogue and the vibrant stories his characters share with each other.

The film is rich in character, from the great Nicholas Colasanto (“Coach” on the early seasons of Cheers) as the effusive boxing manager, to Susan Tyrrell, who was nominated for an Academy Award as the loud and lonely barfly. Stacy Keach immortalizes one of the great screen drunks of all time, delivering the strongest performance of his career. The film’s Sunday morning coming down flavor is crowned by the use of Kris Kristofferson’s superlative western tune “Help Me Make It Through the Night” over the opening credits.

Vince Leo at QWipster’s Movie Reviews writes, “Subtle yet rich in so many ways, Fat City is one of the best films to cover the sport of boxing, giving us more of a glimpse into what drives these men to get in the ring and lay everything on the line. Definitely worth a look for those who enjoy the work of Keach and Huston; it resonates in its bleak and pessimistic portrayal of squandered lives and broken dreams.”

“While all this may seem too down and out to be entertaining, it’s a credit to Huston’s long perfected directing and narrative style that the film ends up saying something positive, even as it wallows in the seemingly miserable lives of these characters … we understand that we are in the hands of a brilliant, classic filmmaker. Huston explores the landscape, both inner and outer, in Fat City and creates a spellbinding, exceptional motion picture, and a near timeless classic,” writes Bill Gibron at DVD Verdict.

Glenn Erickson at DVD Savant writes, “Fat City shows Huston practically inventing the modern American Independent Film decades before it came to be. It’s a character study, pure and simple, with no claims on great drama or timely relevance, beyond the personal plight of humans surviving on skid row. It’s about personal dreams and ambitions, and what happens to them down in the ‘lower economic depths.’”

Stacy Keach, skid row and a classic Kris Kristofferson tune. See what a perfect opening credits sequence looks like in Fat City.

© Joe Valdez

Synopsis
Celebrating his 7th birthday in a park near Washington Square, Josh Waitzkin (Max Pomeranc) discovers benches full of men playing chess for cash. Though Josh’s father Fred (Joe Mantegna) is a sportswriter, his son loses interest in baseball and fixates on a chess piece he recovered in the park. Josh surprises his mother Bonnie (Joan Allen) by later asking her if they can go back to see “the men in the park.” Then he stuns her by taking a seat at one of the benches and competing with a wizened Russian in a game of chess.

Fred is skeptical that his son knows how to play. He asks for a demonstration, but Josh loses intentionally, not wanting to beat his dad. After realizing what his son is capable of, Fred seeks out a chess player once highly regarded named Bruce Pandolfini (Ben Kingsley) and hires him to tutor Josh. Bruce tries to teach his pupil a regimented, cerebral approach to the game, while Josh’s mentor from the park, Vinnie (Laurence Fishburne) favors a fast paced and aggressive style used by hustlers to intimidate their opponents.

Josh proves so adept at the game that Fred enters his son in a tournament. Bruce advises against this, believing that “winning and losing” has nothing to do with chess. Caught up in his son’s gift and the thrill of competition, Fred pushes Josh to excel. Josh’s weakness as a sportsman is his kindness, which Bonnie fears Fred will beat out of him in his efforts to make his son a winner. When he encounters another prodigy (Michael Nirenberg) who dispatches his opponents with cold-blooded efficiency, Josh has to decide for himself how important winning and losing is.

Production history
Published in 1989, Searching For Bobby Fischer: The World of Chess, Observed by the Father of a Child Prodigy was a collection of essays by journalist Fred Waitzkin dealing with the chess world, primarily, Waitzkin’s role as “caddy and coach” to his prodigious son, Josh. Producer Scott Rudin purchased the screen rights, and the book ended up in a stack that the producer sent to screenwriter Steven Zaillian. Rudin felt that Zaillian wrote like a director and had been urging him to get behind the camera for years.

When Zaillian picked up the book for the first time, he recalled, “It was the photograph on the cover that really got my attention, It was of a kid studying a chess position on a board. He was only seven years old, yet he was so adult and intense. This prompted questions in my head. Why was this kid doing an adult job? What kind of pressure does that put on the kid?” Zaillian – who knew little about chess – conducted his own research, hanging out in Washington Square, attending a national scholastic chess championship and meeting characters in both worlds that ended up in his screenplay.

Searching For Bobby Fischer had very little commercial potential, but Rudin enjoyed a relationship with Paramount Pictures, having produced The Addams Family for the studio to great commercial success. Shooting of Zaillian’s directorial debut commenced in June 1992 under the modest budget – for a studio picture – of $17 million. 8-year-old Max Pomeranc had been discovered several months earlier at a chess tournament in New York. According to Zaillian, “He had no acting experience, but we decided to gamble. It turned out that he was so natural that he’s incapable of a false moment.”

By the time the film was finished, the regime at Paramount had shifted from the late Brandon Tartikoff to Sherry Lansing, but executives were so moved by the picture, they threw their support behind it. Released in August 1993, the movie drew rave reviews, but failed to connect with audiences, grossing a mere $7 million in the U.S. Some questioned the studio’s release strategy, but Rudin didn’t fault Paramount for the film’s reception, “It’s just what it is. It doesn’t play down to the audience. The real question is, ‘Can you make a movie for families that’s not dumb, that doesn’t necessarily have to aim low and works for adults as well as children?’”

Opinion
The uniqueness of this film lies in its ability to reject the notion that the 1970s was the last golden age of Hollywood, that studios have lost the craftsmanship necessary to make great movies. The 1990s belongs in that equation and here’s one movie that demonstrates why. There’s no mistaking Searching For Bobby Fischer for anything other than a Hollywood product, but it’s one in which every major element – writing, directing, casting, photography, music – is perfectly in tune, exploring the nature of competition with humor, intelligence and depth.

Zaillian’s superb script attracted one of the greater casts in recent memory: Joe Mantegna, Joan Allen, Ben Kingsley and Laurence Fishburne are supported in minor roles by David Paymer, William H. Macy, Tony Shalhoub, Dan Hedaya, Laura Linney and Austin Pendleton. Of all those names, 8-year old non-actor Max Pomeranc gives the most mesmerizing performance. Renowned cinematographer Conrad Hall lit the film in what he called “magical naturalism” – conveying a child’s sense of imagination – while James Horner’s music reflects that spirit with equal mastery.

Sheila O’Malley at The Sheila Variations says, “All of these characters are beautifully drawn, and perfectly played. And the story itself … I don’t care if it’s a formula. What – you think there are a gazillion different stories to tell? There aren’t. There are maybe 10 stories – told over and over and over – in different ways. Formulas can WORK if they are imbued with life, humanity, surprise. This film is one of my favorite films ever made. It just works.”

“I realize that I’m in the minority of people who don’t think this isn’t really that good of a movie, although I’ll admit, it did hold my interest enough for me to think it still worthwhile, which for a film about chess means it deserves at least some props. Still, Zaillian’s film is like the professional class of chess, rather than the game played out in the park — disciplined, but too rigid to allow for much freedom for expression, with every turn pre-determined well in advance,” writes Vince Leo at QWipster’s Movie Reviews.

Sean McGinnis at DVD Verdict writes, “The film is riddled with small moments, which put a HUGE smile on your face … Suffice it to say that director Zaillian nails a lot of moments. Personally, this film falls right next to The Princess Bride on the McGinnis-Richter Scale. Both succeed for reasons you can’t quite comprehend. Both are terrific family fun with a few life lessons to be learned along the way. Both represent, in my view, the best of what moviemaking is all about.”

© Joe Valdez

Synopsis
“Listen, here’s the thing. If you can’t spot the sucker in your first half hour at the table, then you are the sucker,” Mike McDermott (Matt Damon) narrates as he gathers his bankroll and heads down to an underground poker game in New York. Putting “three stacks of high society” [$30,000] in law school tuition on the line, Mike blows it against an Oreo munching Russian outfit guy known as Teddy KGB (John Malkovich).

Nine months later, Mike makes ends by driving a truck for his mentor Joey Knish (John Turturro) while attending City Law University. He makes an impression on a group of poker playing judges (including Martin Landau) by reading their hands. But his law student girlfriend Jo (Gretchen Mol) believes Mike should use his poker skills to calculate odds and read people in a courtroom, not waste it playing cards.

Mike picks up his childhood friend Worm (Edward Norton) from prison. Worm is a card hustler who uses any means at his disposal to win, including cheating. Mike extends Worm a line of credit at a club managed by fellow rounder Petra (Famke Janssen), which Worm is desperate to burn through to make up for $25,000 he owes to a loan shark. Mike agrees to partner with Worm to get his friend paid up, culminating in a rematch with Teddy KGB.

Production history
David Levien & Brian Koppelman had been friends since they were teenagers, and planned to write a movie together. Levien received a call one night from Koppelman, who had just lost every dime he had (about $750) in an underground poker game in Manhattan. He told Levien they had to write a movie about this. Working in a cramped basement, they wrote Rounders. Agents they sent it to passed, feeling their script was overwritten and not believable.

An assistant named Tracy Falco pulled the script out of the slush pile and recommended it to her boss, the late Ted Demme. Demme walked it into Miramax Films, who quickly attached director John Dahl. Dahl felt the script read like The Hustler. Instead of making a visually spectacular movie, he wanted the focus to be on the characters. With a budget of only $12 million, studio chairman Harvey Weinstein helped attract a world class cast.

Barely two years after Koppelman had called Levien with the idea, Rounders was shooting in New York. Good Will Hunting had just hit theaters, and Miramax anticipated the film would be along the same lines, a date movie. When it turned out not to be, the studio dumped it, focusing their marketing might on Shakespeare In Love instead. The film ended up grossing only $23 million at the U.S. box office.

Opinion
I can’t express in three paragraphs how awesome this movie is. Rounders is a minor masterpiece. Everything you could ask for in a movie – fantastic script, perfect casting, sophisticated direction – this one pulls off in spades. It recalls classics like The Hustler, while staying ahead of the curve at all times. If I could write any movie in existence, without space or time being an object, this one would be in my top five.

The world created in the script is seductive. It’s a world of locked doors and clever lingo and it never ceases to fascinate. The vernacular alone is intoxicating: “Worm and I fall into our old rhythm like Clyde Frazier and Pearl Monroe. We bring out all the old school tricks, stuff that would never play in the city. Signaling, chip placing, trapping. We even run the old best hand play.” The material stays ahead of the audience, as opposed to the other way around.

What a cast. Damon, Norton, Turturro, Famke Janssen, Landau, John Fucking Malkovich. Gretchen Mol takes what could have been an appendage and does great work. Dahl keeps the mood understated, employing a classic look and a low-key jazz score. Instead of trying to cash in on the TV poker frenzy, this film came out five years before the fad and may have helped create the frenzy. Whether you’re a Texas Hold Em fan or not, I cannot recommend this film enough.

“Even if the movie were just great dialogue, great performances, and an honest director, it would still be worth seeing … it achieves more by maneuvering into the unseen cracks and sleazy poetry of the world it shows us, and by its director’s sincerity,” writes Jeffrey Anderson at Combustible Celluloid.

Gary Tooze at DVDBeaver calls Rounders, “A guilty pleasure which I have seen about 5 times now, I must recommend. More underplayed than most of Hollywood’s current cultural Drano.”

“This film is worth seeing for any sports enthusiast, anyone who likes a comeback story, or anyone who appreciates a film that teaches them about a world they do not know or understand. Rounders is easily the best poker film ever,” writes TC Candler at Independent Critics.

© Joe Valdez

By Joe Valdez

Jonathan (Chris Klein) picks up some cash by participating in a street luge through San Francisco. He eludes police with the help of his buddy Rid (LL Cool J), who scoops Jonathan up in a Porsche. Rid is loaded with cash he’s made playing something called Rollerball in Asia. He asks his buddy to join him, but Jonathan prefers to try out for the NHL. With cops surrounding his place, he changes his mind.

In Central Asia four months later, Jonathan and Rid play for a team called the Red Horsemen. The game of Rollerball is a combination of roller derby, the WWF and the circus. It’s unscripted, but is relatively bloodless. The owner of the Red Horsemen, Petrovich (Jean Reno) discovers that global ratings spike whenever violence is introduced onto the track.

A Dutch motorcyclist named Aurora (Rebecca Romijn-Stamos) tries to warn Jonathan that management is fixing the games so that players are hurt. Once he and Rid are convinced of this, they attempt to escape to Russia, but Petrovich’s henchmen hunt them down. Realizing Jonathan will bolt the first chance he gets, Petrovich attempts to have him killed on the track.

Director John McTiernan agreed to develop a remake of the 1975 science fiction film Rollerball for MGM. The original took place in a distant future dominated by corporations instead of nations. Upper management channels the rage of the populace into a violent sport called Rollerball, until the popularity of the game’s champion player begins to threaten their control. Keanu Reeves was in talks to fill James Caan’s shin guards as Jonathan.

Larry Ferguson wrote a first draft. David Campbell Wilson did a revision that structured the script much like the original film. It took place in the 25th century, using a viral catastrophe to establish how the corporations took control of the world. Wilson’s draft was said to be an improvement over the original in every aspect.

McTiernan felt he didn’t need to go 500 years into the future to examine violence in entertainment. He was fascinated by the showmanship of the World Wrestling Federation and wanted Rollerball to reflect that culture. John Pogue was brought in to start over from scratch. Pogue set the story in Kazakhstan and invented a Russian tycoon as the villain. It was set in the futuristic era of 2005.

Pogue’s draft got Chris Klein and LL Cool J attached and McTiernan to commit to directing. One person who didn’t care for where the project was headed was Harry Knowles, who used his popular website Ain’t It Cool News to blast MGM publicly for a year. Two months before the film was to be released, Knowles received a call from McTiernan. The director wanted to fly Knowles and two of his friends from Austin in a private jet to view a work print.

With studio executives in attendance, Rollerball was test screened in New York. The work print was a hard R rating, full of bone crushing violence and full frontal nudity courtesy Rebecca Romijn-Stamos. But Knowles didn’t care for what he saw, and reported to his readers, “This film is a complete embarrassment. Personally, if I was MGM, I’d digitally remaster and re-release the original. It would gross more than this crap easily.”

Stunned that McTiernan had invited Knowles and his cohorts to the screening, and aware they had a film that was bombing, MGM pushed the release date from August 2001 to February 2002. A new ending was shot, and the film cut from an R to a PG-13 rating so it could appeal to teenagers. It was a commercial disaster anyway, a $70 million production that grossed $19 million in the U.S.

The 1975 version of Rollerball gets better each time I watch it. It works as a visceral entertainment and as an eerie commentary on where director Norman Jewison felt society was headed at the time: domination by corporations, increasing hostility channeled into sports, and drugs as a daily facet of life. It has its flaws, but with a bigger budget and better resources, was an ideal property to be remade.

The 2002 version of Rollerball is ridiculously conceived, pathetically scripted, horribly cast, with bad music and scenes that have been recut so many times, absolutely nothing makes sense. This is the worst possible outcome you could expect from a movie. It’s not over-the-top enough to be funny, making the 92-minute running time that much more mind numbing.

The decision to comment on the WWF dumbs everything down to a level only Bobby “The Brain” Heenan would be happy with. The game of Rollerball is so incomprehensible that nothing that has anything to do with it works. The project ended Chris Klein’s career as a leading man for good reason, while the brilliant baroque music in the original is replaced by Rob Zombie and Slipknot. That says everything you need to know about what a piss poor effort this is.

“Maybe if the studio didn’t sell out on the film by having all the sex and violence cut out it would’ve been worth a gander … then again … probably not. This flick is god-awful and I pity anybody that goes to see it,” says John Fallon at Arrow In The Head.an

Patrick Naugle at DVD Verdict writes, “Normally I’m all for crap like Rollerball, but this time around I’m relenting – this film just isn’t worth anyone’s time.”

“Junk, junk, junk, junk, junk. Boring junk. Noisy junk. Ugly and formless junk. Junk,” writes Ian Waldron-Mantgani at The UK Critic.