The movies got better, and so did my reviews

Hoop Dreams (1994)

Rated: PG-13

Runtime: 171 minutes

Stars: William Gates, Arthur Agee

Director: Steve James

Awards: Nominated: Best Film Editing (This movie, along with Crumb, changed the way Academy members nominated documentaries. Both movies were “turned off” by members during viewing after 20 minutes. Neither was even nominated for Best Documentary even though Hoop Dreams would eventually earn the award for Best Documentary from the L.A. Film Critics, National Society of Film Critics, New York Film Critics, and Sundance Film Festival. Chicago Film Critics even awarded it Best Picture. Crumb would achieve similar success the following year after its Oscar snub. I just found this really interesting, so I thought I would mention it here.)

Plot: Documentary that follows the lives of William Gates and Arthur Agee, 2 Chicago area basketball hopefuls. Over a 5-year period, we see William (a Michael Jordan fan) and Arthur (an Isiah Thomas fan) go through several ups and downs in their lives as they and those around them struggle with drugs, physical abuse, prison, unemployment, and welfare. William and Arthur are similar in many ways, extremely different in others, but they both share the passion to get their teams “down state” to win the Illinois high school basketball championship and to continue their success in the NBA.

Rating—out of 5 basketballs: 4 basketballs. 1 for my recommendation, 1 because it should have won the Oscar for Best Documentary, 1 for the thrilling story, and 1 because Jerry Sichting and I shared a court and for one brief moment I was almost as awesome as he was.

Tournament seed: 2-4—movie is one of the top teams and should be a popular pick to make it to the final 4. As long as nothing unfortunate happens along the way, this team can go very deep into the tournament. Don’t be afraid to choose this as one of your favorites.

This movie gives a fantastic look into the world of high school basketball, and an interesting look into the creepiness that surrounds it. Gene Pingatore, the head coach at Saint Joseph’s high school, only cares about his team when they help him succeed. His compassion towards his players is best shown in a scene with William as he prepares to graduate from high school: “Well, another one walks out the door, and another one comes in the door. That’s what it’s all about.” Way to stay classy, my friend. Earl Smith, an unofficial “talent scout”, hangs out around playgrounds to recruit kids to Saint Joseph’s and then never talks to them again. That sounds Law & Order SVU-ish. And Curtis Gates, William’s brother, former Colby Junior College player of the decade, un-coachable benchwarmer at the University of Southern Florida, hangs around his brother and tries to live vicariously through him. Maybe the music/score of the film will keep my mind occupied and make me forget about the awkward feelings. Nope; all we get is cheesy jazz music played throughout and the song “Hoop Dreams” by Tony M. of Prince’s New Power Generation fame. (My friend Jon will love this reference.)

But don’t get me wrong, this movie succeeds at a high level, with its ability to keep the viewer on the edge of their seat as William and Arthur take to the courts in their attempts to become legends. Both kids enter Saint Joseph’s High School (a Catholic College Prep School in Illinois) as freshman in 1987, the same school that former NBA star Isiah Thomas attended. Arthur becomes the starting point guard on the freshman team, while William makes the varsity squad and already has several colleges (Creighton, Illinois State, Marquette, and Rice) pursuing him. One of the things I really enjoy about this movie is that William and Arthur both experience winning and losing moments at different times, so there is a lot of back and forth when rooting for these kids. William’s team makes it to the state tournament, but loses to a team with Eric Anderson, the current Mr. Basketball of Illinois and future star at Indiana University. Arthur, on the other hand, is forced to leave Saint Joseph’s because his parents can’t afford the tuition. As sophomore year begins, Arthur is now attending Marshall Metro High School. He makes the sophomore team, but instead of starting, he comes off the bench. Saint Joseph’s makes the tournament again but loses a game after William misses a shot late in the game. Junior year appears as if it is going to be a great year for both. William is now being recruited by big schools such as Duke, Georgetown, Indiana, Michigan State, and UNLV, and Arthur finally makes the varsity team. But William injures his knee and is projected to be out until the state tournament. In the meantime we find out that he and his girlfriend are to be parents, and William scores a 15 on the ACT.... He will need a score of 18 to qualify for a scholarship to any 4-year university. William does indeed return to the court for the tournament, and makes 4 free throws late in a game to clinch the victory and live up to the title of always being a “clutch free throw shooter”. But in the next game, William is at the free throw line with six seconds left trailing by one and he misses both shots and Saint Joseph’s loses. Now that the season is over, William gets his knee scoped again, and Arthur is worried because he needs his Saint Joseph’s transcripts to stay on track to graduate but they won’t release them until his family pays the balance on his tuition. The summer before their senior years couldn’t have been more different. William attends a Nike All-American basketball camp with about 100 other high school players. Dick Vitale and Spike Lee are guest speakers, and top coaches such as Bobby Knight Mike Krzyzewski and Rick Pitino are there to check out the talent. Where was Arthur? He was working at Pizza Hut for $3.35/hour. William hurts his leg at the camp, but that’s ok, because he signs a letter of intent to attend Marquette University. As the season progresses, William is averaging 16 points a game, Arthur scores late to win a game, and he is starting to attract interest from some junior colleges. Late in the season, Arthur goes to a Saint Joseph’s game to watch William play. Saint Joseph’s loses as William misses a shot late, and is knocked out of the tournament by a team with star player and future Kansas Jayhawk Sean Pearson. William and Arthur hug it out and say “I love you man” to each other. Arthur then leads Marshall to victory in the City Championship, but after a few games in the state tournament the team loses to a team with Mr. Basketball of Illinois and future star at DePaul Howard Nathan. Arthur signs a letter of intent to attend a junior college in Missouri, William gets a 17.5 on the ACT, which they round up to 18. (So why don’t they just say you need a 17.5? I don’t get it), and then Arthur gets robbed at gunpoint a week before graduation. The end.

This movie brought back a sweet memory of my younger days as a hoop star. Arthur attends a basketball camp and his idol Isiah Thomas shows up and they play a little one on one. I attended a basketball camp in junior high and former Celtic role player Jerry Sichting showed up and I almost beat him in a game of knock-out. Arthur is seen throughout the film wearing a #11 jersey (Isiah’s number). Me ... I used to rock the #12 jersey (Sichting’s number) during my 2 years of varsity hoops. Yep, this movie could have been about me. Just kidding. But it could have been about any high school stars the same ages of William and Arthur: future college and NBA stars Juwan Howard, Glenn Robinson, Jalen Rose, or Chris Webber. But that wouldn’t have been much fun, because sometimes failures make a more interesting story than successes. William has a line towards the end of the movie that sums it all up perfectly:

William: “People were always saying to me, when you get to the NBA don’t forget about me. I should have said, if I don’t make it don’t forget about me.”

Picture it. Indiana. 1951.

Hoosiers (1986)

Rated: PG

Runtime: 115 minutes

Stars: Gene Hackman, Barbara Hershey, Dennis Hopper, Maris Valainis

Director: Angelo Pizzo

Awards: Nominated: Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Dennis Hopper), Best Music/Original Score

Plot: Norman Dale (Gene Hackman) is the new head coach for the Hickory High School Huskers. He also is the history/civics teacher, coached at a college in Ithaca, New York and spent the last 10 years in the Navy. Myra Fleener (Barbara Hershey) is the acting school principal, doesn’t approve of Coach Dale right away, and looks after the Huskers star player ever since his mom got sick and his dad passed away. Jimmy Chitwood (Maris Valainis) is that star player. He spends his time being mysterious and shooting jump shots in the school’s small gym. He doesn’t talk much, never misses a shot, and was really close to the last coach of the team. After that coach died, Jimmy decided not to play basketball anymore. Shooter (Dennis Hopper) is the town drunk and father of one of the players on the team. The previous year’s team was 15-10 and has all their boys back but 1. But without Jimmy, the team of seven players (there are only 64 boys in the whole school) will have a hard time winning. Coach Dale brings a style of coaching to the town that many people don’t agree with ... and possibly a dark secret from his past.

Rating—out of 5 basketballs: 5 basketballs. 1 for my recommendation, 1 for the awesome music/score, 1 for the based-on-a-true-story/amazing journey of the team all the way through the season to the state championship, 1 for the fact that each member of the team and not just one star player played an important role in the team’s success, and 1 because this movie makes me think of all my former teammates and coaches and I remember why I started playing basketball when I was 8 years old.

Tournament seed: 1—The favorite to win the championship. Has performed at a high level all season and shows no weaknesses. If the team plays to its potential it should be the one to cut down the nets and hoist the trophy above their heads.

Growing up, I owned 3 movies on tape: E.T., Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and Hoosiers. I probably watched Hoosiers about 500 times as a kid, so I have a lot to say about it. So stick with me on this one. The score for the movie is perfect. At least 10 times I found myself thinking “this score is amazing!” The students have some cool cheers as well. The basketball action is authentic and exciting. The team consists of eight of the most different players you could ever find on one team. But Buddy, Everett, Jimmy, Merle, Ollie, Rade, Strap, and Whit all play major roles as the season progresses. Gene Hackman gives a great performance as the head coach. He has some fantastic lines throughout: “Nobody’s irreplaceable”, “My practices aren’t designed for your enjoyment”, “There’s more to the game than shooting; there’s fundamentals and defense”, “The five players on the floor function as one single unit ... team, team, team ... no one more important than the other”, “Most people would kill to be treated like a God, just for a few moments”, “Welcome to Indiana basketball”, “Break ‘em down and build ‘em back up”, and “Don’t talk about the next step until you’ve climbed the one in front of you”. At his first practice, he kicks two kids out for not listening, leaving him with only five players. As Jimmy watches practices from the shadows, Coach Dale puts the team through a series of dribbling, defensive, passing, and rebounding drills, but no shooting. Then he throws in a little foot-fire and makes the team run some suicides. Whit (one of the boys tossed out of practice) apologizes his way back onto the team, so now they have six! All these drills remind me of my Varsity days ... yeah that’s right ... Salty played himself a little bit of the leather ball/iron hoop game.

After a while, Coach Dale turns his attention to Jimmy. He talks to him while Jimmy knocks down jumper after jumper and tells him “I don’t care if you play on the team or not.” Myra tells him to leave Jimmy alone. She really doesn’t like him. Before the first game, the crowd chants “We want Jimmy!” Coach Dale instructs his team to pass four times before they shoot, and they struggle with the new offense in the beginning of the game. The locals want the team to run and gun ... and on cue, Rade ditches the offense and starts gunning. Coach Dale is not happy, so he takes Rade out of the game. One of the Hickory players fouls out, but Rade is told to sit back down by Coach Dale. The Huskers play the rest of the game with only four players against the other team’s five. We then find out that Myra’s mom loves basketball and that Myra went to college but had to come back to Hickory after her daddy died and her momma got sick. Shooter drops by late one night to give Coach Dale some tips about the next opponent and he recognizes a picture of an old team Coach Dale used to coach. Coach Dale is surprised and asks him if he knows about ... but Shooter cuts him off. We now know Coach has a past that he might not want people to know. Good ol’ Shooter won’t tell! At the next game Everett is embarrassed by his drunken father, Shooter, and Rade gets benched for speaking during a time out. Oh, and Buddy is back on the team. Whooo! Now there are seven players on the team. Coach Dale gets a technical foul, Rade stands up for Coach and punches a kid, and one of the Huskers’ assistant coaches has a little heart attack. Coach Dale now needs a new assistant. I wonder who he will ask. Shooter! Only, Coach Dale sets a few rules: Shooter has to clean himself up, shave, show up at games and practices on time, wear a shirt and tie, and be sober. Shooter wonders, “What does my drinking got to do with my knowledge about basketball?” and he kicks Coach Dale out of his house. But Shooter shows up at the next game all suited up. Everett talks to Coach Dale and says he doesn’t think his dad deserves a chance, but before they can discuss it further, Myra walks into the room. She tells Coach about a petition that’s been issued for his removal as basketball coach, and it will be voted on at a town meeting on Saturday. Before the meeting, Myra reveals to Coach Dale that she has discovered his secret: he received a lifetime suspension from college basketball for physically assaulting his own player. That can’t be good for his chances of remaining head coach. At the meeting, Coach Dale apologizes for nothing and says he is proud of the boys. Myra says it would be a big mistake to let Coach Dale go. The team waits patiently for the vote, when a mysterious figure appears from the shadows. It’s Jimmy! What is he doing there? He tells the crowd it’s “time for him to start playing ball.” But, oh, there is one other thing ... ”I play, coach stays. He goes, I go.” WHAAAAAT????? The vote is 68-45 in favor of dismissing the coach, but they have a revote ... coach stays! Cue the “team starts kicking ass with Jimmy back” montage!

Late in one of the games, Coach Dale gets thrown out of a game for asking a ref, “You got pigeon shit in your eyes?” Now it’s up to Shooter. He designs a defensive strategy late in the game with the score tied to steal the ball, and then he “runs the picket fence at ‘em” and tells the boys, “don’t get caught watchin’ the paint dry.” The play work and the Huskers win! Hickory makes it to the State Sectional Finals, but Everett is distracted because Shooter is not there. Shooter shows up drunk during the game, stumbles onto the floor, protests a call, and gets a technical foul. Everett starts playing rough, which results in him punching a player on the other team and getting slammed into the trophy case and cutting his shoulder. Jimmy hits a shot late to put the Huskers up by 2, and Buddy steals the ball to clinch the victory. The next morning, Coach Dale and Everett find Shooter in the woods, and they bring him to the hospital for an extended stay so he can get clean. Next up is the State Regional Finals. The Huskers get down by 12 in the second quarter and still trail by 4 in the third quarter. Coach Dale tells Buddy to play better defense; so good that by the end of the game he knows what flavor of chewing gum he is. Rade fouls out. Everett gets hit in the shoulder and his stitches get pulled. Strap goes in and with the help of the Lord he hits two shots. Buddy fouls out and tells Coach the kid was “Dentyne”, and Ollie is the only one left on the bench that can take his place. But that’s ok; the Huskers lead by 3 with only 55 seconds left. Ollie then dribbles off his foot and the other team scores. Now there are 19 seconds left and the Huskers lead by 1. Ollie gets fouled. He air-balls his underhand foul shot and the other team scores. Yikes, only 10 seconds left, and the Huskers are now down by 1. Of course, the ball gets tipped to Ollie and he shoots and misses with 3 seconds left. But he was fouled! Strap says a little prayer and Ollie makes both free throws. Huskers up 1! The other team misses a shot at the buzzer and Ollie gets carried off the court. The Huskers will play for the State Championship but not before Coach Dale and Myra go for a walk and talk about the Coach’s “incident”. And then they share the most awkward kiss. Ever.

The Huskers will face, gulp, the South Central Bears and their frontcourt players that measure 6’4”, 6’5”, and 6’5”. Everett takes some time to visit his dad and tells him that he loves him, and Shooter tells him to “Kick their butts.” Time for the game of the century, a true Cinderella story! The team wants to win for all the small schools that never had a chance to get there, and for Coach, who got them there. And Everett wants to win for his dad. The team prays before the game and something about “David and Goliath” is mentioned. A barbershop quartet sings the National Anthem, and the Bears come out and pretty much dominate. Jimmy misses a few shots early and Coach Dale calls a timeout. Coach Dale gives the “Maybe they were right about us, maybe we don’t belong up here” speech. The team responds with the “I think Jimmy can take the guy that’s guarding him” speech. Jimmy delivers the “Shake my head yes” speech. I wonder what could be next ... yep ... the “Jimmy takes over” montage! The Bears are still tough, but the Huskers scrap their way back. The score is 40-34 with 2:10 left in the game and Jimmy shoots and scores. The Bears try to run out the clock and take an unnecessary shot and they miss. Buddy misses a shot, but then he steals the ball and passes it to Jimmy underneath the hoop for a score. 40-38! 33 seconds left. Jimmy steals the inbound pass and lays it in to tie the game at 40-40! Rade then steals the ball and calls a timeout. Coach Dale wants to run the picket fence for Merle, but the team looks at Jimmy and he says “I’ll make it.” Coach Dale looks at Jimmy and gives him the “You better fuckin’ make it” look. With 19 seconds left in the game, Jimmy has the ball at the top of the key and the team clears out. Jimmy runs the clock down to 5 seconds, dribbles towards the basket, crosses over and lets it fly ... goooood! The crowd rushes the court, Shooter celebrates in his room, Myra hugs her mom, the South Bend players are shocked, Jimmy is hoisted into the air, and a South Bend player says (about Jimmy) “That boy can play.” Coach Dale spots Myra in the crowd and they share a “We are totally going to make out later” look. The movie ends with a framed photo hanging in the gym of the team surrounding the championship trophy and Coach Dale’s voice saying “I love you guys.”

I think I pretty much covered all the great lines from the movie so I will end this review with two of my favorite scenes. One is the team before a playoff game giving the slow ... clap. I don’t think I have to explain that gem any further. The other is when the team arrives at the arena before the championship game. Coach Dale has the team take measurements of the free throw line to the baseline (15 feet) and the rim to the floor (10 feet). Those are the same measurements as the gym back in Hickory. It’s just a great way to show that no matter the size of the gym, it’s the size of the heart of the team that matters.

Hoop Dreamz for girlz

The Heart of the Game (2005)

Rated: PG-13

Runtime: 98 minutes

Stars: Bill Relser, Darnellia Russell, Keasha Beward, Devon “Crazy Horse” Crosby-Helms, Maude Lepley, Malia O’Neil, Hillary Seidel, Joyce Walker, Jade “Street Child” White, Secoy Williams, Lindsey Wilson

Director: Ward Serrill

Plot: Documentary about Seattle’s Roosevelt Roughriders girl’s high school basketball team over a 6-7 year period. Bill Resler is the head coach and likes to pick a “team identity” at the beginning of each season (Magical Journey, Pack of Wolves, Tropical Storm, Pride of Lions...). The team’s star player, Darnellia Russell, is often moody and gets low grades in her classes. The movie focuses on several other players from Roosevelt, some more talented than others: Devon “Crazy Horse” Crosby-Helms, who attended Fresno State University; Hillary Seidel; Jade “Street Child” White; and Lindsey Wilson, who attended Iowa State. The team has a lot of ups and downs over the years, and plays a bunch of meaningful games against rival Garfield high school. During these battles we meet Coach Joyce Walker, a former All-American at LSU and Harlem Globetrotter; Keasha Beward, who is Darnellia’s best friend; and Malia O’Neil, a star guard for the team.

Rating—out of 5 basketballs: 1 basketball for Maude Lepley, the sweet 95 year old former basketball coach that gets really excited when she holds a basketball.

Tournament seed: 13–15—movie hangs around with higher seed for the 1^st half, but the 2^nd half results in a blowout. Only advances in the tournament if matched up with an overrated team. Pick with caution.

This movie gives an interesting look into the world of girl’s high school basketball, and is a great movie to have in my collection of reviews. There have been a few movies with a female baller (Juwanna Mann, Rebound, Space Jam, Fast Break, and Love & Basketball), but this is the first (and only of the 32 I will review) where the whole team is girls. It was a bit short for a documentary (98 minutes), and this caused it to lack a lot of key elements. There was no music/score, so at times I found it a bit boring. The head coach was a bit goofy; a lot of his tactics were silly and I find it hard to believe they would really work. His philosophy on offense was ... don’t have one, just run like hell. This is probably why the team kept losing close games, and making stupid mistakes on easy plays. The movie tries to tackle a bunch of teen issues (poverty, racial tension, sexual abuse, teen pregnancy) but with the lack of time, they are rushed and feel unimportant. I did like the interviews they did with Maude Lepley, a 95-year-old former women’s basketball coach in the ‘20s. My girlfriend (who was watching the movie with me) loved learning about the early rules of women’s basketball, and said that she would have been more suited for that style of play because they didn’t have to exert much energy. After the main characters are introduced, the movie spends 99% of the time centered on Darnellia and her being pregnant. I found it amusing how the filmmakers tried to make it a huge surprise, but it’s pretty obvious. She is sick to her stomach and her back hurts before/during games (which causes the Roughriders, ranked #2 in the state, to lose in the first round of the tournament), and then she mysteriously quits school six weeks after the season ends ... which leads to the birth of her daughter Trekayla. Darnellia does go back to school, but the Seattle school district begins a long drawn out attempt to keep her off the basketball court. First she can’t play, but then she can, but then she can’t, but then she can! The team works their way through the tournament and ends up in the championship game against Garfield High. Darnellia takes over the game and scores 13 points in the first half to help her team to a 7-point lead. Garfield fights back to take a lead as Coach Resler’s strategy is to get all his players in the game, even the girls that have not played many minutes throughout the season. Which strangely works and Roosevelt leads by 1 with 44 seconds left. Garfield has a chance to tie the game with 9 seconds left, but misses 2 free throws. Darnellia puts Roosevelt up by 3 points with 1.9 seconds left and then the game is over. The 25-3 Roughriders are state champions! Darnellia graduates with honors, but does not receive any scholarship offers. She does end up at a community college though.

Three things I learned about girls from this movie: girls say “FUUUUUCK!”, you “Don’t fuckin’ throw shit!” at them, and if a female athlete gets pregnant in high school she gets punished and not the male who got her pregnant. I also learned that Coach Resler thinks he’s cool, but actually isn’t. The best example is in this exchange between Coach and team late in a game in which they are beating a team by a lot of points:

Coach Resler: “What rhymes with bass-pickin’?”

Team: “Ass-kickin’!”

I can’t wait for the sequel when we find out next year’s team identity is “school of piranhas”...

To the baseline!

Coach Carter (2005)

Rated: PG-13

Runtime: 136 minutes

Stars: Samuel L. Jackson, Ashanti, Rob Brown, Rick Gonzalez, Nana Gbewonyo, Robert Ri’chard, Antwon Tanner, Channing Tatum

Director: Thomas Carter

Plot: Ken Carter (Samuel L. Jackson) is the new coach at Richmond High School. He is a former basketball star at Richmond High and George Mason University. He doesn’t like the n-word, loves to make his team run suicides, names his offensive and defensive strategies after women in his life, and doesn’t approve of trash talking/taunting. The team he inherits is filled with the usual suspects: Kenyon (Rob Brown) got his girlfriend Kyra (Ashanti) pregnant, Cruz (Rick Gonzalez) deals drugs, Junior (Nana Gbewonyo) can’t read ... I think, Damien (Robert Ri’chard) is the coach’s son, Worm (Antwon Tanner) is popular with the ladies ... I guess, and Lyle (Channing Tatum) is ... white! The team is bad, they don’t like each other, and they don’t go to class. Enter Coach Carter and cue the team’s turnaround. (Haha ... turnaround ... I just made an unintentional basketball reference ... I rule!)

Rating—out of 5 basketballs: 2 basketballs. 1 for Samuel L. Jackson being in the movie and 1 for my awesome, possibly made-up quote.

Tournament seed: 10-12—movie is a sleeper, primed to upset a higher seed. Don’t be surprised if other people jump on the bandwagon when the brackets are released. It could play its way into the sweet 16.

I want to set the tone for this review early, so I am going to do something different; instead of ending with my favorite quote, I will start with it. Coach is a little irritated with his team, so he lets them have it:

Coach Carter: “I have had it with you mother-fuckin’ kids on this mother-fuckin’ team!”*

Ok, on with the review. I knew I was in for a treat when the opening of the movie revealed it was an MTV film. The soundtrack was filled with artists I can’t tell apart (Chingy, Common, Faith Evans, Kanye West, Lil Scrappy). Some guy from a rival school named Ty Crane is billed as the next LeBron James (so it was no surprise when the character thought he was the best and talked a lot of trash and became lazy as the game went on). Samuel L. Jackson was pretty solid as an “angry yet caring” coach. The team’s initial thought of him was, “He’s a country church n****r.” Coach doesn’t like that label, so he starts laying down the law, which causes the top 2 scorers from the previous year to quit. Many basketball-related clichés are soon to follow: “Practice starts at 3:00, but if you are not there by 2:55 that means you’re late”, “The losing stops now”, “I’m not a teacher, I’m the new basketball coach”, and “Basketball is a privilege”. And he kept asking the team “What’s your deepest fear?” Oh, and it didn’t end there; the high school students all said shit a lot and wore Raiders hats, the basketball action was all dunks and 3-point shots, and the high school dance was more like a strip club. But just when you think the team is headed nowhere, they come together to get a player back on the team, and they win the Bayhill Tournament after coming back from 6 points down with 20 seconds left in the game. Yay, this team is going all the way ... until they sneak out to party with the Bayhill girls and Coach gets their progress reports and sees that several players are failing classes. So Coach decides to lock out the team until they meet their academic goals. The team is forced to forfeit a game (which is their first loss of the season), and the town does not like it. Coach’s decision starts to make national headlines (Bob Costas does a piece on TV about it), but he sticks to his plan because he feels “the school is set up to make the students fail” ... or something. The biggest game of the year against Freemont is cancelled and Renny (Cruz’s cousin ... maybe) gets shot. This whole season is falling apart. The town wants to vote to have Coach removed from the team and end the lockout. Coach says he will quit if the lockout is ended. The school board votes 4-2 to end the lockout and the team takes the court ... not to play, but to learn: “They can cut the chain off the door but they can’t make us play.” Cruz quotes ... someone, and the team finds out they are passing all their classes so it’s time to play ball! Kenyon finds out Kyra had an abortion, but he seems pretty cool about it and tells her he loves her, and then celebrates with his team as they find out they made the state tournament and will face Ty Crane (now hyped as the future NBA #1 draft pick) and the mighty St. Francis team. As they take the floor they do a sweet slow-motion walk, and then they proceed to get behind by 15 points in the third quarter. But Coach gives the “Pedal to the metal” speech, and they make a comeback and trail by only 1 with 23.2 seconds left. Coach then gives the “Take what’s yours” speech and Junior scores to put the team up by 1. But the excitement is short lived because Ty receives a long pass and scores at the buzzer. Coach then gives the “Played like champions” speech and the team then does a “Rich-what/Rich-mond!” chant.

I guess the movie is based on a true story, so it was cool to find out that Junior attends San Jose State University, Lyle attends San Diego State University, Cruz attends Humboldt State University, Worm attends San Francisco State University, Kenyon attends Sacramento State University, and Damien breaks the Richmond High School’s scoring and assist records and attends the US Military Academy.

*I may have made this up because there wasn’t an awesome quote in the movie ... or maybe I didn’t???

Sperminator 2

The Basketball Diaries (1995)

Rated: R

Runtime: 102 minutes

Stars: Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Wahlberg

Director: Scott Kalvert

Plot: Jim Carroll (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a basketball star at St. Vitus Catholic high school. He likes to get paddled, plays basketball like a cheetah, and writes a lot in his notebook. Mickey (Mark Wahlberg) is also a basketball star at the same school. He likes to take a dump before the game. Jim and Mickey and a couple of other guys in their gang spend their days smoking, huffing, and talking about how they could beat Wilt Chamberlain. Jim becomes friends with heroin and his world begins to fall apart.

Rating—out of 5 basketballs: 2 ½  basketballs. ½ for the recommendation (it’s not really a basketball movie but it’s pretty good), 1 for the soundtrack, and 1 for Michael Rapaport stumbling onto the wrong set for a day.

Tournament seed: 5–9—movie is favored to win its first game in the tournament and has a good chance to win a second game. But depending on the team it is matched up against, could be an early upset. Be sure to do your research before choosing.

I can’t wait to watch the movie The Heroin Diaries.... I’m guessing it will have all the basketball action that The Basketball Diaries did not. The only “basketball action” this movie has (mostly from DiCaprio and Wahlberg) consists of goofy layups and tricky passes. Oh, and a never-ending game Jim plays with Reggie (at one point DiCaprio dunks!), and a sweet game of shirtless 2-on-2 in the rain with Jim, Mickey, Pedro, and Neutron. Before I go any further, I should mention that there are several characters in this movie that are “important” to the plot, but their stories are never really explored. Reggie is a friend of Jim’s that he shoots hoops with at the playground; Pedro and Neutron are friends of Jim and Mickey. Neutron breaks from the gang about halfway through the movie, and becomes a high school All-American basketball player, Pedro becomes a lifetime junkie. There is also Bobby (he has leukemia and is Jim’s best friend), Coach Swifty (he either wants to blow Jim or have Jim blow him ... it’s a little unclear), and Diane (a fellow junkie that suddenly gets clean ... I think?). So as I said before, the movie is lacking in basketball. To fill up the 102 minutes, it tackles weird sex stuff and drug use. Some of the highlights: Coach Swifty’s advice to the team of “No smoking and no pulling your peckers before a game”, Jim bragging about breaking Bobby’s record of choking it seven times (I’m guessing in a day?), Jim taking Bobby to a peep show but Bobby not being able to get hard, and Jim doing some drugs and then having sex with either Blinkie or Winkie (again, something that is unclear). These events lead to the downfall of superstar Jim. Jim’s mom kicks him out of the house, and he, Mickey, and Pedro take to the streets to live with the other junkies. Along the way they rob an ice cream parlor, Jim passes out in the snow, and Reggie saves him and gets him clean for a while. But then Jim gets back with Mickey, gets a bj from some guy in a bathroom, buys some bad drugs for himself and Mickey from some guy, which leads to Mickey pushing the guy off the roof. Mickey gets arrested, Jim runs back to his mom for money, she says no, calls the cops, and he cries like a baby. Mickey gets 5-15 years, Jim gets 6 months ... but he gets clean in prison. Yay! Pedro, sadly is last seen still on the streets, doping. Boo!

The movie was released in 1995, so there were some cool mid-nineties things: a soundtrack with songs by hip artists Pearl Jam, PJ Harvey, and Soundgarden. The Doors were on there too (always cool), and the song “People Who Died” by the Jim Carroll Band. Yeah, you read that right. See, the movie is based on Jim Carroll’s troubled teenage years. He became a famous writer and punk rock star. There was a dream sequence in the movie that Jim had where he enters his school and shoots up some classmates. This caused the movie to be blamed for future real-life school shootings later in the decade. The coolest mid-nineties thing, though, was Michael Rapaport’s appearance in the movie. The only explanation I could come up with was that he wandered off the set of Higher Learning (also released in 1995) and onto the set of this movie, because he plays a Nazi skinhead in both.

Leo does an awesome job of making sure I learned stuff even though he leaves me short of the basketball action I wanted: the going rate for a bj from a junkie in 1995 is 15 dollars, Jesus Christ would have loved the flaming bag of shit prank, taking drugs before a basketball game is not a good idea, and finding money in New York is like getting laid at the prom ... easy (I disagree). Oh, and there was something in the movie that I already knew:

Jim: “Time sure flies when you’re young and jerkin’ off.”

Taco, nacho, burrito...hot dog-o

Glory Road (2006)

Rated: PG

Runtime: 118 minutes

Stars: Josh Lucas, Jon Voight, Mehcad Brooks, Sam Jones III, Schin A.S. Kerr, Derek Luke, Alphonso McAuley, Damaine Radcliff, Al Shearer

Director: James Gartner

Plot: Don Haskins (Josh Lucas) is a former high school girls’ basketball coach who takes the head coaching position at Texas Western College. He don’t see color, calls everyone son, and preaches fundamental/disciplined/defensive basketball. Adolph Rupp (Jon Voight) is the legendary/racist head coach of the University of Kentucky. Coach Haskins wants to compete with Duke/Kansas/Kentucky, but his all-white team just can’t keep up. So he does the unexpected in the south (for the time): he recruits seven African-American players that can put it in the hole and rebound. Harry Flournoy (Mehcad Brooks), a forward from Indiana; Willie Worsley (Sam Jones III), a guard from New York; David “Big Daddy D” Lattin (Schin A.S. Kerr), a center from Texas; Bobby Joe Hill (Derek Luke), a point Guard from Michigan; Orsten Artis (Alphonso McAuley), a guard from Indiana; Willie “Scoops” Cager (Damaine Radcliff), a forward from New York; and Nevil Shed (Al Shearer), a forward from New York, are the chosen ones that would change college basketball and the world forever.

Rating—out of 5 basketballs: 4 basketballs. 1 for my recommendation, 1 for the solidness of a Disney sports movie, 1 for teaching the viewer about the importance of this team, and 1 for the first movie I have reviewed that captures the beauty of the NCAA Tournament.

Tournament seed: 2-4—movie is one of the top teams and should be a popular pick to make it to the final 4. As long as nothing unfortunate happens along the way, this team can go very deep into the tournament. Don’t be afraid to choose this as one of your favorites.

This movie is really good. Disney does a great job turning true sports stories into movies (Remember the Titans, The Rookie, Miracle, The Greatest Game Ever Played, Invincible, Secretariat are some examples), and Glory Road definitely delivers. The only thing I didn’t really like about the movie was that it jammed in too many hits from the ‘60s to get you to feel like you were traveling back in time to that era. The basketball action was realistic and there were a lot of sweet dunks. The movie does a great job of balancing racial issues, though some might have an issue with a Disney kids’ movie using the n-word. Coach Haskins has a lot of great one-liners, some funny, some serious: “Decent don’t cut it with me”, “Faster than a twister will take your socks off”, “This pie is so good, it makes me mad at my mama”, “Activity without accomplishment”, “Are you kiddin’ me”, and “Runnin’ in mud”.

Texas Western benefits from schools like Duke, Kansas, and Kentucky overlooking black athletes, but even after getting the players, it still isn’t easy. The white players on the team don’t want to give up their spots, and there are even differences between the black players. In the beginning, there are only about 100 people at the games, but then they start winning. A victory over #4 ranked Iowa (the Miners trailed by 21 points before Coach “let ‘em loose”) starts turning heads, and, when they continue to run teams off the floor, the country starts to really pay attention. The black and white teammates start hanging out, the team is ranked #4 in the country behind (you guessed it) Kentucky, Duke, and Kansas, and all seems great. But then Shed gets beat up in a bathroom by a bunch of white guys, the Haskin family starts receiving hate mail, Scoops is diagnosed with a heart problem, the black players separate from the white players after the attack on Shed, the Miners lose their first game of the season by 11 points to Seattle University, and the white players claim they are victims of reverse racism. Things look shaky as the NCAA tournament begins, but the Miners come up big against the University of Kansas with a 1-point double overtime win after Kansas’ star player Jo Jo White has the game-winning shot called off after he stepped out of bounds. To nobody’s surprise, Texas Western is to face the University of Kentucky in the championship game. It’s black vs. white, David vs. Goliath. Coach Haskins’ makes not only a huge decision for his team, but a groundbreaking one for college basketball as well; he decides to start five black players (the first time in NCAA Championship history) and to play off the bench only his other 2 black players. The white players are ok with the decision, because they just want to win. Coach wants to send a message to begin the game, so he tells Big Daddy D to “stick his armpits in the rim” and he sooooo does! A little bit later in the first half, Flournoy gets hurt, Lattin picks up 3 quick fouls, and  things don’t look good for the Miners; but they are able to hold a 3-point lead at the half. Kentucky and their 2 All-Americans (Louie Dampier and Pat Riley) turn things around to start the second half and take an 8-point lead with 10 minutes left, but then the Miners go up-tempo, do some fancy passin’, and lead by 3 with 2 minutes left. Coach then tells his players in the last 2 minutes of the game that the game is “not about talent, it’s about heart”, and they come out of the timeout with a Cager reverse dunk, a Bobby Joe steal and a Lattin dunk for a 7-point lead. Kentucky misses a shot and Bobby Joe dribbles out the clock. Texas Western wins the championship 72-65 and they cut down the nets.

A lot of important things are learned along the way: taco night brings in a real good crowd, all black people are from Harlem, all white people are from Mayberry, liquor steals a man’s mind, and fans in 1966 think it’s cool to wave confederate flags in the stands during a basketball game. Before the credits roll, we learn that David Lattin was a 1^st-round pick in the NBA draft and played 2 years in the NBA/3 years in the ABA, Willie Worsley played 1 year in the ABA, Nevil Shed was a 4^th-round pick in the NBA draft but never played a game in the NBA, and Don Haskins would lead the Miners to 14 NCAA Tournaments and 719 wins in his coaching career. And during the credits the real players from Texas Western and Kentucky, and coach Haskins talk about what the game was like. If they only knew then what we know now:

“Negroes would be the future of college basketball.”

OUTATIME

Back to the Future (1985)

Rated: PG

Runtime: 116 minutes

Stars: Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Crispin Glover, Lea Thompson, Thomas F. Wilson

Director: Robert Zemeckis

Awards: Won: (Best Effects/Sound Effects Editing) Nominated: (Best Writing/Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen, Best Music/Original Song, Best Sound)

Plot: Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) is your typical ‘80s teenager; he rides a skateboard, plays guitar in a band named The Pinheads (they are just too darn loud), has a girlfriend that believes in him, is always late for school, wants a black 4x4, and his choice of beverage is anything without sugar. Dr. Emmett Brown (Christopher Lloyd) is a scientist/inventor, is Marty’s best friend, and has a dog named Einstein. George McFly (Crispin Glover) and Lorraine Baines McFly (Lea Thompson) are Marty’s parents; George still gets pushed around by his high school bully Biff, likes peanut brittle and The Honeymooners, and isn’t good at confrontations; Lorraine has never chased a boy or called a boy or sat in a parked car with a boy, and she likes vodka. Oh, and Biff, (Thomas F. Wilson) he sleeps in on Saturdays and Sundays. Doc Brown has built a time machine out of a DeLorean and has plans to travel 25 years into the future. Some Libyan terrorists out for revenge after getting swindled for their plutonium cause a chain of events that send Marty back in time to the year 1955. After reuniting with 1955 Doc, Marty and Doc encounter all sorts of trouble while trying to get Marty back to the year 1985. This includes Marty bumping into his parents and Biff and causing his future to be in jeopardy.

Rating—out of 5 basketballs: 5

Tournament seed: 1—one of the top 4 teams in the tournament. Has played at a high level all season and is deserving of its “easier” path to the final 4. Most people pick 1-seeds to advance far into the tournament, and they are most likely to win the championship.

I told you it was going to happen. It’s October 26^th, the day that Marty McFly traveled back in time. So a Salty Chewbacca review of his favorite movie of all time only seems appropriate. I know I may have said in my June 16^th review of Before Sunrise that it was my favorite movie of all time, but I go back and forth on these 2 movies. If I had to choose, it would be Back to the Future (1), and Before Sunrise (1A). But it’s so close. I would even go so far as to say that Back to the Future is in the top 2 or 3 of the 10 movies you have to see from the ‘80s … I will come up with that top 10 in the next few days and post it in the comments. There is so much to cover in this movie, so I will start with the easy stuff and go from there.

The music/score is amazing. My girlfriend has said that the movie theme is the greatest of all time, and she is pretty cool so it has to be true. The score throughout is absolutely perfect; every scene that calls for emotion or excitement delivers that and more. Then there is Huey Lewis’s “Power of Love”; it should be on everyone’s Walkman … I mean … what year are we in? What do kids use these days? iPods? Whatever … the song is awesome! There are several classic lines from the film that are still used today, or should be anyway: “Save the clock tower”, “What are you looking at, butthead?”, “Say hi to your mom for me”, “Let’s see if you bastards can do 90”, “Who the hell is John F. Kennedy?”, “Great Scott!”, “What the hell is a gigawatt?”, “Make like a tree and get outta here”, “Lou, give me a milk … chocolate”, “Dad … dad … dad … daddio”, “Hey you, get your damn hands off her”, “I don’t want to mess with no reefer addicts”, and “I guess you guys aren’t ready for that … but your kids are gonna love it”. Some important things are learned when you go back to the year 1955; orange vests may be cool in 1985 but can cause people in 1955 to think you are in the Coast Guard, and if you owned 2 TV’s in 1955 you would be rich. Ok now onto the plot. The story is so tightly written that it was able to leave itself open for a sequel (or two) without ever losing grip on what it was accomplishing in this movie, which could have easily stood on its own. Simple things are mentioned in the beginning, like the clock tower being struck by lightning in 1955 or George and Lorraine going to the Enchantment Under the Sea dance together and kissing for the very first time on the dance floor. You don’t even realize it, but the movie is telling you that everything that led to the current McFly family existence was all relying on unusual/amazing events that had to happen in 1955. Good thing nothing ever threatened to keep these things from happening …

Like, what if Doc hadn’t slipped and banged his head and come up with the flux capacitor, which is what makes time travel possible? I don’t even want to think about it! But it does happen, and 30 years later Doc gets some plutonium, which is what is required to generate the 1.21 gigawatts needed to power the flux capacitor, but then he gets shot by some Libyan terrorists, and Marty, in an attempt to escape the same fate, jumps in the DeLorean and accidentally travels back to November 5, 1955. Innocently, at first, Marty encounters teenage George and Biff at Lou’s café, but then gets hit by the car driven by his grandfather, which was supposed to hit George and set up the falling in love between Marty’s parents. Are you still following me? Good, because I am going to keep going. Marty wakes up to see teenage Lorraine who, get this, is HOT! Marty isn’t wearing his pants, which causes Lorraine to call Marty “Calvin” because it is written all over his underwear. If I had a nickel for every time my mom caught me with my pants down, I would have a nickel. Marty then meets up with 1955 Doc but has a hard time convincing him that he is from the future, but a story about a flux capacitor clears that up, because November 5, 1955 is the day Doc came up with the idea for the flux capacitor and how would Marty know about that? Now with Doc on his side, Marty has to get back to 1985, but plutonium is hard to come by and the only thing capable of producing the 1.21 gigawatts of electricity is a bolt of lightning, but you don’t know when or where it will strike … wait, yes we do; the clock tower! See I told you the writing was tight.

So now all Marty has to do is hang out for a week until the storm, and then he can go back, but Doc says no because it could change the future, but Marty kind of already did that when he bumped into his parents. And it is evident when Marty’s brother’s and sister’s images begin to fade from a photo in Marty’s wallet. Uh-oh … but Doc says they just have to get George and Lorraine together and they will fall in love. Simple. Or so they think … George seems too interested in writing a sci-fi story about visitors coming down to earth from other planets, and Biff’s aggressiveness towards Lorraine could become an issue. But Marty stands up to Biff, and then “Darth Vader from the planet Vulcan” visits George and convinces him to ask Lorraine to the dance. Ok, things seem to be back on track. George drops a sweet line to Lorraine: “I’m your density”, but Marty’s invention of the skateboard and Biff crashing into a manure truck distract Lorraine. Doc builds a model of the town but doesn’t have time to build it to scale or paint it, but its use is to show Marty the plan to get him back to 1985. Doc will run a cable from the clock tower to the lamp posts and have a pole and hook attached to the flux capacitor; once the car reaches 88 mph and lightning hits the cable, the hook will make contact and generate the 1.21 gigawatts and Marty will be back in 1985. The simulation causes the model car to catch fire, but Doc isn’t worried; he will take care of the lightning and Marty just has to take care of his pop … oh right back to George and Lorraine.

Lorraine wants Marty to ask her to the Enchantment Under the Sea dance; you know, the one where George and Lorraine are supposed to kiss for the very first time. Marty and George come up with a plan to have George rescue Lorraine, so Marty turns his attention to warning Doc about the night in 1985 where he gets shot, but Doc won’t listen. So Marty writes Doc a letter and puts it in Doc’s jacket. Marty and Lorraine arrive at the dance and decide to park for a while. Lorraine drink and smokes, but that doesn’t stop Marty from having “thoughts” about his mom … I will leave this part up to your imagination … Back to the dance. Marvin Berry and the Starlighters is the band playing at the dance, and Biff is out for revenge against Marty for causing $300 damage to his car; he’s going to take it out of his ass. But Biff decides he wants to rape Lorraine first, so Biff’s gang throws Marty in the trunk of Marvin Berry’s car, which is unfortunate because that’s where the keys are. How is Marty going to save Lorraine? Cue George at the car where he is expecting Marty with Lorraine, but he finds Biff instead. George stands up to Biff and knocks him out with one punch. Marvin slices his hand opening the trunk to get Marty out. Now the dance is in jeopardy, unless someone else can play guitar. If only … we do know someone that plays the guitar! Just when you think all is lost it finds a way to continue being awesome.

Marty plays the guitar while the band performs “Earth Angel” and George, who is popular now, is dancing with Lorraine. With the future still up in the air, Marty begins to fade away. But George kisses Lorraine and Marty springs back, and his brother and sister are back in the picture. With everything going well, Marty is about to leave the dance, but the band wants him to do another song, something that “really cooks”. So Marty suggests a “blues riff in B, watch me for the changes, and try to keep up” and starts playing an “oldie where he comes from”, which just happens to be “Johnny B. Goode”. The kids love it, even Marvin, which causes him to call his cousin Chuck Berry so he can listen to that new sound he’s been looking for. Yeah, Marty just created rock-n-roll! Marty duck-walks across the stage and kicks over the amp, causing everyone to stop and stare at him. This is probably a good time for him to leave and meet up with Doc … you know, to go back to 1985 and all.

The storm is coming and Marty is running late. Is this kid ever on time? He finally arrives and starts to say his goodbyes to Doc. Doc finds Marty’s letter and rips it up. A tree branch falls on the cable and it detaches. Doc climbs to the top of the clock tower to reattach it the cable and Marty gets in the DeLorean to drive to the starting point. He then realizes that he can just go back early to warn Doc, so he programs the time circuits 10 minutes earlier to beat the Libyans. Marty you are a genius! You have all the time in the world, you have a time machine. No! The car stalls, Doc slips and is hanging off of the hour hand, and the cable is hanging from the cuff of his pants … Are they going to make it in time before the lightning strikes the clock tower at precisely 10:04 pm? Marty bangs his head on the steering wheel, the car starts and he speeds towards the cable. Meanwhile, Doc connects the cable, slides down, and connects it at the other end, just as the lightning strikes and the hook hits the cable. Marty disappears and Doc does a dance.

Marty is back in 1985, the car stalls again, and the Libyans speed by him. Marty runs to the mall, but it’s too late; the Libyans shoot Doc and he watches “himself” go back in time. Marty thinks he has seen his best friend die for the second time, but Doc blinks and sits up … WHAAAAAT? Doc opens his suit to reveal a bulletproof vest. He pulls out Marty’s letter which is taped back together. Turns out Doc said “What the hell” to the space-time continuum. I wonder if anything else Marty has done will have any other effects on the future. Doc drops Marty off at his house and tells him that he is going to go 30 years into the future. Marty goes to sleep and wakes up the next morning thinking he has just had a nightmare. Oh but it is all real. As he walks out to the kitchen for breakfast he realizes that his house is different, his under-achieving brother is now wearing a suit on his way to the office, and his sister with no social life has a lot of boyfriends. His parents look great and have just come back from a game of tennis, and Biff is waxing the family car. Things are great! But they get better when copies of George’s first novel, A Match Made in Space, arrive in the mail, and Jennifer arrives and wants to go for a ride with Marty in his new black 4x4. They are about to share a kiss and end this long adventure, when Doc crashes the DeLorean (which now runs on trash power instead of plutonium power) into the driveway. Doc tells Marty that he and Jennifer have to go back to the future because their kids are in trouble. Sequel alert!!! Doc backs the car up and … wait for it … the car is now a hover-car, because where they are going they don’t need roads …

So I have just given you an awesome review/running diary of possibly the greatest 116 minutes of movie you will ever see. Speaking of awesome … I enjoyed it all on a Blu-ray copy that was absolutely delicious to watch. You should check it out and relive your childhood, because like Doc is always saying:

Doc: “If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything.”

The father, the son, and the holy hooker

He Got Game (1998)

Rated: R

Runtime: 136 minutes

Stars: Denzel Washington, Ray Allen, Milla Jovovich, Rosario Dawson

Director: Spike Lee

Plot: Jake Shuttlesworth (Denzel Washington) is serving a prison sentence for accidentally killing his wife. He prefers to cook his grilled cheese sandwich with an iron, and enjoys a cold orange soda. Jesus Shuttlesworth (Ray Allen) attends Abraham Lincoln High School in Brooklyn and is the #1-rated basketball prospect in America. He spends his time hanging out with his cousin Booger, wears overall-shorts, and knows his Bible. Dakota (Milla Jovovich) is a prostitute living at the Surf Hotel, conveniently in the room next to Jake’s (we will get to that in a minute). LaLa Bonilla (Rosario Dawson) is Jesus’s girlfriend. Jake is “released” from prison for a week, and has to try to convince his son Jesus to attend Big State University. If he does, the governor will reduce his prison sentence. Jesus has to make his college decision while having to deal with family and friends all trying to get a piece of his future fame and fortune. Jesus is referred throughout the movie as “Coney Island Jesus”, not to be confused with “Black Jesus” (former NBA star Earl Monroe), “Basketball Jesus” (former NBA legend Larry Bird), or “Chocolate Jesus” (a song by current musician Tom Waits).

Rating—out of 5 basketballs: 3 basketballs. 1 for my recommendation of the movie, mostly so people will watch it and decide if they like/dislike it because I am not sure if my review is helpful, 1 basketball because I don’t want Spike Lee to hate me, and 1 basketball because I was able to include references to Larry Bird, Tom Waits, and Star Wars in a 1000-word review of a Spike Lee movie and have them make more sense than anything he tries to accomplish in 136 minutes of a film.

Tournament seed: 5–9—movie is favored to win its first game in the tournament and has a good chance to win a second game. But depending on the team it is matched up against, could be an early upset. Be sure to do your research before choosing.

This is a tough call. Spike Lee’s direction of this film is not that good, and the movie is all over the place. Hopefully, I will be able to sift through this mess and come to a conclusion by the end of my review. Public Enemy has a cool song in the movie, but there are also a variety of scenes with sweeping dramatic music playing, and that gets a bit annoying. There is a lot of sex and nudity in the movie: Jesus and LaLa have sex on a Ferris wheel; Jesus is getting a tour of Tech University and then he is getting his swerve on with Buffy and Suzie; and Jake (in the middle of helping and getting to know Dakota) borrows some money from his parole officer (played by NFL legend Jim Brown) to buy Dakota for the night and tries to take it slow with her, but it is over fast if you know what I mean. Some might find all of this awesome, while others might find it to be too much. The basketball scenes are pretty cool; Denzel has a decent jump-shot, but it’s all about Ray here. This movie was released in 1998, but his form (then) still looks as smooth as it does today, almost 15 years later. I have always been a huge fan of his, even though he is now with the hated Heat. The plot is good, father/son struggles mixed in with young love. But then it gets confusing to keep straight who is good/bad; Lala is cheating on Jesus, but Jesus cheats on Lala; Jake was a demanding father but now seems to have Jesus’s best interests in mind. Oh, and Jake did kill his wife ... albeit accidentally. And then there is the language. I know Spike Lee likes his “motherfucker” just as much as anyone else, and I am not going to argue his use of the n-word; he has every right to say it. I just don’t get why he has white characters saying it. With every Spike Lee movie there are powerful messages he tries to get across, but all I really learned from this movie is in 1998 a pair of Jordans would set you back $150, fist bumping was cool way back then, Jesus is a biblical name, Jesus Shuttlesworth was a better prospect than former New York legends Kenny Anderson and Stephon Marbury, drugs/alcohol/pussy will take a n****r down, it’s the will of the man not the skill of the man, and boy you got to get the hatred out your heart or you gonna end up just another n****r like your father ... though I learned that years ago from Star Wars. All of life’s big decisions should come down to a game of one-on-one, so Jake and Jesus play with Big State on the line. Hopefully, they can finish this game and not have it end like the time Jesus threw the ball over the fence when he was younger (a little foreshadowing there). Jesus wins 11-5, and Jake heads back to prison. All ends well when Jesus chooses Big State, and Dakota is seen on a bus apparently headed out west, but it is unknown if the governor is going to follow through with his part of the deal. Jesus and Jake are shown shooting jump-shots to close out the film, each in their respected homes: Jesus at Big State, Jake in state prison ... and then it gets weird. Jake throws his ball over the wall, and it ends up in the gym where Jesus is. What??? Spike Lee, you might be out of your mojo mind!

Maybe some words of advice from 6 prominent coaches of the time (John Chaney - Temple University, Lute Olson - University of Arizona, Nolan Richardson - University of Arkansas, Dean Smith - University of North Carolina, John Thompson - Georgetown University, and Roy Williams - University of Kansas) can help me with my review, just like they helped Jesus in this movie.... Oh wait, they didn’t help him either. They all fed him the same clichéd line:

“This will be the most important decision in your life.”

Where's the D? It's right here!

Love & Basketball (2000)

Rated: PG-13

Runtime: 124 minutes

Stars: Omar Epps, Sanaa Lathan, Dennis Haysbert

Director: Gina Prince-Bythewood

Plot: Quincy “Q” McCall (Omar Epps) is a star basketball player at Crenshaw High School, wants to play college hoops at USC, and pushes girls down when they are beating him in basketball. Monica Wright (Sanna Lathan) is a also a star player at Crenshaw High School, also wants to play college hoops at USC, idolizes Magic Johnson, has a temper, and prefers Twinkies over flowers. Zeke McCall (Dennis Haysbert) is Q’s father and a former NBA star, who now spends his nights “scouting” for the Clippers. Monica moves next door to Quincy when they are both 11 years old, and they form a friendship that has a lot of ups and downs.

Rating—out of 5 basketballs: 3 basketballs. 1 for the story, 1 for the Double Dribble reference, and 1 for the shout-out from Omar Epps.

Tournament seed: 5–9—movie is favored to win its first game in the tournament and has a good chance to win a second game. But depending on the team it is matched up against, could be an early upset. Be sure to do your research before choosing.

Pretty good movie about basketball, even though it doesn’t have a lot of basketball action in it. Omar Epps has decent skills, but the women just shoot layups. The movie has a great idea of dividing itself into four quarters like a NBA game, which makes it easier to show the two stars grow together: first as kids, second as seniors in high school, third as freshman in college, and fourth as young adults. The movie travels through the early ‘80s into the mid ‘90s, so we are treated to classic rap/r&b hits by Bobby Brown, Digital Underground, Kool Moe Dee, New Edition, and Rob Base & DJ EZ Rock … and we get to see college kids playing the greatest basketball game ever: Nintendo’s Double Dribble. Quincy and Monica are pretty convincing in their love/hate relationship. It starts with Quincy giving Monica a scar on her face during a game of 2-on-2, moves on to some fooling around on the lawn after they both find out/announce their intentions to attend USC, travels from the lawn into Monica’s bedroom where Monica is “pleasantly surprised” when Quincy takes off his pants, elevates into a game of strip 1-on-1 in college, takes a step back when Monica puts her success in basketball ahead of being there for Quincy when he finds out his father cheated on his mom, which then causes Quincy to want to drop out of school and enter the NBA draft and see other girls. The movie then fast forwards 5 years to Quincy playing a limited role for the Lakers and Monica starting for a team in Spain. They are drawn back to each other after Quincy blows out his knee and Monica loses her love for the game and moves back in with her parents. Quincy is engaged to Tyra Banks … I mean Kyra (played by Tyra Banks … seriously … that was the best they could come up with for her … Kyra … ugh), but Monica still has feelings for him and wants him back. She tells Quincy she fell out of love for the game of basketball because he wasn’t in her life anymore, and challenges him to a game of 1-on-1 … for his heart. With the game tied 4-4, Monica misses a layup, and Quincy dunks for the win. Monica starts to walk away, but Quincy says “double or nothing” and they get all smoochie. The movie then cuts to 1 year later and Monica is now playing for the L.A. Sparks and she and Quincy are married and have a daughter.

What’s cool about this movie is I learned some stuff along the way: being someone’s girl means you play ball together, ride bikes to school together, get flowers when the boy is trying to be nice, and you kiss in the bushes for five seconds. Also: the last time the Clippers won, Dr. J was a nurse; “U-G-L-Y” and “Yo Mama” are classic cheers that never get old; Nike makes dresses; offense sells tickets; defense wins games; some things should never fuckin’ happen; and if basketball is all you care about, you shouldn’t be bonin’ your boyfriend …  you should bone Dick Vitale.

Oh, I forgot to mention; Omar Epps gave me a shout-out when his character was talking to Monica; she was all mopey after a practice and he says:

Quincy: “So, you’re gonna act Salty all night?”

Is this shit regulation?

White Men Can’t Jump (1992)

Rated: R

Runtime: 116 minutes

Stars: Woody Harrelson, Wesley Snipes, Rosie Perez

Director: Ron Shelton

Plot: Billy Hoyle (Woody Harrelson) is a secret basketball star that likes to wear tie-dye hats, cargo shorts, and Parental Advisory Explicit Lyrics t-shirts, and likes listening to Jimi Hendrix. Sidney Deane (Wesley Snipes) is a fast talking street ball hustler with a wife and kid, and performs a variety of odd jobs to support his family. Gloria Clemente (Rosie Perez) is Billy’s girlfriend and a former disco queen from Brooklyn and spends her time studying for Jeopardy! and getting horny and naked listening to Ray Charles. Billy (being white) finds it easy to convince black street ballers (like Sydney) that he is bad at basketball and then wins their money. Sydney convinces Billy that he can make more money if they work as a team. On a side note, Billy and Gloria are on the run from the Stucci brothers after Billy doesn’t come through on a fixed basketball game.

Rating—out of 5 basketballs: 2 basketballs. 1 for my recommendation of the movie and 1 because it wins the award for “basketball movie with the most uses of the word fuck”.

Tournament seed: 10-12—movie is a sleeper, primed to upset a higher seed. Don’t be surprised if other people jump on the bandwagon when the brackets are released. It could play its way into the sweet 16.

When I sat down to watch this movie, for 37 seconds I thought I was about to watch White Men Can Pump; the opening credits were designed to look like a cheap porno (“A Ron Shelton Film” even sounds icky), and there was the familiar “bow-chicka-bow” music. But then the early ‘90s hip-hop kicked in (Boo-Yaa T.R.I.B.E, Boyz II Men, Cypress Hill, Queen Latifah and a fun little group called The Venice Beach Boys are featured throughout), and everything was safe. Speaking of featured throughout … I am going to estimate the word “fuck” is used around 200 times, in such creative ways like “fuck that fucker” and “I’m in a fuckin’ zone”. There was also an array of “Yo Momma” jokes such as “Let’s just get off mommas, ‘cause I just got off yours” and “Your mother’s an astronaut”. The basketball scenes are mostly slow-motion shots of tricky passes, spin moves, and reverse layups—nothing too exciting. After Billy hustles Sidney, Sidney hustles Billy, and along the way I learn some important lessons: hearing something and listening to something are two different things, you either smoke or you get smoked, sometimes when you win you really lose, and Pistons vs. Lakers can solve any dispute between bros. This segues nicely into Billy and Sidney making up and entering the 2-on-2 Brotherhood Tournament. But then they are back to not getting along, even though they win the tournament and $5000. Sidney thinks Billy can’t dunk because white men can’t jump (like the tile of the movie!). Billy says he can, and so he puts his $2500 on the line. After a few unsuccessful attempts to “jam” or “stuff it”, Billy loses the bet and then Gloria leaves him.... She is tired of Billy losing all of their money and probably fears for her life because they will never be able to pay back the Stucci brothers. Oh. And I learn another important lesson: champagne is for winners, wine is for losers. Billy is sad, so Sidney uses his connections to get Gloria on Jeopardy! Good thing she spent all her time studying learning seven foods that start with the letter Q, because one of the categories is “foods that start with the letter Q”. That’s not the only thing that works in her favor; even though you are not supposed to be able to ring in early on the show, Gloria somehow can, and she still only wins like $14,000. Billy sings Gloria a song called “My Gloria” to win her back and then they screw. He promises her that his days of hustling are over … but then Sidney informs him that “Duck” and “The King” are in town. Billy “guarantees” victory but Gloria leaves him for good; because, you know, sometimes when you win you really lose. Billy and Sidney battle their way to a 14-13 lead, (the first to 15 wins) and then Sidney throws a backdoor lob to Billy for the dunk-jam-stuff and the win.

There were a lot of jokes or lines in the movie that were probably a lot more funny twenty years ago, but I laughed pretty hard when a group of guys were arguing over whether they saw Kadeem Hardison or Eddie Murphy courtside at a Lakers game … it’s funny because Kadeem Hardison played one of the guys in the movie. And it’s funny to think that Kadeem Hardison was famous enough to sit courtside at a Lakers game.