Dawgs up

The 6^th Man (1997)

Rated: PG-13

Run Time: 108 minutes

Stars: Marlon Wayans, Kadeem Hardison, David Paymer, Michael Michelle

Director: Randall Miller

Plot: Antoine (Kadeem Hardison) and Kenny Tyler (Marlon Wayans) are brothers and basketball teammates from youngsters to college. Antoine is the older star and Kenny is the younger sidekick. Kenny and Antoine complete a sweet alley-oop during a game and Antoine dies of a heart attack. Kenny begins to struggle on/off the court, but he is helped in his time of need by Coach Pederson (David Paymer) who likes scotch and taking runs at the wife, and R.C. St. John (Michael Michele) a sideline reporter and part-time ghostbuster … wait … did I not mention that Antoine’s ghost hangs around the team to help them make it to the NCAA Tournament?

Rating—out of 5 basketballs: 0

Tournament seed: 16—movie makes the tournament only because it is an automatic qualifier. Has no chance of advancing. Avoid picking for any reason.

Unfortunately, this movie tries to be funny when it should be serious and then tries to be serious when it should be funny. The scenes are drawn out waaaaay too looooong; it takes 25 minutes for Kadeem Hardison to have a heart attack … it’s no wonder this movie is almost 2 hours long; it should have been closer to an hour and a half. The movie contains 2 different versions of the song “Superstitious” which I found to be kind of weird. The basketball scenes are pretty good when they want to be, but that isn’t very often. Going into the movie I would have guessed that it would be pretty funny and that Marlon Wayans would be the ghost and Kadeem Hardison would be the living player. I was wrong on both. Of course only Kenny can see Antoine’s ghost and hear his voice (which is very creepy), which leads to this series of events: Kenny screaming like a girl and running around like a baby, Kenny acting strange and looking to others like he’s talking to himself, things happening on the court that are obviously not possible but nobody seems to care, and old white coaches dancing. Oh, and a scene where Kenny is talking to his ghost brother in the men’s room, which to everyone else looks like he is talking to his penis. Antoine has a hard time not being alive anymore when the team starts to win, so he starts to go all “scary ghost” to get the team to believe Kenny, and to win games over Fresno State, North Carolina, Arkansas, and Kentucky to make it to the Final 4. The team then realizes that they don’t really like winning with the help of a ghost, but Antoine throws a Georgetown player into a backboard before they make their feelings known to him. So they are set to face Massachusetts in the finals without their “6^th Man” (see what I did there?) and it results in a 20-point first half deficit. Cue the motivational speech by Kenny: “Take Antoine with us for the second half … right here” (pointing to his heart), which makes everyone cry, even Antoine. Kenny gets hot and the team trails by 2 points with 16 seconds left. Massachusetts steals the ball, which should have resulted in a foul by Kenny or his team, but they let Massachusetts run the clock down to 4 seconds when Kenny comes up with a steal and lets it fly from half-court. Antoine swoops in to guide it towards the hoop, Kenny screams “Let it go”, Antoine does, and the ball bounces around and in. Antoine tries to slip away during the celebration, but Kenny finds him before he heads into “the light”. They have their “I love you, brother” moment and then Kenny cuts down the net.

I can’t believe I just spent all this time writing about a bad movie. On to creative trash-talking:

Coach Pederson: “My wife has a plastic Jesus on her dashboard, moves better than you do.”

The error up there

The Air Up There (1994)

Rated: PG

Runtime: 107 minutes

Stars: Kevin Bacon, Charles Gitonga Maina

Director: Paul Michael Glaser

Plot: Jimmy Dolan (Kevin Bacon) is a former college basketball star and current assistant coach for the St. Joseph’s Bulls. The current head coach is retiring at the end of the season and Dolan wants the job real bad. In a drunken haze while watching someone’s home video, Dolan spots the next big star, Saleh (Charles Gitonga Maina) a 6’8” African villager with an amazing vertical leap. Dolan travels to Africa to recruit Saleh, but runs into several problems along the way.

Rating—out of 5 basketballs: 1 basketball for the sweet ending.

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.

I really wanted this movie to be good. I watched it with a group of friends while drinking Guinness and Kool-Aid and eating various things containing bacon. It fell far short of my expectations. There wasn’t much basketball stuff until the end, and when there was, it was mostly slow-motion dunking and Kevin Bacon getting a boner over it. The music was stereotypical African beats, but there was some nice scenery involving some giraffes and rhinos. The jokes were bad: there was an Arsenio Hall reference, an interesting defensive strategy on guarding a woman (grab her ass and boobs, that will work), and a scene where Kevin Bacon is chased by a boar while trying to poop. The movie had some weird scenes involving Kevin Bacon’s character adapting to the villagers’ way of life. It all adds up to a showdown between the village’s newly formed basketball team and the team of a shady land developer from the nearby town. The stakes? The villagers’ land. Kevin Bacon gets to suit up in a uniform that makes him look like the Ultimate Warrior (which is a huge step up from the polo shirts and short-shorts he wore throughout). The game plan is simple: Kevin Bacon dribbles around and then passes to Saleh for the dunk … but then Bacon hurts his knee. Enter Saleh’s brother, who of course is just as good as Seleh. The comeback is on and it’s time for a little “Jimmy Dolan Shake and Bake” from Saleh, who soars through the air to dunk it for the win.

This is the first movie that didn’t have a quote that stood out, but it did end the way all movies should end; so I will put a picture of that here instead:

high five! great success!

Time to get live, time to represent

Sunset Park (1996)

Rated: R

Runtime: 99 minutes

Stars: Rhea Perlman, Fredro Starr, Terrence Howard

Director: Steve Gomer

Plot: Phyllis Saroka (Rhea Perlman) is a teacher at Sunset Park High School. She wants to get into the restaurant business, but meanwhile takes the vacant head coach position of the school’s basketball team. Her on-the-court antics include drinking Slushies and eating Twizzlers, while her off-the-court time is spent not getting a man and watching “karate” movies. The team she inherits is talented, but full of guys with on/off the court issues.

Rating—out of 5 basketballs: 3 basketballs. 1 for my recommendation, 1 for the sweet rapping from coach and the team, and 1 for Brent Rich telling me that this movie was going to be good (and it actually being good).

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 was actually a surprisingly good movie. The team of Andre, Busy-Bee, Butter, Drano, Kurt, Shorty, and Spaceman gave a lot of reasons to like and root for them. The basketball scenes from the practices/games were the best I have seen in any movie I have reviewed in my blog to date. The movie does a great job of tackling issues such as drugs, race, sex, school, and violence, without overdoing it and boring the viewer. The soundtrack is great, using many songs from popular artists such as 2Pac, 69 Boyz featuring Quad City DJ’s, Ghostface Killah featuring Raekwon, Junior M.A.F.I.A., Mobb Deep, Queen Latifah, Tha Dogg Pound, and Onyx (which co-star Fredro Starr used to be a member of). The movie has a nice flow of humor with many uses of the word punanai, a touch of edginess by dropping the n-bomb a lot, and some drama with the team coming together in a “help me help you” kind of way; all culminating in a trip to Madison Square Garden for the city championship. I won’t reveal whether Drano’s 3 at the buzzer goes in or not, but coach and the team are coming back next year on a mission!

There was a funny scene which made me say: “Holy shit, it’s Warrick from CSI!” and I learned that Bruce Lee is half black, half Chinese.* And Rhea Perlman came through with a comeback for the ages:

Coach: “Sit on a Twizzler, asshole!”

* He’s not really.

Just Wrong

Just Wright (2010)

Rated: PG

Runtime: 100 minutes

Stars: Queen Latifah, Common, Paula Patton

Director: Sanaa Hamri

Plot: Leslie Wright (Queen Latifah) is a physical therapist who can’t get a man. Scott McKnight (Common) is a star player for the New Jersey Nets. Morgan Alexander (Paula Patton) is Leslie’s cousin (?) and all she wants to do is marry an NBA player. You can probably see where this one is headed…

Rating—out of 5 basketballs: ½ basketball. As a movie it is a 1 but as a “basketball” movie it is a 0.

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 was a tough movie to grade. It was an ok movie, but there wasn’t much actual basketball play in it. It gave an interesting view of life off the court, and what it is like for a player to deal with an injury. The basketball scenes were not great, but there are plenty of movies with worse. The music was pretty bland. I am pretty sure there were some Queen Latifah and Common songs in there somewhere. For the most part, the film is a romantic comedy that follows the pattern of every other romantic comedy: boy meets girl, boy falls for other girl, something bad happens to boy and other girl leaves and first girl is there for him, boy gets better, other girl returns and boy chooses her but then realizes that first girl is the one he loves. There didn’t seem to be much excitement around the game that Scott makes his return to; I mean, it’s only game 7 of the series that decides which team is going to the NBA finals. Scott doesn’t trust his knee and is getting beat badly by Dwyane Wade. Leslie gives him a pep talk and he turns things around and wins the game, which results in minimal celebration. To celebrate, they go to dinner, he fixes her car, and Scott takes it to the hole. All ends well with Leslie getting her dream job and Scott getting his big contract.

The movie just moves along for 100 minutes not really gaining/losing my interest, though I did want to turn it off when Common delivers this cringe-worthy line to Queen Latifah:

Scott: “Leslie, you’re just right for me.”

Selling those wieners

Celtic Pride (1996)

Rated: PG-13

Runtime: 91 minutes

Stars: Daniel Stern, Dan Aykroyd, Damon Wayans

Director: Tom DeCerchio

Plot: Mike O’Hara (Daniel Stern) and Jimmy Flaherty (Dan Aykroyd) are over-obsessed fans of the Boston Celtics. Mike is a gym teacher, former high school basketball star, and on the verge of getting a divorce; Jimmy is a plumber, single man, and avid sports memorabilia collector. After their beloved Celtics blow game 6 of the NBA finals, they make a plan to get Utah Jazz all-star/huge dick Lewis Scott (Damon Wayans) drunk so he will not be at his best for game 7. Craziness ensues and they end up kidnapping him.

Rating—out of 5 basketballs: 0

Tournament Seed: 16—team makes the tournament only because it is an automatic qualifier. Has no chance of advancing. Avoid picking for any reason.

For a movie written by Judd Apatow and Colin Quinn, I expected more laughs. The funniest thing I found about the movie was that the Celtics made it to the NBA Finals in 1996 with a starting-five consisting of 4 white guys and 1 African-American. The basketball scenes are ok at best, but mostly bad. The old shots of the Boston Garden brought back some really great memories, and Larry Bird made a cameo in the bar, which was mildly funny. There was a confusing scene where Dan Aykroyd’s character makes a half-court shot at halftime to win $100,000; it was unclear to me why this was needed in the film. The people in charge of the music for the film found it necessary to “Play That Funky Music” 3 times. And once again the star of the team realizes that passing the ball wins games. You would think that the obsessed fans would have learned their lesson that kidnapping is dangerous, but they don’t; the Super Bowl is only 7 months away and Deion Sanders is their next target …

I think the best scene in the movie is when Daniel Stern’s character is talking trash to Damon Wayan’s character. I am a huge fan of that stuff, yet I can never think of anything funny to say until it’s too late. I wish I had used this line back in the day:

Mike O’Hara: “Hey Scott … I hear Manute Bol is banging your mom!