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.”