Hoosiers

We watched Hoosiers a few weeks ago. Hoosiers is one of the most loved sports movies at all time. I cannot count the sports stars who claim Hoosiers is their favorite movie of all time. It is easy to see why. They are the small school that goes all the way and wins the Indiana State Basketball Championship.

Between seeing it in the theater, home video, and television, I must have seen Hoosiers a dozen times. It is a feel good movie. He coach redeems himself, the players play as a team, the town drunk gets on the road to recovery and the home team wins. What is more feel good than this.

It has been about 15 years since I have watched Hoosiers all the way though. Watching the movie again, it is a little shocking to me. It is not a movie about a high school basketball team, it is a movie about a high school basketball coach. The movie is just about adults getting their life back on track. There is Coach Norman Dale (Gene Hackman) coming back from exile after punching a player 10 years earlier, Shooter (Dennis Hopper) who is trying to get off the bottle, and Myra Fleener (Barbara Hershey) coming to terms with staying in the town where she grew up. Hackman, Hopper, and Hershey all gave great performance, but it is strange that a movie about a high school basketball team is not about high school students.

At the end of the movie I feel like I do not know any of the players. Jimmy Chickwood (Maris Valainis) hits a lot of shots, but I have no idea who he is as a person. The only players who had signify development or depth in the movie is Shooter's son Everett. That is only there to further Shooter's plot line. Somewhere there is another movie that tells the story about what the kids when through that season, but no one will ever make it.

Hoosiers is a great sports movie, but it is not a great high school sports movie. It might be the greatest coaching movie of all time. Coach Dale is the person who has to overcome everything. He needs to get the team to trust him and play his system. He needs to get the towns folk to let him coach. He needs to help Shooter so he can help himself. All of the sturggles of the movie are his.

I love Coach Dale's Speech to Jimmy Chickwood.

You know, in the ten years that I coached, I never met anybody who wanted to win as badly as I did. I'd do anything I had to do to increase my advantage. Anybody who tried to block the pursuit of that advantage, I'd just push 'em out of the way. Didn't matter who they were, or what they were doing. But that was then. You have special talent, a gift. Not the school's, not the townspeople, not the team's, not Myra Fleener's, not mine. It's yours, to do with what you choose. Because that's what I believe, I can tell you this: I don't care if you play on the team or not.

This quote proves to me the movie is about the coach and not the players. It is a brillent speech, but it is about Coach Dale's growth, not Jimmy Chickwood's.

In the end Hoosiers is over rated in my book. It is a feel good movie and nothing ever seems in jeopardy. A sports movie means nothing if there is no real chance they are going to lose.



Nominations
Best Sports movie of all time
Best High School Sports movie of all time
Best Coaching movie of all time
Best Basketball movie of all time
Best Sports movie of the 80s

Oscars of the Decade - Best Director

Nominations

Clint Eastwood - Million Dollar Baby

Million Dollar Baby is a heart breaker of a movie. Every character carries so much with them in this movie. Ever action is about something else. The movie builds and takes a turn that is unexpected. The movie stays true to its theme with that turn, making more than just a sports movie.

Ben Afflect - Gone Baby Gone

Gone Baby Gone is a morally complex movie with characters going lots of directions. There is a ton going on in this movie. Ben Afflect asks a lot of the viewer in this movie. There is a lot about the nature of right and wrong in this movie. Ben Afflect gets all the elements of this movie to work great together. The movie has a point of view that I really love.

Stephen Frears - The Queen

There is something about this movie that keeps me coming back to it. There is something about the British Monarchy that I just don't get. Watching The Queen I have the feeling that the members of the Monarchy don't really get it either. There is so little happening in this movie, yet it is so powerful. The minimal nature of this movie is what makes it great. It says a lot about the subject with every little plot.

Jason Reitman - Up In The Air

This is a movie where the director makes is like and care for people that we might not like in real life. If I got fired by an outsider I would not be happy. Still Jason Reitman makes it care about what happens to George Clooney's character. Up In The Air has a lot of visual story telling. The shots tell us so much about what is going on.

Winner

Derren Aronofsky - The Wrestler

The Wrestler is a movie that is really about emotions and obsession. It is about a person that only has a good life where everything is fake. It is about a person who would rather die that give something up. All of these things are so personal. Everyone in this movie acts their ass off. Derren Aronofsky creates a world where these things work so well.

Rocky II

Rocky II is a frustrating movie to me. While a movie like Rocky has a lot of artistic integrity and Rocky III is a total Hollywood box office sell out, Rocky II cannot figure out which way it wants to go. It starts off with a really good story and ends just rehashing the end of Rocky with one change.

I love the first act of Rocky II. It is the most interesting act in any of the six Rocky movies. It asks the question what does a boxer do after they lose in his one title shot. In the first act Rocky blows through all of his money on dumb things like expensive clothing and a Smokey and the Bandit Trans Am. Rocky does not even know how to drive a stick. This is a compelling story to me. Who is Rocky after the big fight? He has been changed and what does he do now. He tries making commercials but fails. He has to go back to the gym to be an assistant to Mickey.

There is a point in this movie where the whole series starts going downhill. A downhill side that does not stop until Rocky Balboa is slightly better than Rocky V. It is amazing that you can pinpoint the exact moment that a movie series makes that turn. In the Rocky Movies that point is when Adrian falls into a coma after giving birth. Yes, I bet you all forgot there is coma scene in Rocky II. What was Sylvester Stallone watching a lot of soaps when he wrote Rocky II?

From that point Rocky becomes a rehash of Rocky with a bunch more cheese. This time when Rocky runs through the streets of Philadelphia kids are following him. When he is jumping up and down on at the top of the Art Museum steps there is a mob around him.

Burgess Meredith steals as many scenes as he can with he wise cracks. This is the movie where Rocky chases the chicken as part of his training. This is where we get the famous line "You're gonna eat lightnin'; you're gonna crap thunder."

I can't decide if the end of the fight Rocky II is great or terrible. In neither Creed-Balboa fight is there a clean win. We will have to wait for Rocky III for Rocky to really take someone apart.

In the end the problem with Rocky II is that it could have been a great movie or it could have been a movie that made money. If I had it my way, Rocky II two would have been the last movie because there would have been no fight at the end. I know what Stallone made this movie he made, but I find it frustrating because it could have been great. Instead I got four more Rocky movies after it.

Nominations:
Best Sports movie sequel of all times
Best Boxing Boxing sequel of all times.

Book: 100 Greatest Sports Movies of All Time

For Christmas My sister Kathy gave me the book The Ultimate Book of Sports Movies: Featuring the 100 Greatest Sports Films of All Time. My sister gave it to me because Glen Macnow and Ray Didinger are both Philadelphia radio guys. They have put out a couple funny books of list so far. Since Kathy and I love both movies and sports, it is a really good gift.

The book not only has write ups about the movie, but also has comments from athletes about each movie. It has little features also, like a college basketball coach writing a scouting report on the Hickory High Huskers from Hoosiers. Kate and I are going to work our way through the book. If you are a sports fan and a movie fan it is a pretty good book. You can see if your list matches their list.

Rocky

For Christmas I got a copy of The Ultimate Book of Sports Movies: Featuring the 100 Greatest Sports Films of All Time from my sister Kathy. The number 1 movie in the book is Rocky.

Connected to that, for the past year I have been trying to convince Kate that Rocky is a really good movie. She would laugh off this suggestion every time I would try to tell her. I can see how it can be hard to see past the movies that follow. Hard to see past the cultural icon icon that Rocky has become. Most of our friends talk about Rocky III or Rocky IV when I bring up the idea. It is cool to be a fan of those movies ironically, but it is not cool to be a fan or Rocky in a sincer manor.

I finally got Kate to agree to watch Rocky with me. We sat down and in one day watched Rocky I-IV. That might have been a bit much, but it was still cool. At the end of Rocky Kate agreed it is a good movie. I think there is something to say about each of these movies. But I will start with Rocky.

I love the opening fight scene between Rocky and Spider Rico. I think this does a great job of showing the bottom of the fighting world in the 70s. You find out that Rocky gets $60 for winning and Spider Rico gets $40 for the loss. Rocky just beat his brains in and Spider Rico only gets $40, damn.

After the opening fight scene I notice about watching Rocky now is how slow the movie starts off. The next 20 minutes of the movie just drags. They take a long time introducing Rocky to you. This might seem unnecessary to someone watching it now, because Rocky is already an icon. They show how Rocky is a loser without any friends or family. Now it feels like they just take too long to tell this story.

There is a scene in that part of the movie where Rocky is looking at pictures he put up in his mirror. The photos of himself as a football player and what you assume is his father. You get the feeling that he feels he wasted his life. This scene almost seems out of place in this movie. It gives you the feeling that Rocky has some kind of internal life that he does not show, but it does not come up again in the movie. It is so easy to forget about this scene because it gets buried with the rest of the movie.

I had forgotten how much this movie is about relationships between misfits. Rocky and Adrian find each other and fall in love. They are both people who seem lost in the world. Rocky Mickey and Rocky have a contentious relationship. Mickey thinks Rocky has wasted his talent and puts him on Skid Row. Rocky thinks he deserves Mickey's respect. The fight between the two of them when Mickey wants to manage Rocky is great. I had forgotten all about these scene.

The key to the Rocky movie is his training for the fight. Yes this is one of those thing that have been done to death by now. By Rocky IV the training montage because absurd. Now a training montage is a lazy place to show the passage of time and improvement in an athlete. You have to be willing to release all of these ideas to enjoy Rocky. You have to remember this story telling technique was not a cliche in 1976.

I love seeing Rocky grow during this part of the movie. The first time he does his road word he can barely run through the streets of Philadelphia. He trains, spars against meat, runs some more, trains at the gym and changes in front or your eyes. The last training run in amazing. With the score of Gonna Fly Now, Rocky blazes through the city. He is ready for the fight.

I love Gonna Fly Now, it makes me tear up. There is a part in the bridge, where the strings are just going at it with just makes me want to fight the world champion. At the end of that final run, Rocky runs up the steps at the Philadelphia Art Museum. He is all alone jumping up and down, holding his hands up in victory. He has already won. No matter what happens in the fight, he wins.

For a long time the fight scenes in Rocky bothered me because they are not realistic. Any boxing fan can see how exaggerated they are. I realize now they are the difference between real martial arts and a Jackie Chan Movie. Thinking of it that way makes the boxing a little easy to stomach.

Apollo Creed's entry in the ring is great. He dresses up like George Washington and acts like he is crossing the Delaware. It is a great bit for 1976. Carl Weathers makes Apollo Creed work. He is as much of a business man as a boxer. Apollo Creed is a perfect contrast to Rocky Balboa.

I love the ending of Rocky. You have to remind people that Rocky losses at the end of Rocky. Getting to the end of the fight with the world champion is enough of a victory. How many sports movies end with the hero losing. I think it adds a lot to the movie.

I really think Rocky is a great movie. You have to put aside the baggage of Sylvester Stallone, the other Rocky movies, and every bad sports movie that rips Rocky off first. If you do those things, there is some great story telling and pretty good acting in this movie. It is one of the best sports movies of all time.

Nominations
Best Sports Movie of all time
Best Boxing Movie of all time
Best Philadelphia Movie of all time
Best Sports Movie of the 70's

If you like the Rocky movie at all check out Rocky Jumps a Park Bench on You Tube
Best Boxing Movie of the 70's

The thing about Al Swerengen

In the HBO series Deadwood there is a somewhat-merciless cut-throat called Al Swerengen. He is one of Deadwood's main characters and a driving force for his own agenda. The fictional Al was based on the real Al Swerengen, who was not what you would call a quality human being. He married three times all divorced him with charges of extreme physical abuse, he was a pimp, and generally the determining factor for violence. Anyways, he is not someone I'd consider for one of my single friends.

Not that fictional Al is much better, but he lets you know the reasons why he is so broken and irreparable. He has had a extremely hard life. Orphaned and abused, always poor. In the 1800's that was more of a hardship, or rather a different kind. There was no one to advocate for a child or a miscreant.

The writing in the series is only matched and sometimes succeeded by Ian McShanes role in Deadwood. McShane is gritty, and takes no prisoners. His intentions are always obvious and his agenda is mostly self-serving. He is strategic and calculating, smart. Quick and witty. With that jet black hair tanned skin and compact frame he is very clear about his attention even in his body. He is the Rooster, the Don, commanding respect.

McShanes, Swerengen also has a sense of what is right and wrong, according of course to his own moral code. He has an angry compassion in which he is constantly fighting the urged to be kind and decent thus vulnerable with the need to roughly distance himself from people. Mostly for mutual benefit. Somehow the fictional Al is an anti-hero. Watch out, that may very well be a knife in his back pocket. He might know how to use it with a sharp accuracy.

More to the point now. There is something to be learned here, as in everything. Al may say the word 'cocksucker' way too much, and may be considered "socially anxious". Apart from his constant annoyance with life and the people in it he has constructed some pretty sharp arguments.


Six Life Lessons by the fictional Al Swerengen

1) Announcing your plans is a good way to hear God laugh.

Lesson: Life doesn't always go as planned. When it does, things get kinda creepy.

2)What's the matter — taken by a vision? You would not want to be staring like that at me.

Lesson: Some people don't like being met eye to eye. They find it intimidating or challenging. Better to stare at their nose.

3)Pain or damage don’t end the world, or despair or fucking beatings. The world ends when you’re dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man — and give some back.

Lesson: Don't give up at the first sign of hardship. Life continues even though you are wounded. Might as well participate.

4)Drunk, Tom, for reasons not to do with business, you’ll sell. If that’s your decision, let me offer. Sober, you know sellin’s stupid.

Lesson: Some things are just more well thought out with a clear head. Sleep it off.

5) Say what you’re gonna say or prepare for eternal fucking silence.

Lesson: Be reasonable and explain yourself effectively or be prepared to be misunderstood.

6)You can't slit the throat of everyone whose character it would improve.

Lesson: In life learn from the fools you suffer. Especially when you live in the 1800's and it was okay to slit peoples throats.

Oscars of the Decade: Best Leading Actor

Nominations

Philip Seymour Hoffman - Capote

It can be hard to play someone like Truman Capote because he spent so much time in the media. People think they understand him because he was on TV so much. Philip Seymour Hoffman was able to present the Truman Capote people knew in the media, but also show genuine emotion. I think that is amazing.

Mickey Rourke - The Wrestler

Mickey Rourke is so good in this movie. He is beaten up both physically and emotionally. There is something about Randy "The Ram" Robinson that Mickey Rourke just keys into. He is a character that is only good at one thing and that one thing is killing him. It is amazing the way Rourke gives total life to this part. You never doubted anything Mickey Rourke did in this movie. Some how I felt like I was watching Mickey Rourke the whole time, but that he was being totally honest with the audience.

Daniel Day-Lewis - There Will Be Blood

There are few movies that focus on the villain. Few movies where that protagonist is such a reprehensible character. Daniel Plainview is the bad guy and he is the protagonist of the movie. Daniel Day-Lewis carries this movie on his back. Day-Lewis fills the screen with anger and disdain while giving little glances of the characters need and self loathing. It might be a little over the top, but the right amount of over the top can make a movie great.

Clive Owen - I'll Sleep When I'm Dead

I think violence is a hard idea for movies. The idea has been worn thin so it means so much less. People have to overplay violence for it to have any impact. Clive Owen plays Will Graham as a violent and scary man without having to be violent. You can see there is something bubbling the whole time.

Winner

Paul Giamatti - Sideways

This the role that really put Paul Giamatti on the map. Playing Miles Raymond, Paul Giamatti plays a stuck up, over educated, under accomplished, alcoholic. He uses his knowledge of wine and his over developed pallet to make his alcoholism seem more socially accessible. Paul Giamatti pegs this character's awkwardness and comfortableness with the world perfectly. You get the feeling he likes wine because everything else has falling apart. All he can control is what wine he drinks. It is an amazing performance.

Six Life Lessons by Mickey Goldmill

The character Mickey Goldmill as played by Burgess Meredith in the little movie called Rocky is one of my personal heroes.

Observe.

Six Life Lessons from the words of Mickey Goldmill

1. 'You're gonna eat lightin' and you're gonna crap thunder"

Lesson: Live with purpose! It might be very 'uncomfortable' but you will turn out better for having live through it.

2. "Your nose is broken. Ah,it's an improvment"

Lesson: Don't be vain;looks are fleeting. People get wrinkles,moles and other such stuff growing out of their face. So what! Builds character!

3. "Get out of here. Don't you ever interrupt me while I'm conducting business. Move your little chicken asses out. You're a bum, Rock, a bum."

Lessons:
A) Manners? Please? Where were you raised? Do your parents know you do this?
B) On a whole scheme of things you will come to realize your unimportance.

4. "DOWN! DOWN! Stay down!!"

Lesson: Generally it is of benefit to keep your head protected. Just because you play 'dumbass jock' really well.

5.“Ya don't wanna know!”

Lesson: Sometimes ignorance is bliss. Not often. Then again, sometimes you just wind up feeling like a dolt.

6. "OK I'm gonna tell ya! You had the talent to become a good fighter,but instead of that, you became a leg breaker to some cheap second-rate loan sharks! IT'S A WASTE OF LIFE!!!"

Lesson: When you are a man without a 8th grade education and most likely functionally illiterate, if you can,you box. Hopefully without giving in to the worlds dysfunctions.

See? A pinch of salt never hurt anyone! Thanks, Mick!

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Oscars of the Decade: Best Actress

Yesterday the Oscar nominations came out. The other day I thought there should be an Oscars of the Decade. I am not sure there are any best of the decade awards. These awards were valid as yearly awards. I am posing my own best decade awards. I am also picking the winners. This list might be a little incomplete because I did not see that many movie this year. Let me know what you think.

Best Leading Actress

Nominations

Ellen Page – Juno

Ellen Page carries Juno on her back. The is the actress that makes the whole thing work. The character of Juno is a little too smart and a little too dumb for the whole situation. Ellen Page holds back just enough in this preformance to make it seem real. It is believable in a way few teen actresses seem real to me.

Helen Mirren - The Queen

This performance if full of nuance. I have always seen the Queen as someone who is not quite comfortable in the world around her. I think Helen Mirren shows us the queen in a way we believe and can understand.

Renée Zellweger - Chicago

There is only one way to put this, I love this movie because it is fun. Everything about it is fun. Renée Zellweger is the leader of the fun. She is the spark in this movie. That is great when it works this well.

Reese Witherspoon - Walk the Line

Reese Witherspoon did a great job showing June Carter-Cash's complexity. She helped Johnny Cash find his way out of the wilderness, but she had to find her way out also. I do not care if Reese Witherspoon was really like June Carter-Cash or not. What I care about is that Joaquin Phoenix spends much of the movie chewing up scenery and Reese Witherspoon never gets lost behind him. That is a good performance.

Winner

Kate Winslet – The Reader

The Reader is one of my favorite movies in the decade. It works because it takes a new and personal look on an issue that seems to be a very tired issue, World War 2 War Crimes. Kate Winslet plays Hanna Schmitz as both hard and soft. She is tough and confused. She is proud and simple. She brings this character to life in a believable way.