Cynical Cinema

I don’t know why Alliance Films waited until tomorrow to release ESPN’s Playmakers.  The complete series comes out tomorrow just before the NFL season begins.  As an NFL fanatic, and a lover of this series, I would have really liked to have it come out three months ago when I was starved for football.  But tomorrow, you can pick up this series and get yourself in gear for the upcoming season.  Playmakers is a compelling drama about a football team in constant turmoil.  Many real-life issues get the ESPN treatment here in the show.  For example, the star running back who has a drug problem, and later becomes implicated in a shooting at a strip club.  Pacman Jones, anyone?

The backup running back, who used to be the star, is frustrated.  A star linebacker is seeing a therapist after crippling an opponent with a borderline hit.  The kicker (Pat Mastroianni, the kid who played Joey Jeremiah on Degrassi) is suffering from a lack of confidence.  There is the gay player who gets outed.  And of course there are the coaches, who turn a blind eye to steroid and drug use, who exhibit obvious favouritism to the star players over the role players, and the people who hang around football and try to leech off the stars.  A tense drama, compelling stories and characters, and football.  That’s three things I love.  And this is one series I like.

ESPN Inside Access DVDs are incredible.  ESPN takes absolutely every bit of footage they can find of a sports star and crams it all onto one DVD.  In this case, that star is Derek Jeter of the New York Yankees.  SportsCentury shows, interviews, highlight reels, Chris Meyers.  It’s all here on yet another amazingly complete package.  So complete that there are some obscure items that no one but the Derek Jeter rabid fanatics of the world would ever want to see.  Jeter cross-dressing on the set of Saturday Night Live.  Jeter being interviewed by Freddie Prinze Jr.  Highlights from the Triple A all-star game the year before he was called up to the major leagues.  And a feature on the “World’s Sexiest Athlete”.

All in all, this is as complete a collection as you will ever find on an athlete, and Derek Jeter is certainly deserving.  His best highlights are truly unbelievable, his best plays seem to be reserved for the biggest stages - Championship Series, World Series, this is where he shines brightest.  But in the end, it’s not as exciting as it should be.  And that’s because Derek Jeter, the athlete, is sensational.  Derek Jeter, the person, is boring.  He’s the stereotypical, “one game at a time”, “110 percent” quote machine.  His interviews are boring.  His quotes are boring.  The interviews with his teammates and coaches hint at the possibility that there is more to him.  He flips out on teammates when they need to be called out.  He is an aggressive team leader and a passionate personality.  Behind closed doors.  But we sure don’t get to see that.

A great DVD jammed with information, this is an exciting look at an amazing baseball player.  But that’s about it.  And after more than two hours of various features showing just how boring Derek Jeter really is in public, I was really hoping that ESPN comes out with something more interesting soon.  Like David Ortiz.  Or Barry Bonds.  Or - especially - Manny Ramirez.  THAT guy is entertaining!  Derek Jeter:  Inside Access comes out tomorrow, from Alliance Films.

          Just putting Will Ferrell in a comedy means a few things.  First, it will do decent bank at the box-office at worst, and massive bank at best.  Secondly, even if it sucks, it will feature a few great laughs somewhere in the film.  And Semi-Pro has both.  A decent bank at the box office for a crappy comedy, and some seriously great laughs in an otherwise crappy comedy.  Will Ferrell is Jackie Moon, a one-hit-wonder singer with a song called “Love Me Sexy”, which is kind of funny, but not as funny as it should be.  He made enough money with that song that he is able to buy a team in the fledgling American Basketball Association, the Flint Tropics.  The team is playing in a tiny market, to few fans, and Ferrell is constantly dreaming up bizarre promotions to get more fans out to the games.  Since this is a second-rate basketball league, he is also able to play on the team.  As the owner of the team, he can decide this for himself, and he does. 

          The rest of the team doesn’t seem to resent this, however, because they really don’t care about their careers or the game.  They just want to be minor-level local celebrities, which gets them the occasional free beer and every now and then gets them laid.  Which, for them, is good enough.  They do have a substantial talent on the team, however, in Clarence “Downtown” Withers, a Dr. J type player who changes his name before just about every game.  And when it is announced that the
ABA is going to be merging with the NBA, and that the top four teams in the league will get to join while the others will fold, the Tropics all of a sudden have something to play for.  Inclusion in the NBA, which is everyone’s dream.  So Ferrell hires a loose-cannon ex-NBA player (Woody Harrelson) to help get the team over the hump. 

          In the meantime, he keeps devising these crazy promotional schemes to draw people to the arena to watch the games.  These schemes provide the bulk of the laughs in the film, especially the scene where Ferrell wrestles the bear.  This scene (to start out, anyway) is remarkably underplayed by Ferrell, and really works.  So do a few others, but overall the movie doesn’t.  It doesn’t work because it doesn’t do anything.  It doesn’t go anywhere, it just muddles it’s way through a story we’ve all seen a thousand times - an underdog misfit team decides to play well, and fights their way to glory…with hilarious results.  And in doing so, they throw in a bunch of used-up sports movie cliches from Slapshot, Major League, Bull Durham, and a host of other sports comedies that are much better than this one. 

          In the end, I would actually recommend this movie, because the few laughs that are in there are very good, and because Ferrell, Harrellson and Andre Benjamin (who plays Clarence Withers) all do extremely well with the thin comedy they are handed.  And also because, on some level, this movie is interesting, historically.  Semi-Pro actually seems to feel some empathy and some reverence for the
ABA, which merged with the NBA in 1976 and saw the Spurs, the Nuggets, the Pacers and the Nets join the big league.  And although Semi-Pro seems to think that just having an afro in the 70s is funny, it still manages to find some kind of a heart under the poorly executed comedy.  Not a great movie, but not Ferrell’s worst by a long shot.  Semi-Pro is being released tomorrow, June 3rd, by Alliance Films.

          Spike Lee made a fairly lousy movie a few years ago.  It was called Summer of Sam and starred John Leguizamo and Mira Sorvino, and it pretty well sucked.  It was all about New York, in the summer of 1977, when Son of Sam was terrifying the people.  And although it was a fairly bad movie, it did one thing very well.  That being the fact that the movie didn’t really focus on Son of Sam at all.  Oh, he was there, killing people with his pistol, and showing up now and again.  But the movie dealt with a bunch of young people doing a bunch of stupid young-people things while the killings just happened to be going on at the same time.  It was a nice device to put the serial killer in the right perspective.  People talked about it, they worried about it a little, but it existed on the periphery.  And a new TV miniseries called The Bronx is Burning does the same thing.  It will be released tomorrow, June 3rd, by Alliance Films, and it’s all about the New York Yankees in the summer of 1977. 

          Now, before I start my review, I must state, for the record, that I am a Red Sox fan.  A big fan.  And I therefore am against everything Yankees-related.  However, I still enjoy John Goodman as The Babe, and I still cry at Pride of the Yankees, and I really enjoyed this miniseries.  I can still revel in the successes and the history of the enemy.  I would love to see an interesting documentary on Rush, or a fascinating retrospective on Coldplay’s career, such as it has been.  And it was with great pleasure that I watched the behind-the-scenes 1977 Yankees season.  Some great actors came together for this ESPN special series, including John Turturro as oft-fired and oft-rehired Yankees manager Billy Martin, and Oliver Platt as oft-insane Yankees owner George Steinbrenner.   

          Now, I must say it’s a bit tough to watch Platt’s Steinbrenner, because he seems to be channeling the “George Stenbrenner” of Seinfeld fame.  And every time he talks, or makes a big speech, I’m always a little surprised when the camera turns away and George Costanza isn’t shaking his head and waving his hand and walking out of the room.  The combustible and crazy relationship between him and Martin forms the dramatic centre of the series, but there are other story lines at play here as well.  The friction between Reggie Jackson and the rest of the team, particularly Thurmon Munson, is a big one.  And then there are the
New York-in-1977 stories that set the Yankees story in context.  The Son Of Sam.  The devastating power blackout.  The hotly contested mayoral race.  And the fires and looting and violence that plagued the streets of the Big Apple that year. 

          Steinbrenner comes off as the villain of the piece, with his craziness and his impossible demands and his need to control everything that goes on within the organization.  Turturro’s Martin, in an odd way, despite his lascivious and fractious behaviour and volatile temper, therefore becomes the hero of the show.  And Reggie Jackson, although in real life his transformation may not have been so dramatic, is the person who grows the most over the course of the season and this six-hour miniseries.  Now, I don’t think I’m giving too much away by saying the Yankees won the World Series in 1977.  I think most people who were alive at that time know this.  And those who weren’t, like me, also know this if we are baseball fans. 

          Although me, being a baseball fan, and having six hours to watch, I would have liked to see a little more baseball.  I would have liked to see more players than just Munson and Jackson and Bucky Dent.  I was hoping to learn more about Catfish Hunter, Ron Guidry, and Dock Ellis (who is of particular interest, because on June the 12th, 1970, pitching for the Pirates against the Padres, he threw a no-hitter while completely bombed on LSD.  See - fun baseball stuff.)  Also fun stuff - Graig Nettles, who was with the Yankees that year, said in 1977 “the best thing about playing for the New York Yankees is that you get to see Reggie Jackson play every day”.  Nettles (played by Alex Cranmer) is barely mentioned in the series, but
Jackson is portrayed excellently by Daniel Sunjata as he really was.  More of a Star than a great player, a larger-than-life sports figure.  While exceptionally talented and passionate about baseball,
Jackson was always more of a Star than he was a great player.  He was the Joan Crawford of baseball. 

          But what makes The Bronx Is Burning great is that you don’t need to be a baseball fan to appreciate it, (although it helps), and you don’t need to be a New Yorker either.  You don’t need to have lived through it, and you don’t need to know anything about the city, the summer, the team or the sport to enjoy it.  The actors are very good, the dynamics on the team are believable and rarely stray into the realm of cheesy re-enactment, and the characters are well drawn.  And the Ramones-intensive soundtrack is both awesome and a-propos.  The
Bronx is Burning comes out June 3rd, from Alliance Films, and it is worth the trip to the video store.

My step-kids wanted to watch The Game Plan, available now on Rogers On Demand.  And much as the idea didn’t appeal to me, I felt as though I should capitulate, because after all, they were excited about the football covered in glitter.  (Or, as it turns out, “bedazzled”.)  So I paid the $5.99, and tried to find six dollars worth of enjoyment from the film.  And sadly, I cam up about five bucks short.  There are very few films, for kids or otherwise, that are more formulaic than the Game Plan.  The Rock, you see, is a pro football player with a massive contract, a massive condominium, a massive following and a massive ego.  All of a sudden, a small girl shows up at his house claiming to be his daughter.  He doesn’t question the claim, since it seems fairly likely to him that this girl’s mother (who is apparently some kind of philanthropist saint) would just leave her, unattended, on the doorstep of the father who never knew she existed. 

This would not, to most of us, make sense even if the mother was a crack-addled junkie prostitute (which she isn’t - this is a Disney movie).  You see, if a mother is so messed up that she would be willing to leave a girl in a situation like this, she would not have the werewithal to get the girl to the apartment.  And if she was indeed the wonderful person that The Rock and the little girl agree she is, she would never do something this insane.  One would think she would at least call first.  Or something.  But The Rock’s willingness to leave the whole situation unquestioned, his publicist’s failure to think anything through, and the stupidity of those around him, mean that these questions go unasked and unanswered.  Which is essential to the movie, or the big revelation at the end would come in the first two minutes.  And frankly, it should.  There is no reason we couldn’t have found out the real reason this little girl is there right away.  The same thing would have happened.

This egomaniac quarterback never throws to open teammates if he can run twenty yards to paydirt instead.  He considers himself above the team and above the sport.  He is a glory hound to the detriment of those around him, especially his team.  But his team doesn’t question that.  At all.  They still love him, because he’s the party-guy playboy with the sweet apartment where they all party.  No bad blood from the receivers who don’t get their due, no bitterness from the temmates who are unjustly overshadowed.  It’s a life of blissful ignorance and ease.  Until the little girl shows up, and teaches him what he can really be, and what’s important in life, and blah blah blah.  Sure, she’s cute and sweet and childish and so forth, but she’s also smarter than he is, more perceptive, better grounded…she’s six.  And the only reason she is six is that this way Disney can set up all the standard pratfalls for a movie like this one.  He gets covered in foam.  She puts a skirt on the bulldog.  The blender makes a mess in the kitchen.  She bedazzles his prize football.  And he falls down a lot.  Haha.

The one thing that bugged me the most about the movie, however, was the fact that they didn’t seem to have the rights to anything.  The Rock plays “Professional Football” for a team based in Boston called the “Rebels”.  His team is competing for the “Championship trophy”.  Why wouldn’t you be able to say Super Bowl?  Or New England Patriots, or the NFL?  There are dozens of other movies that use those words.  Even Disney has already used “NFL” in a movie, a movie about a real-life guy on a real-life team, called Invincible.  Mark Wahlberg played Vince Papale, a walk-on from Philadelphia who made the Eagles in the 70s.  So we know they would be allowed to use these things if they wanted, or if they were willing to pay enough money.  So why not?  It’s really irritating hearing all these generic words like “Football Championship Trophy”, a trophy which, when you see it, bears a striking resemblance to the Super Bowl trophy.  Or, the Vince Lombardi trophy, if you will.

There are a lot of cameos from real football players and analysts.  Boomer Esiason, Marv Albert, Jim Gray, Stuart Scott, and Steven Levy all show up.  But they can’t say NFL?  And then he starts endorsing something called “Fanny’s Burgers”.  What, they couldn’t get McDonalds or Burger King to pay massive dollars for a product placement?  Or was it because the kid keeps saying that they make you fat and give you gas?  So he ends up doing endorsements for a burger chain that sounds as appealing as Krusty Burger.  And of course, the whole movie has to be peppered with the most brutal football talk in movie history.  Everything that comes out of the Rock’s mouth is a football reference, from the playbook to the post pattern to the buttonhook to, of course, the Game Plan.  It’s so forced and contrived that it almost makes me cringe even thinking about it now.  This is some of the worst dialogue in Disney history.

There is one reason to watch The Game Plan.  Roselyn Sanchez is smoking hot as the little girl’s ballet instructor Monique.  But her involvement in the movie is also a painful cliche, so it almost cancels out the hotness.  Almost.  Sanchez being as hot and flexible as she is is worth one dollar.  That leaves five dollars worth of movie rental that I am wanting back.  At least the kids liked it.  But then, they are unfamiliar with terms like “NFL”, “Burger King”, “flea flicker”, and “giant pile of crap”.