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Movie Review: 42

By on April 11, 2013 in Culture, History, Movies, Sports

MV5BMTQwMDU4MDI3MV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwMjU1NDgyOQ@@._V1_SX214_Jackie Robinson is the subject of the poorly named 42, an overly sentimental movie about how to change a culture one man at a time that can’t help but be powerful and moving. Unlike other fact-based historical films centering upon an individual, such as Good Night, and Good Luck and Schindler’s List, there is fundamental truth at the core of 42, that one should be judged on his character and rise or fall on his ability, and it helps that the writer and director of the thoughtful, old-fashioned, heartstrings sports movie is the same person. His name is Brian Helgeland (Man on Fire, Robin Hood) and he is white.

That a white artist is so moved to tell this tale of an American baseball player who broke the color barrier, led by a Bible-thumping sports businessman who simply wants to get into heaven (Harrison Ford) and that he tells it with honorable intentions and skill is a sign of how much has changed since the Dodgers first hired a black athlete to play ball. The writing is crisp, for the most part, with some outstanding lines that make you want to cheer and the leisurely plot moves along. The score by Mark Isham is too much and the cliches seem inevitable since we’ve seen this kind of movie many times and some inconsistencies – rows of little pig-tailed girls asking for a baseball player’s autograph in 1947 and Pittsburgh being the butt of jokes – are off the mark but 42 offers an important and uniquely American tale.

That’s why you shouldn’t expect the usual race-baiters (you know who they are) to praise this movie, unless they think they can gain from doing so. With an actor I’ve never heard of named Chadwick Boseman, who’s a dead ringer for the good-looking Jackie Robinson, with Nicole Beharie as his wife, playing talented Robinson as an intelligent, proud athlete who used both his charm and being underestimated to his advantage on and off the baseball diamond, 42 does right by Mr. Robinson. As with Walk the Line, Lincoln and other well-made biographically-themed pictures, (including The Iron Lady, about the late Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher), we don’t really get to know the subject in the deepest sense. Instead, we get a glimpse of his essential characteristics at particular points in time.

But it is a look at the whole man, from his rejection of a moral obligation to serve others – “we don’t owe the world a thing” – to his insistence on knowing why Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey, who recruited him to play baseball for Brooklyn, did so and what’s in it for him. In one of the best scenes, and contrary to sports and black stereotypes, Jackie Robinson is an equal to his wife during a scene in which he admits that a racist almost got the best of him and it is refreshing to see a hero with fallibility, not feet of clay. As we move from racist Florida and the South, which get off too easy as far as I’m concerned, to Philadelphia and southern Ohio, regions hardly known for racial tolerance, Jackie Robinson faces irrational ideas and actions from teammates, fans and other teams. Some of them change, some do not, and the young black couple from southern California – where the Dodgers play today – adjust to the new normal. Rickey, capably portrayed by Ford playing crusty to the hilt, guides Jackie Robinson and the ball club along the way, dodging Catholics, bureaucrats and others who stand in the way of justice and objectivity about what it means to play – and what it takes to win.

In fact, playing to win and make money is one of the better themes in 42, which unabashedly endorses money as the root of all good; money is neither black nor white, as one character says, it’s green. Though there’s not enough baseball in the sepia-toned film, which features too many characters tagging along, sports scenes and the plot’s pace feel a bit like a day at the ballpark. Time is suspended and winning is everything which, in this case, means winning men’s minds one by one, inning by inning, run by run. Evoking America’s racist past with key symbols, from buses, trains and fields to Pittsburgh’s Cathedral of Learning towering in the background as a team struggles to unite, 42 cashes in its lessons about a great baseball player and honorable man who should be remembered for refusing to sit in the back of the bus – yes, Jackie Robinson did that, too – so he could be his best and play ball just like everyone else.

On Lance Armstrong

By on October 19, 2012 in News, Sports

You probably know the key facts of bicyclist Lance Armstrong’s downfall: that the world champion athlete who had taken on cancer, cycling competitions and people (later, a sports bureaucracy) that constantly accused him of drugging his way to winning was recently the subject of a report with apparently conclusive evidence that he chronically took drugs – an assertion which Armstrong has long denied – and has been deprived of his titles, banned from his sport and fired by his sponsors.

This week, Lance Armstrong resigned as chairman of his cancer charity.

I’m not a cycling fan, so I don’t follow the sport and, beyond a general knowledge, I am not familiar with his record, controversies and victories. But I know that Armstrong, who made a comeback from his own cancer diagnosis to win seven Tour de France titles, founded a cancer charity in 1997 that became a huge enterprise which reportedly has raised $500 million for cancer patients. That’s good if it’s true and if the money went to the patients as promised by the charity. But if Armstrong can’t be trusted to engage in honest competition, and from what I know it seems clear that he can’t, why would anyone trust that the charity Armstrong founded is what he says it is and does what he says it does? The question goes to the problem I have had with Lance Armstrong.

Whenever people used to talk about him, they usually fawned over him, which is not the same as admiring him, and it rarely seemed driven by his athletic ability. Instead, people emphasized his cancer survival and acts of charity. His ability appeared to be an afterthought. I’d like to think that his charity seriously advances scientists toward a cure for cancer and I don’t know enough to say. I’m neither fazed nor impressed by outward signs of one’s charitable giving – not by Romney’s, not by anyone’s – including rubber bracelets. If people want to make an issue of charity and display a token of their cause, I figure they may have good reasons.

But when acts of charity and recovery overshadow the source for charity and the reason for recovery – living an honest, productive life with integrity – we should activate closer scrutiny, not feed a fixation. Lance Armstrong, because he apparently perpetuates a fraud, provides a lesson in why.

Movie Review: Undefeated

By on January 26, 2012 in Movies, Sports

One of the Oscar-nominated documentaries, Undefeated, sounds more dramatic and engrossing than it turns out to be: set in north Memphis, Tennessee, in the arena of inner-city high school football players during the chronically losing Manassas Tigers’ 2009 football season, a tough coach steps in to inspire the students to win the first playoff game in the high school’s 110-year history.

Critics are gushing over this real-life Blind Side-type picture and it’s easy to see why. The coach, a Christian named Bill Courtney who volunteered to coach the boys’ team, is very dedicated according both to this movie and to an interviewed newspaper reporter who, the press notes disclose while the film does not, wrote an article that inspired the film. But Coach Courtney is a mixed case for coaching and Undefeated raises questions about its approach.

From the start, Coach Courtney is a bit theatrical, telling the players that he will kill himself for the team. Exaggeration continues, which is fine for a coach who needs to stir his team to victory, but rigorous training does not, judging by what we see. Undefeated is less interested in the athletics of football than it is in proselytizing its themes of selflessness, forgiveness and sacrifice. Also, with no pretext to why this documentary was made, by whom, or in what context, the perspective is blurred; in one scene, a kid’s in trouble yet in the next scene, the coach finds out from another player and we’re left to wonder why facts and sequence were edited out. And with a coach at the center who apparently attends a religious camp called ManRise, takes public school kids to church and leads them in prayer with not a peep from anyone in a state where the Scopes trial took place, Coach Courtney probably violates the law and certainly grates on the nerves.

As Undefeated tracks three players, big lug tackle O.C., criminally-inclined linebacker Chavis, and a smaller kid called “Money” who plays offensive lineman, it’s easy to get into this story of a sad, poor team and its feisty coach who preaches that character counts. We want to root for the kids, see them win and we’re so invested in their tales and troubles that we start to forget it’s a movie. Supposedly a documentary, though important action happens offscreen, as when Chavis assaults another player but not before the screen goes blank for no apparent reason, and Undefeated ultimately feels as real and authentic as so-called reality television. That’s not to say it’s without value, and I’m glad these kids apparently learned something and did well. But between references to “haves and have-nots” and fairy tale endings where anonymous rich people pay for an entire college education and thugs turn into humble servants, I noticed that preachy Coach Courtney never had time for his wife and kids, which he eventually admits, and that for all his preaching he sets a poor example as a father.

All of which is a shame because how schools conduct sports is a serious issue that deserves a serious documentary. We are currently plagued with news about concussions in football players (which never comes up here) and what may be a link to a form of encephalitis, sex abuse scandals and arrests at Penn State, Syracuse and the Amateur Athletic Union (whose director was fired after he was accused of abuse by former basketball players during his youth sports work in Memphis). Instead, Undefeated offers prayers, bromides and slogans, like an episode of Huckabee without the fiddlers, banjo playing and aw shucks grins.

Anti-Hero Worship

By on January 23, 2012 in Culture, Education, Politics, Sports, Travel

“You’re our hero,” read a sign at a statue of the late government-college football coach Joe Paterno, who died on Sunday at the age of 85. But Paterno, who by his own admission sidestepped, ignored or evaded allegations of child rape, is not a hero. He was a football coach at a state college and he made crucial errors of judgment which, by the kindest interpretation of his involvement, which was under investigation, may have aided or abetted serious crimes against children. Nevertheless, government-financed Penn State declared that it will hold a public memorial service, where signs, photography and video will be forbidden. The governor, Tom Corbett, ordered state flags to fly at half-staff. Joe Paterno, an employee of the college for 61 years who by most accounts did his job and coached football better than most, does not in my estimation deserve the accolades. He worked for a well-respected college and his primary responsibility was to teach students and provide an example and, whatever the outcome of the charges against his former colleague, Jerry Sandusky, whom I think is guilty, he failed. “I was afraid to do something that might jeopardize what the university procedure was,” he told the Washington Post about his actions in his final interview. So, he made a mistake and did so at a place for higher learning on the taxpayers’ dime, which, while it does not make him a monster, makes Paterno a non-hero and undeserving of worship by people in the Keystone State and everywhere else. We don’t yet have all the information about Sandusky’s alleged crimes or Paterno’s actions, but, increasingly, sports spectators worship thugs, not heroes, as pro hockey team owner Mario Lemieux said when he threatened to quit. Given what we do know, Paterno worship is more of the same.

Another non-hero is also a government employee. Her name is Gabrielle Giffords, the stricken Arizona congresswoman who was shot and survived in a lunatic’s attack in Tucson, Arizona, last year. It was a good call for her to quit, as she recently announced, though it would have been better had she done it sooner. Her district has essentially been without representation since she was injured in a terrible tragedy in which lives were lost. It is a representative’s job to serve the republic and represent constituents and she should have quit her job months ago. Instead, Congresswoman Giffords, too, is being treated as some sort of heroine. I am sure there are millions of Americans like me who are sorry she was shot and wish her well. But it doesn’t make her a heroine or excuse the lack of representation for Americans who deserve full, congressional representation during the nation’s darkest times since the Depression.

A third government non-hero, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, a Christian libertarian son of a GOP presidential candidate, was detained earlier today by the TSA for refusing a government-dictated security pat-down. While Sen. Paul exercised his individual rights and I hope (and doubt) his act of civil disobedience encourages people to act to kill the TSA, Matt Drudge’s red-colored headline, “TSA DETAINS U.S. SENATOR”, should read: TSA DETAINS U.S. CITIZEN. The outrage is that Americans are submitted to the tyranny of unconstitutional restrictions on travel and association every day. That a politician is affected, too, should be of no concern to anyone except the politician. Any decent politician would use the detainment as an opportunity to build support for a law abolishing the government agency.

Because praise for non-heroes trivializes the concept of heroism, glorifying these three government workers – Coach Paterno, Congresswoman Giffords, Senator Paul – redounds to anti-hero worship. Real heroes are those who consistently live life at their best; men such as Andrew Carnegie, Steve Jobs and John Lewis. Real hero-worshippers refuse to raise a glass to mediocrity. They know the difference.

Movie Review: Moneyball

By on September 21, 2011 in Movies, Sports

Brad Pitt’s version of real life baseball manager Billy Beane (that’s his name), which powers Sony’s Moneyball, hates losing more than he wants to win, as he puts it. Unfortunately, that’s both the movie’s theme and what makes its message so dreary, joyless and unenjoyable. Watching someone hate losing for two hours and 13 minutes, with not a single moment when you just get to indulge in the pleasure of playing baseball for the sake of the game, is agonizing. The protagonist of this star vehicle is so busy talking about letting baseball be baseball by cutting to its core, liberated from the conformity of a Major League system that drains the game of risk, ability, and independence, that Moneyball (based on the book by Michael Lewis) comes up short on dramatizing both making money and baseball.

Despite his outstanding title performance in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Brad Pitt’s made a career out of playing these vacant downer types. From Thelma and Louise and Se7en to more recent fare such as the godawful Babel, watching him play another jaded type is old hat, though he does fine as the ex-ballplayer turned manager who tries to remake the Oakland A’s into a winning team based on a cost-efficient approach. But reducing baseball to stats and facts is dull and lifeless in the hands of two writers (Steven Zaillian, who wrote the overrated, lifeless Schindler’s List, and Aaron Sorkin, who wrote the overrated, lifeless The Social Network) who have lifeless down pat. Moneyball‘s packed with long stretches of silence, the sound of people’s sighs and swallows, and endless navel-gazing about nothing. There’s barely any baseball, let alone love of making money playing ball.

Beane’s been beaten down in life and it shows; his daughter is a 12-year-old who looks 37 and writes depressing songs like she’s Janis Ian, but you would be too hanging around his sad sack of a father. After hitting rock bottom in negotiations, he finds an Ivy League geek (Jonah Hill) to set things right and director Bennett Miller (Capote) takes way too long in loading the bases. Everything’s predictable and, while the business of baseball is potentially fascinating, here it’s played as a false dichotomy between rationalism and going by feelings, tradition and intuition. Philip Seymour Hoffman portrays the head coach of the A’s but there’s hardly any team to coach as Beane and his college nerd make maneuvers and calculate a winning combination. None of the players stands out and ballgames feel like waiting in an airport security line. There’s no sense of play.

There are a few good scenes and decent lines, and, disconnected from the film as a whole, the story of going up against Major League baseball’s establishment has its moments. Certain stretches hold and sustain interest, such as a scene between Pitt and Hill trying to score a key player. But then the talky picture gets back to an unbearably snarky, slow-moving approach. Moneyball poses as if it has something to say, tacking on a point about doing what matters, but it’s mostly talk and no action, so, in the end it’s as empty, obvious and manipulative as a tawdry 50s’ melodrama, banging the moviegoer over the head with pixelated close-ups of players’ faces and the words ‘won’ or ‘lost’ to score its points. Billy Beane, whose story is undoubteldy more interesting than this movie, comes undone in violent outbursts and constantly groans about how it’s hard not to be romantic about baseball. The dull, somber Moneyball makes it easier.