Love and Basketball

Posted on December 13, 2002 at 5:17 am

About eighty percent love and twenty percent basketball, this is a romance about two basketball-loving kids who go one-on-one in both games for almost twenty years before they get it right.

The movie is divided into quarters, like a basketball game. Monica moves next door to Quincy when they are both 11. He is so affronted by her skill at making baskets that he knocks her to the ground — and so impressed that he asks her to be his girl. They kiss for an agreed-upon five seconds, and then break up when they argue over whether he gets to be the boss.

Seven years later, they are seniors in high school, and both star players. Monica (Sanaa Lathan) and Quincy (Omar Epps) are friends, very aware of each other, but awkward at expressing their feelings. He is heavily recruited, but opportunities for girl players are more limited. At the last minute, she gets recruited, too. On the night of the prom, they acknowledge how they feel about each other and become intimate.

At USC, they each face challenges. Quincy learns that the father he respects has not been honest. Monica must deal with a demanding coach and with competition from teammates. They part, and Quincy drops out of school to play professional basketball. In the last quarter, they meet again, for one last chance at love and basketball.

Writer/director Gina Prince-Blythewood has crafted a nice, old-fashioned story. There are a few modern touches, like Monica’s independence in addressing the conflicts between her love for Quincy and her love for basketball, but it is surprisingly traditional in structure and outcome. For example, Quincy is permitted to have had many romantic encounters, but Monica, our heroine, is as hopelessly devoted to her one love as Olivia Newton-John was in “Grease.” And when she sees Quincy again, years after their college break-up, she apologizes to him for leaving him when he was upset so that she could get back to the dorm before her curfew. She says, “I should have been there for you. But I didn’t know how to do that and be all about ball.” There is also a “Star is Born” element as Monica becomes successful as Quincy is having difficulty.

Monica and Quincy must also resolve standard-issue family conflicts. Monica feels unappreciated by her mother (a criminally underused Alfre Woodard), who is happy to be a very traditional housewife and subordinate her life to her family. It turns out that Monica’s mother feels unappreciated too. Quincy’s father, a professional basketball player, turns out to be less than the hero Quincy thought he was. Quincy says to him, “How come you couldn’t be the man you kept trying to make me?” Both must learn to forgive their parents for not being perfect before they can truly become adults.

It is especially nice to see a movie with a primarily black cast that has a genuine feel for the culture but avoids the usual clichés. Monica and Quincy live in an upper middle class neighborhood and each has two loving parents.

Parents should know that the movie has strong sexuality for a PG-13, including descriptions of some sexually aggressive women, a strip basketball game and a scene of Monica and Quincy having sex that has no nudity but is fairly explicit. (It also includes the use of a condom.) A character is accused of fathering a child out of wedlock. Quincy’s father admits that he married Quincy’s mother because she was pregnant. A character gets drunk when she finds out that her husband has been unfaithful. A mother slaps a grown child.

Families who see this movie should talk about how people reconcile the demands of love, family, and career, and why it is that Monica and Quincy had so much trouble telling each other how they felt. Teenagers may also want to talk about the different views Monica and Quincy had of their relationship at different ages, and how the key element linking them through all of them was not basketball but friendship.

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy a very different basketball movie, “Hoosiers,” about a 1950’s championship high school team, and a very different romantic movie, “Claudine.”

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Romance Sports

Seven Brides for Seven Brothers

Posted on December 13, 2002 at 5:17 am

Plot: Handsome backwoodsman Adam Pontabee (Howard Keel) strides into town, singing “Bless Your Beautiful Hide” to his future wife “whoever she may be.” He has given himself one day to find a wife to take back to his ranch. He meets Milly (Jane Powell), a spirited waitress, proposes, and she accepts. He neglects to tell her that back at the ranch are his six brothers, and that he is bringing her back to cook and clean for all of them.

She is hurt, feeling that he wanted a housekeeper more than a wife, and she is horrified when she meets the brothers, who are boorish slobs. The next morning, she informs the brothers that they must learn to behave. They come to love her for her courage and values, and begin to long for wives of their own. She brings them to a barn raising, where they each fall in love. Back at the ranch, they long for their girls. Adam tells them they should go into town and steal them, just as in the story of the “Sobbin’ Women” (the ancient Roman tale of the Sabine women). They do, but the women are furious, and won’t have anything to do with them, even though they are snowed in at the ranch until the spring thaw. Milly is so angry with Adam for telling the brothers to kidnap the girls that he leaves to spend the rest of the winter in a hunting cabin, not knowing that Milly is pregnant. The girls soften toward the brothers, and by spring, are ready to marry them, in one big ceremony. And Adam returns, realizing how much Milly means to him.

Discussion: This movie includes some of the most thrillingly energetic dances ever put on film, including the classic barn-raising number (which unfortunately suffers on the small screen). Based on a short story by Stephen Vincent Benet, it is almost an icon of America as it saw itself in the 1950s — brash, energetic, adventuresome, and cocky. Some critics have complained that the movie all but promotes rape, but that is unfair. Even though the girls are very attracted to the brothers, they are very angry at being kidnapped, and the brothers are banished to the barn. They must earn their way back into the girls’ affections by treating them with courtesy and respect, and ultimately it is very much the girls’ own decision to stay and marry them. With the help of youngest brother Gideon, Milly teaches Adam that even though she accepted his proposal quickly, she is still worth earning.

Questions for Kids:

· How does the barn raising dance number help to tell the story?

· Milly and Adam get married very quickly without talking about what they want. How does that create problems?

· How does Milly show how important family is to her?

· Why is it hard for Adam to realize how important Milly is to him?

· How does Milly show how important family is to her?

· Why is it hard for Adam to realize how important Milly is to him?

Connections: Handsome baritone Howard Keel starred in a number of movie musical classics, including “Kiss Me Kate,” “Showboat,” and “Annie Get Your Gun.” Jane Powell starred in “Royal Wedding” and a number of lesser musicals. Russ Tamblyn appeared in “West Side Story” and “tom thumb.” Ephraim is played by ballet superstar Jacques D’Amboise, whose work with kids was later featured in the Academy Award winning documentary “He Makes Me Feel Like Dancing.” Dorcas is played by Julie Newmar (then called Newmeyer), whose autographed photo provided the title for the 1995 release, “To Wong Foo With Love, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar.”

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Based on a book Classic Musical Romance

The Scorpion King

Posted on December 13, 2002 at 5:17 am

Some very scary looking guys are about to kill a guy who would be even scarier-looking if he wasn’t tied up. But then everyone steps back in awe of a guy who steps in looking scariest of all and as they hesitate, he cocks an eyebrow and says simply, “Boo.” That is the Rock (WWF star Dwayne Johnson) and he plays the title role in this prequel to the “Mummy” movies, giving us the background of the character who appeared briefly but memorably in the second one as half-man, half very large bug.

This movie does not pretend to having anything like the wit and charm of the “Mummy” movies, which were a loving tribute to Saturday morning serials. It is produced by Vince McMahon, Chairman of the WWF (and one of its star performers). McMahon has made a fortune making wrestling matches into stories, with vivid characters and dramatic confrontations. “The Scorpion King” just takes it one step further, a three-act wrestling drama with computer graphics. Maybe the next step will be adding arias and turning it into an opera.

On the silly popcorn scale, it works pretty well, largely due to its star. The Rock has genuine screen presence. He even manages most of the material better than Michael Clarke Duncan (“The Green Mile,” “The Whole Nine Yards”) who is just too much of an actor to deliver the cheesy dialogue with the right mix of sincerity and irony, and Peter Facinelli (“Can’t Hardly Wait,” “The Big Kahuna”), whose thin-voiced delivery doesn’t convey the necessary petulant malevolence.

The Rock is the good guy. He has a comical sidekick. No one bothered to give him a name. He is actually listed in the credits as “Comical Sidekick” (Grant Heslov). There is also a bad guy (English accented, of course), evil dictator Memnon (Steven Brand), who relies on a sorceress (Kelly Hu) to guide him in battle. The sorceress is beautiful. You get where this is all going; I don’t have to spell it out.

There is one innovation worth mentioning. In action movies, the hero is almost always stoic, even when he gets hurt. Think of Rambo sewing up his own wounds. But the Rock, carrying over the conventions of professional wrestling, grimaces in pain when he gets hurt. It doesn’t rise to the level of acting, but in a funny way I think that it adds some heart to the story.

Parents should know that the movie has a lot of action violence, meaning that it is not too graphic or gory. There are some vivid images, including attacking cobras, an impaled body, and a dead child. And there are very vivid sound effects making on- and off-screen violence more explicit with spurting and squishing sounds. There are sexual references and non-explicit sexual situations, including two women in a man’s bed. There are no four-letter words, but there are some strong epithets.

Families who see this movie should talk about Memnon’s claim that order was better than freedom. They may also want to talk about how the sorceress protected herself from Memnon.

Families who enjoy this movie should watch The Mummy and The Mummy Returns.

Related Tags:

Action/Adventure Series/Sequel

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

Posted on December 13, 2002 at 5:17 am

A+

Lowest Recommended Age:	Kindergarten - 3rd Grade
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for some scary moments and mild language
Profanity:	Some mild language ("bloody")
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Characters in peril, minor injuries, tense scenes, some graphic and disturbing images
Diversity Issues:	Diverse cast, strong female characters, all major characters white
Date Released to Theaters:	2001
Date Released to DVD:	July 11, 2011
Amazon.com ASIN:	B000W74EQC

Prepare for the final movie in the Harry Potter series by watching the first one again:

I loved it. And I can’t wait to see it again.

Based of course on the international sensation, the book by J. K. Rowling, “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” is filled with visual splendor, valiant heroes, spectacular special effects, and irresistible characters. It is only fair to say that it is truly magical.

Fanatical fans of the books (in other words, just about everyone who has read them) should take a deep breath and prepare themselves to be thrilled. But first they have to remember that no movie could possibly fit in all of the endlessly inventive details author J.K. Rowling includes or match the imagination of readers who have their own ideas about what Harry’s famous lightning-bolt scar looks like or how Professor McGonagall turns into a cat. Move all of that over into a safe storage part of your brain and settle back with those who are brand new to the story to enjoy the way that screenwriter Steven Kloves, production designer Stuart Craig, and director Chris Columbus have brought their vision of the story to the screen. Even these days, when a six year old can tell the difference between stop-motion and computer graphics, there are movies like this one to remind us of our sense of wonder and show us how purely entertaining a movie can be.

Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), of course, is the orphan who lives with the odious Dursleys, his aunt, uncle, and cousin. They make him sleep in a closet under the stairs and never show him any attention or affection. On his 11th birthday, he receives a mysterious letter, but his uncle destroys it before he can read it. Letters keep coming, and the Dursleys take Harry to a remote lighthouse to keep him from getting them. Finally one is delivered to the lighthouse in the very large person of Hagrid, a huge, bearded man with a weakness for scary-looking creatures. It turns out that the letters were coming from Hogwarts, a boarding school for young witches and wizards, and Harry is expected for the fall term.

Hagrid takes Harry to buy his school supplies in Diagon Alley, a small corner of London that like so much of the magic world exists near but apart from the world of the muggles (humans). We are thus treated to one of the most imaginative and engaging settings ever committed to film, mixing the London of Dickens and Peter Pan with sheer, bewitching fantasy. A winding street that looks like it is hundreds of years old holds a bank run by gnomes, a store where the wand picks the wizard, and a pub filled with an assortment of curious characters.

Then it’s off to the train station, where the Hogwarts Express leaves from Track 9 ¾. On the train, Harry meets his future best friends, Ron (Rupert Grint) and Hermione (Emma Watson) and gets to try delicacies like chocolate frogs (they really hop) and Bertie Bott’s Everyflavor Beans (and they do mean EVERY FLAVOR).

And then things really get exciting, with classes in potions and “defense against the dark arts,” a sport called Quidditch (a sort of flying soccer/basketball), a mysterious trap door guarded by a three-headed dog named Fluffy, a baby dragon named Norbert, some information about Harry’s family and history, and some important lessons in loyalty and courage.

The settings manage to be sensationally imaginative and yet at the same time so clearly believable and lived-in and just plain right that you’ll think you could find them yourself, if you could get to Track 9 ¾. The adult actors are simply and completely perfect. Richard Harris turns in his all-time best performance as headmaster Albus Dumbledore, Maggie Smith (whose on-screen teaching roles extend from “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” to “Sister Act”) brings just the right tone of dry asperity to Professor McGonagall, and Robbie Coltrane is a giant with a heart to match as Hagrid (for me, the most astounding special effect of all was the understated way the movie made him look as though he was 10 feet tall). Alan Rickman provides shivers as potions master Professor Snape, and the brief glimpse of Julie Walters (an Oscar nominee for last year’s “Billy Elliott”) as Ron’s mother made me wish for much more. The kids are all just fine, though mostly just called upon to look either astonished or resolute.

A terrific book is now a terrific movie. Every family should enjoy them both.

Parents should know that the movie is very intense and has some scary moments, including children in peril. Children are hurt, but not seriously. There are some tense moments and some gross moments. A ghost character shows how he got the name “Nearly Headless Nick.” There are characters of many races, but all major characters are white. Female characters are strong and capable.

Families who see this movie should talk about what made the books so popular with children all over the world. Why did Dumbledore leave Harry with the Dursleys? Why did Harry decide not to be friends with Draco? Harry showed both good and bad judgment – when? How can you tell? What do you think are some of the other flavors in Everyflavor Beans?

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy The Wizard of Oz, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, and How The Grinch Stole Christmas.

DVD notes — this is one of the most splendid DVDs ever issued, with an entire second disk of marvelous extras including deleted scenes, a tour of Hogwarts, and CD-ROM treats.

Major Barbara

Posted on December 13, 2002 at 5:17 am

Plot: Major Barbara (Wendy Hiller) is a member of a mission devoted to saving souls, and she promotes temperance, non-violence, and socialism. Adolphus Cusins (Rex Harrison), a classics professor, falls in love with her, but before she accepts his proposal, she insists that he must meet her family. He is surprised to find out that she is the daughter of a wealthy industrialist.

Her father, Andrew Undershaft (Robert Morley), a munitions manufacturer, returns to the family after an absence of many years. He tries to convert Barbara to his views by presenting her with an ethical dilemma. Will she accept large contributions to her mission from the makers of munitions and liquor, the very things she opposes? She cannot, and is disillusioned but understanding when her superior accepts the funds, reasoning that despite their source, the money will do some good.

Barbara visits the munitions factory and sees that her father is right about capitalism. It does not mean much when someone accepts her views in order to get food and shelter. But if she can persuade people simply by the force of her ideas, those are converts worth having. Furthermore, she can aid the poor by providing good jobs, good wages, and good benefits. Her father says that being a millionaire is his religion. Christianity is Barbara’s religion, but she will pursue it through capitalism.

Discussion: More directly political than “Pygmalion,” this provides a good opportunity for a discussion of what is now termed “corporate social responsibility,” and the role of the government, the church, and the corporation in meeting society’s needs.

Questions for Kids:

· How socially responsible should corporations be? How should they balance the interests of employees, customers, shareholders, suppliers, and the community?

· Who is in a better position to help society, government, religion, or business? Which kinds of help are each uniquely able to provide?

Connections: Robert Morley, age 32 when this movie was made, was only four years older than the actress who played his daughter. A very young Deborah Kerr appears as Jenny Hill, and Emelyn Williams, author of the autobiographical “The Corn is Green,” appears as Snobby Price. Wendy Hiller, picked by Shaw himself to appear in this movie and “Pygmalion,” also appears in “A Man for All Seasons” and “Murder on the Orient Express.”

Playwright and co-screenwriter Shaw was one of the twentieth century’s most brilliant writers, well known as a dramatist, essayist, critic, and social reformer. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925. His play, “Pygmalion” (also filmed with Wendy Hiller) became the musical “My Fair Lady.” Among the many pleasures of his work are the superb female characters — strong, intelligent, and principled.

Activities: Teenagers may want to read or even act out some of Shaw’s other plays, including “The Man of Destiny,” “Misalliance,” “Caesar and Cleopatra,” and “Arms and the Man,” and will also enjoy his essays and criticism.

Related Tags:

Drama Romance