The Express

Posted on January 20, 2009 at 6:00 pm

When a real-life story combines athletic excellence and civil rights breakthroughs, it has more than enough heart and drama to be good movie material. Ernie Davis was a combination of heart and pure talent who came along at just the right time to do what his predecessor on the Syracuse football team could not. Jim Brown could break records, but he could not win college football’s highest honor, the Heisman trophy. In that volatile era, a player needed to be more than talented to win that prize. He needed to qualify as “a credit to his race,” determined enough to break through color barriers but not angry enough to scare anyone. Ernie Davis was that player.

He had all the talent anyone could dream of. He could run so fast and dodge so gracefully that enormous angry linebackers seemed to dissolve into air as he ran by. He had one of those talents so rare that he could dissolve ignorance and bigotry as well. One force powerful enough to overcome prejudice is competition. Everyone wanted to have him on their side. Syracuse coach Ben Schwartzwalder (Dennis Quaid) is not eager to bring on a black player, not just because of discomfort with non-whites but because of bad experiences with Jim Brown (Darrin Dewitt Henson), an angry and impatient superstar. But Brown helps persuade Davis to come to Syracuse. And Schwartzwalder shows that when it comes to football, the only colors that matter are those on the uniforms.

Rob Brown of Finding Forrester shows us Davis’ essential decency and dedication. He wants to win for his team, but he also wants to win for his people. If he is a little too glowingly perfect, a little too heroic, it adds to the mythic feeling of the story. And it is balanced by Quaid’s cranky Schwartzwalder and the challenges of an era before the Civil Rights Act, when a member of the team could win the Most Valuable Player award but not be permitted to attend the dinner. It is also a welcome reminder of an era when athletes were role models because of the way they behaved off the field as well as on.

Morning Light

Posted on October 16, 2008 at 5:59 pm

B-

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for some language
Profanity:	Mild language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Reference to accidental death, some peril
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	October 17, 2008

This sunny documentary about a sailboat race across the Pacific Ocean is a bit of a throwback to the days when a night at the movies included some cartoons, a newsreel, and a travelogue. It has a lot of postcard-pretty pictures of glorious sunsets and fresh-faced kids. But for a movie about a lot of hard work leading up to an attempt to beat the world champs, it is rather laid back.

Roy Disney, nephew of Walt Disney, is the man behind the documentary and its title ship and at times it feels like a reality-show version of “The Mickey Mouse Club Goes to Sea.” Fifteen young sailors are selected from a range of competitors and they are brought to Hawaii for sailing boot camp. Then eleven are selected for the team and they choose a captain and assign positions for the race from California to Hawaii.

The kids, all in late teens or early twenties, are all high-spirited and wholesome. But despite a few “up close and personal” tidbits, it is hard to keep them all straight, in part because while they have a range of accents, they don’t have much variety of vocabulary. If you eat a handful of popcorn every time one of them says “awesome” or “rad,” you’ll be at the bottom of the bucket long before they reach Hawaii. The training scenes do not tell us enough about what skills they will need onboard and the racing scenes lack momentum because we — like the crew — go for days without knowing where they are in relation to the competition. Like the ship, the movie gets becalmed.

Related Tags:

Documentary Movies -- format Sports

The Longshots

Posted on August 21, 2008 at 6:00 pm

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	4th - 6th Grades
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for some thematic elements, mild language and brief rude humor.
Profanity:	Brief mild language.
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Character drinks a lot
Violence/ Scariness:	Sports violence, some tense confrontations and discussion of loss
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	August 23, 2008

A little bit of grittiness keeps this fact-based story of a girl who plays football from getting too sugary. The talented Keke Palmer of Akeelah and the Bee gives a beautifully understated, witty, and sincere performance as Jasmine, the first girl to play quarterback in the Pop Warner Super Bowl for middle school football teams. But the credit for the movie’s tone and depth goes to two men better known for provocative, even offensive music: director Fred Durst of metal band Limp Bizkit and rapper/actor/director/entrepreneur Ice Cube, serving here as co-producer and co-star.

Ice Cube plays Curtis, whose dream of playing football was wiped out with a knee injury and whose dream of escaping his small Illinois town to go to Miami was wiped out when the local factory closed down, all-but extinguishing the economy of the community. He spends his days drinking beer, hanging out to watch the middle school football team practice, and doing his best to forgo all human contact and forget that he ever dreamed of anything.

His sister-in-law Claire (Tasha Smith) offers him $5 an hour to watch her daughter Jasmine after school. Curtis and Jasmine stay as far away from each other as possible until one day he asks her to toss him his football and he realizes she has a gift for throwing a long spiral. And she realizes he has a gift for bringing the best out of her. The coach is utterly opposed to having her on the team — until he sees her throw. The team is utterly opposed to having her on the team — until they see her courage and quick thinking. A couple of training montages and a couple of overcome setbacks later, the town is energized behind the team and everyone is feeling like a winner.

Durst does a fine job in creating the atmosphere of the depressed town but most of all he is an actor’s director. He brings out the best in his talented cast, including Smith, Matt Craven as the coach, and the bleacher bums, kibbitzers, and classmates who make up the rest of the community in the struggling small town. But he knows the heart of the story and the heart of the movie is the relationship between Curtis and his niece. Palmer is an enormously gifted young actress, here for the first time playing a character who is for a significant part of the story largely internal. She shows us Jasmine’s sensitivity and strength even when she is just reading a book by herself at a lunch table, and her interactions with Ice Cube are natural and believable.

And under Durst’s direction, Ice Cube shows us again that he can be a first-rate actor. This is the Ice Cube of “Boyz N the Hood,” “Three Kings,” and Barbershop, not the condescending, superficial performances of Are We Done Yet and All About the Benjamins
. He gives a layered, subtle portrayal and it is a pleasure to watch him bloom along with Jasmine.

Boxboarders!

Posted on August 13, 2008 at 2:00 pm

The writer of the delightful Clockstoppers has written and directed an unpretentious little comedy about a crazy “sport” — racing boxes on wheels. It makes the most of its low budget with an easy-going good humor in this goofy but sweet story about two teens who accidentally invent the “boxboarding” and end up in a big race against their nemesis. And of course it also involves getting a little bit closer to the girls they like.
The young cast performs with gusto, ably assisted by top adult character actors like Stephen Tobolowsky as the ever-patient psychologist dad and “The Office’s” Melora Hardin as a litigator always eager to go to court. Clearly, everyone had a blast making the film. One of the DVD’s highlights is an entertaining making-of featurette that I hope will inspire those who watch it not to try taping a refrigerator box to a skateboard but to pick up a camera and make a movie.
Parents should know that in addition to the completely idiotic and very dangerous “sport” in the film, it also has some bad language, teen partying, and sexual references.

Related Tags:

Comedy Independent Sports Teenagers

Contest: The First Olympics

Posted on August 7, 2008 at 10:00 am

I am thrilled to have FIVE copies of this week’s DVD pick of the week, The First Olympics, one of my all-time favorites. This two-part television miniseries an outstanding family film about the first modern-day Olympics in 1896, exciting, touching, funny, and inspiring. The first five people who send me an email at moviemom@moviemom.com with “Olympics” in the subject line will get this very special DVD. This one is for those who have not yet won anything only, please. And stay tuned, more giveaways ahead.