Hurray! The summer Olympics start this week. Here are some movies to help kids get ready.
The First Olympics: Athens 1896, one of my very favorite sports movies ever, is a made-for-TV miniseries about the first modern-day Olympics. We take the Olympics as a given now, but there were 1500 years between the time of the ancient games and the establishment of the modern Olympics with countries from all over the world putting aside their political differences for athletic competition in the spirit of good sportsmanship and teamwork. Showing the origins of everything from the starting position for sprinters to the impulsive selection of the Star Spangled Banner as the U.S. national anthem, the story is filled with drama, wit, and unforgettable characters, sumptuously filmed and beautifully performed by a sensational cast that includes then-unknown David Caruso of “CSI,” one-time Bond Girl Honor Blackman, David Ogden Stiers, Angela Lansbury, and Louis Jourdan. It was a Writer’s Guild and Casting Society award winner when it was first released. It is a great introduction to the Olympics, a thrilling and inspiring story, and outstanding family entertainment.
Stick It This underrated gem is a stylish, smart, and all-around terrific story about gymnastics and when and when not to follow the rules.
American Girl: McKenna Shoots for the Stars One of my favorite entries in one of my favorite series — I love the way this film deals frankly with issues like disabilities (learning and physical), competition, and friendship.
Prefontaine “Modern Family’s” Ed O’Neill and Jared Leto star in the story of the Olympic runner.
Race Jesse Owens thrilled the world and defied Hitler in the 1934 Olympics. This is an outstanding film, exciting, thoughtful, and beautifully performed.
“16 Days of Glory” Bud Greenspan is the master of the Olympics documentary and this one about the 1984 summer Olympics includes all-time all-stars Mary Lou Retton and Greg Louganis.
You can win a copy of today’s new DVD, Underdogs, an animated story about soccer and magic featuring the voices of Ariana Grande, “Glee’s” Matthew Morrison, Nicolas Hoult, and Bella Thorne. Morrison plays a soccer player who loves Laura (Grande). Hoult is Ace, the town bully. Jake beats Ace in a foosball game, but seven years later Ace returns as a soccer champ and Jake must beat him in a real soccer match with the help of some very small but very talented players.
I have a copy to give away! Send me an email at moviemom@moviemom.com with Underdogs in the subject line and tell me your favorite athlete. Don’t forget your address! (US addresses only.) I’ll pick a winner at random on July 26, 2016.
Johnny Simmons has the title role in The Phenom, an exceptionally intelligent and insightful film about a troubled young major league pitcher and the therapist who helps him understand the impact his abusive father has had on him. Simmons is one of my favorite young actors and it was a treat to get to talk to him about the role. The film was released in theaters and on VOD and digital June 24, 2016.
Simmons plays a character who does not speak much and through much of the film has very little insight about himself or the people around him. “It was challenge,” Simmons told me, when I asked him about acting when the character is so subdued. Writer/director Noah Buschel “kept constantly bringing it back and pulling it back and pulling it back and I think that that’s reflective in the outcome; you see that in the movie. So on the set, it was the first film where I ever left a set early because we got done shooting earlier that we even expected. I think we left like 1 or 2 o’clock in the afternoon which if you’ve ever been on set that is just unheard of. And I think it’s because Noah knew exactly what he was going for and it’s in his vision from the very beginning. So it was hard to do at times because you are going to want do something when you are an actor and I learned how to pull it all back honestly.”
I asked what Buschel first told him about Hopper, the character he would be playing. “The one thing that was a clicking moment for me was when he said if there was an empty chair in the corner of the room that’s where you would find Hopper. Once I heard that I was like okay. He is really shy.” It wasn’t so much that Hopper was trying not to feel anything. “I think he is unable to feel. I don’t know if it’s intentional but he is certainly cut off or removed.” Simmons loved the script the first time he read it. “I felt that I knew what I wanted to do with it at that point — which by the way totally changed. But I could see where I wanted to go right away. It’s like you start reading the script and you know what’s coming because you tapped into the way the writer’s head was when he was writing it. I feel like that very rarely happens but it does happen when you’re like – I know what he is about to say. And that’s such a cool feeling.”
He felt lucky that the original start date was pushed back, which gave him more time to work on the role. “So we had a lot of time to talk about it that’s one thing. More often than not especially on a smaller budget film you don’t have any time. So we have to kind of fall into each other’s arms and just trust each other. So you always wish your last day was your first day because what you know about the experience makes you feel like you are ready to begin.”
Hopper is caught throughout the movie between two symbols of masculinity: the therapist, played by Paul Giamatti and the father, played by Ethan Hawke. Simmons said that anyone can identify with the struggle to find a role model and the consequence of learning that someone you look up to is not all you had thought or hoped. “I know that I had to figure all that out as well and I think I’m still figuring it out. I don’t know if you ever arrive at the place where you are like, ‘Oh that’s who I want to be,’ because I have been lucky and also unlucky in that I’ve met a bunch of my heroes. It happened to me on this film. Luckily on this film everybody that I met was incredible but sometimes your hero can be a letdown if you let it be because you realize that they are just human. And then that teaches you something. At first it’s a bummer because you are like, ‘Oh damn, they are human.’ I think that Hopper is kind of in that group where he is just a complete anomaly, somebody who really makes it to the major leagues and he gets the opportunity to realize that having your dreams come true doesn’t necessarily mean roses and happy love songs. I don’t know if that’s the truth for everybody but it has definitely happened to me. I have a couple of friends who have gone pro in sports and if you are off by an inch it’s an entire mind game for the next week. That’s how it works, like your whole world is based around an inch. Being an actor but your whole world turns on an inch, too. I guess the goal would be to not let it be that. Everybody is going to have their own issues that they bring to the table but for me the best thing is just giving over to whatever is there and trusting whatever is there and enjoying it. It’s so easy to become caught up by ‘I’ve got to do this’ or ‘I’ve got to do that’ and most of the times the best stuff comes from when you are not trying to do anything and when you let go. Just trust those around you and trust yourself.”
Copyright 2016 Bron Capital PartnersFor writer/director Noah Buschel, “The Phenom” is clearly a labor of love. For the audience, it is a small gem filled with unexpected insight and performances of exceptional precision and intelligence. We may think we know what to expect from a film about a gifted athlete who explores the impact of his abusive father with the help of an understanding therapist. But each scene has surprises, with sharp dialogue, vivid characters, and a lot to say about the business of both sports and media. This is a sports movie that quotes F. Scott Fitzgerald. And there’s a brief but powerful scene as the athlete talks to the press that reminds us of how mch this film rewards careful attention.
Johnny Simmons plays Hopper, a “phenom” of a pitcher who has had trouble delivering in the major leagues. He’s sent to the team’s psychologist, a former phenom himself, who was featured on the cover of TIME Magazine at age 22 because of his pioneering work in helping athletes achieve focus and overcome fear. Dr. Mobley is played by Paul Giamatti, who has another connection to baseball — his father, Bart Giamatti served as the Commissioner of Major League Baseball.
Giamatti’s Dr. Mobley is understated, reassuring, and accessible. “A lot of young pitchers struggle with control,” he tells Hopper. It’s “a passing thing.” He does not even want to give it a name because that would “legitimize” it. He tells Hopper that it can be good to look back because damage from the past can be “vaseline on the lens” that interferes with our ability to understand the present and accomplish what we hope for.
Hopper’s whole life has been about getting to the major leagues. His father, Hopper senior (Ethan Hawke) is a volatile bully Hopper’s teacher describes as “an expert at cutting corners and when there weren’t any corners, he’d make circles around her.” He constantly berates his son, bragging that he taught him everything he knows, forcing him to run splits as punishment for smiling. “Never show emotion on the mound. And you’re always on the mound.” He tells Hopper to develop an “intimidation face.”
Hopper has dinner at his girlfriend’s house and is so disconnected from life off the field that he has no idea of how to respond in a home where people discuss ideas and events at the dinner table. Later, when he hurts the girl’s feelings and she speaks up, he tells her the only thing he knows: “You need to toughen up.”
Hopper clearly has to choose between two father figures — his biological father, whose approval he cannot help seeking, and Mobley, whose safe space could be something Hopper could learn to trust. Simmons finds a way to show us the feelings the repressed young pitcher still cannot acknowledge, and his scenes with both Giamatti and Hawke are all the stronger for being understated, never overly dramatic. Owing more to “Ordinary People” than to baseball classics like “Bang the Drum Slowly,” this is a touching drama made up of small moments told with truth and care.
Parents should know that this unrated film has some adult material including drugs and drug dealing, an abusive parent, and strong language.
Family discussion: Why didn’t Hopper know how to talk to Dorothy? Should Dr. Mobley have told him the truth? What was his best advice?
If you like this, try: “Ordinary People” and “Fear Strikes Out”
New OJ Simpson Documentary Gives the Bigger Picture
Posted on June 10, 2016 at 3:51 pm
Premiering tomorrow on ABC and then continuing on ESPN, the documentary series “OJ Simpson: Made in America” is for people who watched the “American Crime Story” series about Simpson’s murder trial, for people who remember his career as a football superstar and television personality, for those who remember the 1995 trial for the murder of his ex-wife and her friend and his acquittal, and for those who read current headlines about the injustices of our legal system, with lenience for the white and wealthy and disproportionate police brutality and punishment for the poor and non-white.
Practically every moment of its seven-and-a-half-hour running time is thought-provoking, astonishing, sobering, hilarious, tragic, and sometimes all of those at once….Basically, O.J. Simpson: Made in America is about almost everything that has mattered in this country over the last 50 years. “We talk about O.J. as though the story is O.J.,” says journalist Celia Farber, one of the many sources who speak directly to camera throughout. “The story is O.J. and us.”
