Jump Shot

Posted on April 16, 2020 at 9:14 pm

B +

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Not rated
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	References to hunting, illness, sad death
Diversity Issues:	References to opportunities for women in sports
Date Released to Theaters:	April 17, 2020

Those feeling most sharply the loss of NCAA March Madness this year will be able to get some of what they miss with “Jump Shot,” a documentary produced by one of the all-time NBA greats, Steph Curry, about the man he considers one of his most significant forbears, the late Kenny Sailors, who invented the jump shot. Yes, someone invented the jump shot, and almost as remarkable as trying to imagine basketball without jump shots, this documentary will satisfy those who don’t know who Steph Curry is as well as those who can recite the stats from his career going back to his college days at Davidson. Kenny Sailors invented the jump shot when he was a teenager. But then he went on to a life well-lived, in which the jump shot and basketball were only one part. And to pay tribute to his example, a portion of every payment for watching the film will go to helping provide food to people in need as a result of COVID-19.

Did Sailors really invent the jump shot? Here’s what the New York Times said.

People of reliable authority have said that if they had to pick the one whose prototypical jump shot was the purest, whose mechanics set in motion a scoring technique that thrilled fans and helped transform a two-handed, flat-footed, essentially earthbound affair into the vertical game it is today — giving rise, quite literally, to marksmen like Oscar Robertson, Jerry West, Rick Barry, Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant — it would be Sailors.

Sailors grew up in a Wyoming small town. He loved basketball and played one-on-one with his big brother every day. His brother was big, 6’5″. Sailors was only 5’7″. He couldn’t get past his big brother. So, he began to jump. And as someone once said in a movie, he had the hang time of a helium balloon.

The documentary has archival footage and contemporary comments from athletes, including Curry and Kevin Durant, sports journalists, and Sailors’ family and friends. Sailors took his college team to a national championship as he and all of the other players knew they would not be continuing to play basketball; they were all going into the military to fight in WWII. Sailors became a captain in the Marines, and then, after the war, played professional basketball long enough to qualify for a pension. And then, for his wife’s health, they moved to rural Alaska, where he coached high school students in every sport they offered plus girls’ basketball, which was not offered until he insisted on it.

It is a touchng love story, and it is a story of a life of grace, integrity, and service, with a quality we do not see very often, decency. Sailors’ quiet humility and selfless dedication are even more inspiring than his innovations in basketball.

Parents should know the movie has references to illness and aging and a sad death.

Family discussion: What was most important to Kenny Sailors? What would you like to change about sports?

If you like this, try: “Dogtown and Z-Boys” about some teenagers who also transformed their sport

Movies For Homebound Grown-Ups: Two Cool New Indies

Posted on April 16, 2020 at 12:05 pm

You can have your own indie film festival at home now with some new releases:

Phoenix Oregon: James Le Gros plays a bartender and would-be graphic memoirist (James Le Gros) who has lost his way. The outstanding cast includes Lisa Edelstein as a liquor distributor, Dietrich Bader as the restaurant owner, and especially Jesse Borrego as the perfectionist chef who joins forces with the bartender to open a bowling alley.

Standing Up, Falling Down: Billy Crystal gives one of his all-time best performances as a doctor with a number of issues, including substance abuse, who befriends a would-be stand-up comic (Ben Schwartz). Grace Gummer is terrific as the comic’s sister.

And check out a new streaming service for indie films, Topic.

Related Tags:

Independent VOD and Streaming

Try Quibi for Free for 90 Days

Posted on April 8, 2020 at 8:00 am

Quibi is a new streaming service with features, comedy, drama, action, and reality shows, featuring some of the biggest names in show business on screen and behind the scenes. But there are two important differences from Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, Disney Plus, AppleTV+, etc.

First, everything is 12 minutes or under. Second, everything is made to be watched on your phone. Initially, Quibi was going to offer two free weeks before charging viewers ($4.99/month with ads, $7.99 without). But wisely and generously, given the COVID-19 quarantine, they are now offering 90 days free, just at the time we could all use some short bits of entertainment. There’s something for everyone. Give it a try!

Some examples of what you’ll find:

“Thanks a Million” means it literally. A million dollars in cash gets given away by celebrities like Jennifer Lopez, Kevin Hart, and Nick Jonas. Each gets to give $100,000 to someone who inspires them. But there’s a catch — the recipient has to give half of that to someone else and that someone also has to give half of it away.

Liam Hemsworth stars in an update of the classic story “Most Dangerous Game” about a terminally ill man who agrees to be hunted.

The irrepressible Chrissy Tiegen judges small but colorful disputes in “Chrissy’s Court” with some help from her mother (the court bailiff) and her husband, John Legend.

In “The Stranger,” Maika Monroe plays a rideshare driver who picks up a mysterious passenger (Dane DeHaan).

Sneaker culture is examined by Lena Waithe in “You Ain’t Got These.”

Feel like being scared? Terror expert Sam Raimi brings us “50 States of Fright,” an anthology of 50 short horror stories, one for each state.

“Run This City” is the real-life story of the rise and fall of a 23-year-old who gets elected mayor and then gets indicted for embezzlement.

Breakout “RuPaul’s Drag Race” star Sasha Velour and friends put on a show.

LeBron James creates a school in “I Promise.”

Related Tags:

Shorts VOD and Streaming

Free to Watch: Documentary About Nurses

Posted on April 7, 2020 at 3:44 pm

To honor nurses on the front lines of the COVID-19 crisis, Kino Lorber is offering a free streaming re-release of the acclaimed documentary, THE AMERICAN NURSE (www.americannurseproject.com).

The documentary highlights the lives of five American nurses from diverse specialties, bringing to the big screen a sincere look at the commitment, necessity, and compassion behind this profession that impacts us all.

Marking the six-year anniversary since it was released in U.S. theaters in May 2014, Kino Lorber will release THE AMERICAN NURSE for free on its streaming platform Kino Now from now until the end of May. The release is timed to coincide with National Nurses Week, and the World Health Organization (WHO) also designating 2020 as the International Year of the Nurse and the Midwife.

The film’s free release is made possible by Fresenius Kabi, which also supported the development of the film and related book, and whose purpose is to put lifesaving medicines and technologies in the hands of nurses and others who care for patients, and to find answers to the challenges they face.

Related Tags:

Documentary VOD and Streaming

The Banker

Posted on April 2, 2020 at 9:51 am

B +

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for some strong language including a sexual reference and racial epithets, and smoking throughout
Profanity:	Some strong and racist language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking and smoking
Violence/ Scariness:	Some peril
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	April 3, 2020

“The Banker,” now available on Apple TV+, is three movies in one, all of them vivid, engaging, and compelling.

First, it’s a heist in plain sight movie, and all, or pretty much all, strictly legal. Two black men, Bernard Garrett (Anthony Mackie) and Joe Morris (Samuel L. Jackson) start a business in the pre-Civil Rights Act era when it was not only legal but the universal practice to keep people of color not just out of the neighborhoods where white people lived and worked but out of the places that make property ownership possible, the business that sell homes and office buildings and the people who provide the financing for those purchases.

Second, it is a “My Fair Lady”-style Cinderella makeover fairy tale movie, about taking someone who has the heart to be more than he is and teaching him the language, manners, and skills necessary to have credibility in the highest levels of society, or, in this case, business and finance. Garrett and Morris need a white man to pretend to be the president of their enterprise, so they recruit Matt Steiner (Nicholas Hoult), a genial construction worker, and teach him their version of “the rain in Spain stays mainly on the plain,” how to do (or pretend to do) complex valuation computations in seconds and how to play golf, so he can display the (apparently) effortless credibility needed to do big-money deals.

Third, it is a very personal underdog story of heroes to cheer for, two very different men, both played with exquisite precision, working together against near-insurmountable odds to overturn a virulently oppressive system.

Garrett has a head for numbers even as a young boy, where he listens in on the conversations of men of business as he shines their shoes. As a young man, he understands that the ability to own property is as critical to financial stability, social parity, and equal opportunity as the kind of political organizing that is getting started at the same time. Morris is already a savvy businessman with clubs and real estate holdings. Their personalities are very different — one a quiet, devoted family man, the other a good-time guy. But they both know how things work. They know how to make themselves invisible, pretending to be limo drivers or janitors to get access to the places of power while their front-man pretends to know what he’s doing. (One problem with the film is its failure to give Nia Long more of a role than the ever-supportive wife, though this ever-talented actress lends the character some dimension.)

We know from the beginning, opening on a Senate hearing with some harsh questioning, that powerful people are going to try to stop Garrett and Morris from taking some of their power. This movie, with MCU star-power portraying real-life superheroes, gives some of it back to them.

Parents should know that this film has some strong and racist language, some sexual references, scenes in clubs and bars, and some historical depictions of racism.

Family discussion: What did Morris and Garrett have in common? Who is most like them today? What should they have done about Steiner?

If you like this, try: “Hidden Figures” and “Self Made,” and read more about Bernard Garrett and Joe Morris.