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 SOCK IT TO HIM
According to a recent issue of Harper’s Bazaar, today’s hottest fashion trends
include “feathers, florals, patterns, bold colors, [and] safari.” Will
Ferrell, then, is a trendsetter. He’s sporting all those looks — minus feathers
— in his new movie, Semi-Pro. (We figure the orange palm tree
counts as both floral and safari.) Ferrell goes one better than Bazaar by bringing short shorts back to
basketball. Trust us, they’re going to be bigger than Uggs. Read more about
basketball, not fashion, on the following pages.
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Movies
Big-Screen Hoop Dreams
Can Will Ferrell reverse the sloppy
legacy of basketball films? Don’t count on it. By Eric Celeste Basketball is hard to do right on the big screen. More often than not, movies, both comedies and dramas, flub the game — even if they get the story right. So we have reason for concern about Will Ferrell’s new movie, Semi-Pro. It tells the story of a team from the now defunct 1970s American Basketball Association. To be sure, the perm Ferrell is sporting for the film is giggle-worthy. But the basketball? Well, if history is any guide, we won’t be impressed. Herewith are a dozen of our favorite good and bad hoops flicks.
THE MOVIE |
One on One, 1977 |
Coach, 1978 |
Fast Break, 1979 |
THE PREMISE |
A squeaky-clean high school star tries to prove he's incorruptible. |
A woman is mistakenly hired to coach a high school boys' team. Whoops! |
Welcome Back, Kotter star Gabe Kaplan plays a coach who recruits street ballers, including a woman who's disguised as a man, to play for his horrible college team. |
THE PLAYERS |
Robby Benson and Annette O'Toole |
Cathy Lee Crosby and Michael Biehn (whom you'll remember as Kyle Reese from The Terminator) |
Gabe Kaplan, Harold Sylvester (who was Griff on Married with Children), and New York Nets star Bernard King |
OFF THE COURT |
Released in the shadow of Rocky, this film sought to mix underdog achievement with a love story. How'd it do? Well, consider this tagline: "There comes a time when love stops being a ball and starts being a woman." |
Before That's Incredible!, Crosby was best known for this late-night Cinemax special, a film that's best remembered for Crosby's character's decision to change clothes in her office. As Reese might say, "That's what she does. That's all she does." |
This Bad News Bears of basketball was Kaplan's big-screen break after he'd gained TV popularity. |
THE GAME PLAY |
Whatever. Though not quite six feet tall, Benson is passable at times as a b-ball phenom. Still, his skills never really exceed pickup-game status. |
Awful. Simply awful. Crosby, a former tennis star, is the film's best athlete. |
Surprisingly accurate. It helps that the producers snagged both King, one of the most underappreciated NBA stars of all time, and Mavis Washington, who was an All-American basketball player for University of California-Riverside in the 1970s. Washington plays "the girl." |
THE MOVIE |
The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh, 1979 |
Teen Wolf, 1985 |
Hoosiers, 1986 |
THE PREMISE |
An entire team is composed of athletes born under the astrological sign of Pisces. |
A teenage werewolf helps his high school team win and becomes a celebrity - to the detriment of his relationship with his girlfriend. |
A stern high school coach leads a 1950s Indiana team to an unlikely state championship. |
THE PLAYERS |
Julius Erving, Stockard Channing, Flip Wilson, Jonathan Winters, Meadowlark Lemon, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar |
Michael J. Fox and, um, well, we're not sure |
Gene Hackman, Barbara Hershey, and Dennis Hopper |
OFF THE COURT |
The soundtrack was notable for featuring funky songs from the Four Tops, The Tonight Show's Doc Severinsen, and others. |
When Fox graduates from high school and goes on to college, guess what he becomes (besides a werewolf). He becomes Jason Bateman, the star of Teen Wolf Too. |
It nabbed two Academy Award nominations, and though one was for the soundtrack, that's still impressive for a sports movie. |
THE GAME PLAY |
Pretty good. With Dr. J and a ton of other NBA players on board, this movie gets most of the details right. |
It's so implausible that tiny Fox - who constantly looks at the ball while dribbling - could score a point, let alone win a game, that the business with the wolf almost seems like part of a documentary. |
There are a few nits to pick, but they are minor quibbles. This is one of the few sports movies in which the on-court action is actually exciting. |
THE MOVIE |
Amazing Grace and Chuck, 1987 |
White Men Can't Jump, 1992 |
Blue Chips, 1994 |
THE PREMISE |
A child baseball player quits his team to protest nuclear weapons, and a famous Boston Celtics basketball player joins his quest. |
Two basketball hustlers join forces to double their take, only to find that their friendship is destroyed. |
It takes a look at the less glamorous side of college basketball - the recruiting wars, where grown men slather over 18-year-old guys. |
THE PLAYERS |
Jamie Lee Curtis, Alex English, Gregory Peck, CSI star William Petersen, and the late, great Red Auerbach |
Wesley Snipes, Woody Harrelson, and Rosie Perez |
Nick Nolte, Shaquille O'Neal, J.T. Walsh, Bob Cousy, Anfernee Hardaway, and Jim Boeheim |
OFF THE COURT |
Sort of a Field of Dreams for nuclear disarmament, this was as sanctimonious as movies come. But it was also a sign of its times - 1983's WarGames had sparked a run on nukes films. |
The film was directed by Ron Shelton, who also helmed Bull Durham. |
It's no coincidence that Nolte plays a Bobby Knight-like character. He studied Knight's bombastic coaching style before shooting began on the film. |
THE GAME PLAY |
Utterly forgettable. Fortunately, there is very little actual basketball to speak of. |
The basketball sequences are overrated. Both Snipes and Harrelson appear as though they could be stripped of the ball by a seventh grader. Good slo-mo work, though. |
This is among the best basketball films ever. We could have done without the game-winning alleyoop, though. |
THE MOVIE |
Basketball Diaries, 1995 |
He Got Game, 1998 |
Harvard Man, 2002 |
THE PREMISE |
A Catholic high school star turns into a street junkie. |
The personal lives and pressures of NBA stars are magnified. |
A Harvard point guard gets involved with criminals and fixes a game. |
THE PLAYERS |
Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Wahlberg, and Bruno Kirby |
Denzel Washington, Ray Allen, and Rosario Dawson |
Adrian Grenier, Sarah Michelle Gellar, and Joey Lauren Adams |
OFF THE COURT |
Shot just three years after DiCaprio departed Growing Pains, the movie was filmed when he still looked like a little boy. Oh, wait - he still does. |
Several critics slammed the movie, suggesting that director Spike Lee let his style overtake the subject matter. |
Perhaps knowing that the cast was under-qualified, the producers also cast Ray Allen - of NBA and He Got Game fame. |
THE GAME PLAY |
You would have to be on drugs to buy even a second of the basketball action here. Every basket in the movie appears to be a foot short - which explains why DiCaprio can dunk and why Wahlberg, who is well below the six-feet mark, is a stud rebounder. |
Not bad at all. It always helps to find a basketball star (like Allen, one of the sharpest sharpshooters in NBA history) who can act, rather than the other way around. |
If you were to match Grenier and Basketball Diaries' Leonardo DiCaprio against each other in a one-on-one game, who'd win? No one. Unless, that is, you were rooting for the death of basketball. |
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[dl] Misc.
 Bob's Back
Newhart’s weird and forgotten first season comes to DVD.
“You should really wear more sweaters,” said Bob Newhart. This, everybody remembers. And that’s understandable, given that the line is taken from the last episode of Newhart, which is arguably the best-remembered series finale in TV history and is certainly the most surprising finale ever. (Seriously, who didn’t think the Korean War would end in the finale of M*A*S*H?)
What’s less well recalled is the first season of Newhart — and with good reason. The show made an awkward debut in 1982. Partly, this was because the show’s star, Bob Newhart, was a victim of his own success. The cultishly popular The Bob Newhart Show had gone off the air just five years before Newhart came on, and legions of fans of Dr. Robert Hartley weren’t exactly ready to see him as a self-help author running an inn in Vermont. Who is this Joanna Loudon with the fuzzy sweaters? they asked. Where is Emily?
It didn’t help that the show also suffered on technical grounds. The first season of Newhart was shot on videotape, a cheesy, brightly lit format more suited to capturing Mama’s Family and kids’ birthday parties than it is to showcasing the talents of a comic who is already a TV icon. After all, Newhart and Newhart both based their humor on over-the-top subtleness — pitting a world of wackos versus an excessively normal, buttoned-down straight man. The funny thing is, Newhart himself knew the medium of videotape was wrong for him. A few years after Newhart’s memorable finale, he told Charlie Rose that videotape is the right choice only if the show is about “big, sketchy Carol Burnett, Jackie Gleason jokes,” which Newhart was not. So the move to film had made sense. “Film is a softer look, and it’s a different kind of humor,” Newhart told Rose. “[On film,] you do character jokes that evolve.”
Which is not to say Newhart wasn’t funny in its first 22 episodes; it certainly was. Everything that would sustain the show for its eight-year run was already in place, even if it all looked a little awkward. There was the TV producer who constantly spoke in alliteration, the stuck-up heiress, the stuck-in-his-ways handyman, a bunch of crazy townspeople, and Dick Loudon, the stammering owner of the Stratford Inn, who couldn’t get a moment’s rest in peaceful Vermont.
The show also had a couple of things that would not sustain it — namely, Leslie Vanderkellen , the original, hardworking maid. She was shown the door in season two to make room for that stuck-up heiress, her cousin Stephanie. Also, Kirk Devane , the compulsive liar who owned the Minuteman Café, next door to the Stratford Inn, was phased out as a regular after the first season. In the best trade since the Minnesota Vikings gave their entire team to the Dallas Cowboys for running back Herschel Walker, Kirk was swapped for the new café owners — a trio of woodsmen named Larry, Darryl, and Darryl.
But as important as those changes were in making Newhart one of the most beloved sitcoms in history, the real key to the show, Newhart himself, never wavered. No one has played frustrated and befuddled better. And few sitcom stars have ever so willingly shared the jokes. That quiet brand of comedy — now 26 years after Newhart’s debut — is the thing most worth remembering.
— Joseph Guinto
CASTING CALL
How big a FOB (Fan of Bob) are you?
Take this quiz and find out. By John Ross
Match the name of the actor to the name of the character he or she played. To make it extra hard (and since the series eventually overlapped), we’ve also included characters and actors from The Bob Newhart Show. So, for extra credit, name the show to which each actor/ character pair belongs. Warning: Some actors and characters may have more than one match.
Actors Characters
1. Tony Papenfuss A. Arthur Vanderkellen
2. Steven Kampmann B. Harley Estin
3. Florida Friebus C. Lillian Bakerman
4. Tom Poston D. Cliff Murdock
5. John Voldstad E. Darryl
6. Peter Bonerz F. Kirk Devane
7. José Ferrer G. George Utley
8. Bobby Ramsen H. Jerry Robinson
9. Jeff Doucette I. Johnny Carson Jr.
ANSWERS: 1. E (Newhart), 2. F (Newhart), 3. C (The Bob Newhart Show), 4. G and D (Newhart and The Bob Newhart Show), 5. E (the “other brother Darryl,” Newhart), 6. H (The Bob Newhart Show), 7. A (Newhart), 8. I (The Bob Newhart Show), 9. B (Newhart)
Immersion Course
Three new releases
will have you thinking, if not speaking, in French. By John Ross
MOVIE: The Duchess of
Langeais
This movie is based on
a work by French literary icon Honoré de Balzac and is all about the troubled
goings-on of the upper crust — specifically, in this case, the goings-on of
1820s Paris, which was abuzz with the restoration of the Bourbon dynasty to the
throne. And what’s a restoration without galas and a duchess with love-life
problems?
PEOPLE YOU’LL
RECOGNIZE: Unless you’re a big fan of French cinema, you’re not likely to
recognize Jeanne Balibar — who plays Antoinette de Langeais — as having been
one of the stars of Ça ira mieux demain , nor will you have heard her song “Johnny
Guitar.” But you might wonder why the guy who’s playing Armand de Montriveau
looks kind of like a younger Gérard Depardieu. Answer: Because he’s Guillaume
Depardieu, Gérard’s son.
WHEN TO SEE IT: Out in limited release
February 22.
BOOK: Wartime
Writings: 1943–1949, Marguerite Duras (The New Press, $27)
This book was compiled
from personal notebooks that Duras kept at her home in the French countryside. This
is the first time those notebooks have been translated into English, and they
reveal the stories behind Duras’s best-known works, including her partly
autobiographical novel, The Lover, which tells of her troubled upbringing in Southeast Asia
during the French colonial period.
PARIS, NOT ALWAYS A
PRETTY PICTURE: Duras’s notebooks also recount her experiences in postwar Paris, including those of
helping her husband recover from his internment in a concentration camp and her
dealings with members of the resistance as they punished suspected Nazi
collaborators.
WHEN TO GET IT: March 1.
MUSIC: Bippp: French
Synth-Wave 1979/85
French synth-wave was
the sound of postdisco Paris.
And though it was popular in Parisian clubs, the recordings of acts like Marie
Möö r , Ruth, and Vox Dei failed to catch on. Still, the sound is familiar.
It’s something like a cross between mid-’80s New Wave and today’s techno. Think
Depeche Mode meets Moby — and then add some outrageous French accents.
WHEN TO GET IT: In stores now.
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Instant Oscar Expert
The Academy we are not, but we can
teach you a few things you ought to know before the curtain rises on the
Academy Awards. By Gregory Katz
Each year, Hollywood puts itself on
display for a knock-down, drag-out exhibition of competitive zeal that is concealed
— barely — by a sweet-as-honey, cloying “Aw, shucks, I’m just glad to be here”
attitude. That’s because, in all things Oscar, appearances, not reality, are
what counts. To that end, we’ve compiled the following things you need to know
in order to act like you know everything Oscar related. While our information
is not comprehensive, it should be enough to allow you to shine at any Oscar party.
Oscar Hosts with the
Most
When Jon Stewart steps onstage at
the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood February 24 for his second time as host of the
Oscars (assuming the writers’ strike doesn’t cancel the show), he will take on
a role that’s been played by earlier giants on the American cultural scene, and
by Chevy Chase. Most of Stewart’s predecessors represent a glorious eight
decades of American comic art.
1 - Frank Sinatra He hosted just one time, yes, but
what a time — it was 1963, when Sinatra was at the peak of his fame.
2 - Chevy Chase He was Chevy
Chase in 1987 and 1988, and the Oscar winners were not.
2 - Steve Martin He swore off hosting duties after
serving at the 73rd and 75th annual awards shows (in 2001 and 2003,
respectively).
5 - Johnny Carson Taking over for Bob Hope, he helmed
broadcasts from 1979 to 1982, as well as a final one in 1984.
8 - Billy Crystal This modern Oscar king served as
host from 1990 to 1993, from 1997 to 1998, in 2000, and in 2004.
18 - Bob Hope He’s the king of the Academy Awards.
His first time to host was in 1940; his last was in 1978.
Three Statuesque (and/or
Barely Dressed) Moments in Oscar History
To those who’ve watched
all the countless redcarpet wrap-up shows, it may seem like the Academy Awards
have become little more than an excuse for mindless, Botox-ed excess. But
really, the opposite is true: The Oscar winners and the hubbub they generate
offer a near-perfect mirror of American culture; each year, the event and the
celebrities reflect the popular tastes of the time. See if you can guess which
award winner we’re talking about in the following descriptions — all the better
if you can also guess the exact years in which these events happened.
1 This actor sent a beautiful American Indian woman to turn
down his Best Actor award, a defiant gesture that was firmly rooted in the
social turbulence of the late 1960s and early 1970s, when social causes seemed
to trump Hollywood glamour.
2 Glamour was back and skin was in when this actress wore the
navel-baring Bob Mackie “dress” that is probably the most memorable Oscar
outfit of all. Her getup included a feathered headdress that made her look
about seven feet tall.
3 This award-winning documentarian’s work perfectly
reflected the somber, sober mood of the era following 9/11. Future scholars may
well record that his triumph marked the moment when the threat of global
warming first penetrated the American psyche.
ANSWERS: 1. Marlon Brando, 1972 (he refused
his award for The
Godfather);
2. Cher, 1986; 3. Al Gore, 2007
To the Victor, Things
Get Spoiled
Here are four Oscar
winners who have been losing ever since that big day.
THE ACTOR
F. Murray Abraham
THE ROLE
Antonio Salieri in Amadeus
THE AWARD
Best Actor, 1984
THE AFTERMATH
Roles in clinkers like The Bonfire of the Vanities, Loaded Weapon 1, and Last
Action Hero eventually
led to the part of Professor Hamilton in last year’s BloodMonkey and the role of Professor Bill
Girdler in the upcoming TV movie Shark Swarm.
THE ACTOR
Adrien Brody
THE ROLE
Wladyslaw Szpilman in The Pianist
THE AWARD
Best Actor, 2002
THE AFTERMATH
He has been in a string of
little-watched movies, including The Jacket, The
Singing Detective,
and Hollywoodland. The good news? He got to drive a
fast car in Gumball
3000: Drivin’ Me Crazy,
and he planted a memorable, exuberant kiss on Halle Berry
the night of his Oscar win.
THE ACTOR
Halle Berry
THE ROLE
Leticia Musgrove in Monster’s Ball
THE AWARD
Best Actress, 2001
THE AFTERMATH
Four names sum it up: Jinx, Storm,
Catwoman, Cappy. No one gives Oscars to characters with names like that. And
even Berry’s
dramatic return in last year’s Things We Lost in the Fire failed to garner much critical buzz.
THE ACTOR
Helen Hunt
THE ROLE
Carol Connelly in As Good As It Gets
THE AWARD
Best Actress, 1997
THE AFTERMATH
Wait? Helen who? You mean Helen Hunt
from such films as Pay
It Forward and
Dr T
and the Women?
Yeah, we didn’t see those. Test Your Popcorn Prowess
The Oscars are American cultural
history, writ large. So how much do you already know about the awards?
Challenge your knowledge here. Give yourself points for every correct answer
unless otherwise directed. And for any questions you don’t know the answers to,
we suggest you memorize the correct responses and then throw your newfound knowledge
around like you’ve always had it.
What Your Score Means
65 to 75: Your middle name is probably Oscar.
Or Academy. Hopefully it’s Oscar.
51 to 64: You work for the international
accounting firm of PricewaterhouseCoopers, and you’ve been sneaking a peek
inside t hose envelopes all these years.
36 to 50: We would love to get the recipe for
that dip you serve at your annual Oscars party.
21 to 35: It’s probably time to renew your
subscription to Entertainment
Weekly.
0 to 20: We’re not going to tell you what
this means: “Uma, Oprah. Oprah, Uma. Uma, Oprah.”
1. Who has been nominated the most?
2. Which male actor has received the
most nominations?
3. Who has won the most acting awards?
4. Three actors have won three
times.
Who are they? (Give yourself three
points for each correct answer.)
5. Which film has received the most nominations?
6. Who was the oldest winner in a leadacting
category?
7. Who was the youngest winner in a lead-acting
category?
8. Who has the most Oscar
nominations overall without a win?
9. How many films have won for both Best
Actor and Best Actress? (Give yourself three points for each film you can
name.)
10. Who has received the most
nominations for writing?
11. How many best-directing Oscars did
Alfred Hitchcock win?
ANSWERS: 1. Meryl Streep, 14 times and counting.
2. Jack Nicholson, 12 times and
counting. 3.
Katharine
Hepburn, four. 4.
Ingrid
Bergman, Jack Nicholson, and Walter Brennan. 5. It’s
a tie between Titanic
and All About Eve. Both were nominated in 14 categories.
Titanic
won 11 awards
in 1997; All
About Eve won
six in 1950. 6.
Henry Fonda,
who was 76 when he won for On
Golden Pond in
1981. 7.
Adrien Brody,
who was 29 when he won for The
Pianist.
8. Kevin O’Connell, a sound mixer, is
0-19. He’s lost for Terms
of Endearment and
The
Patriot,
among others. Maybe this year he’ll get a win. His 20th nomination is for Transformers. 9. Seven,
starting with It
Happened One Night in
1934. The others, in chronological order, are One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Network, Coming
Home, On Golden Pond, The
Silence of the Lambs,
and As Good
As It Gets.
10. Woody Allen, with 14 nominations and
two victories. Next comes Billy Wilder, with 12. 11. None. He was nominated five times
but never won. He did receive the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award in 1967 as
recognition for his outstanding career.
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