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Kirk Bage (1775 KP) rated The Last Dance in TV
Aug 6, 2020 (Updated Aug 6, 2020)
Some people’s worst nightmare isn’t just being forced to watch sport, but being forced to listen to commentary or analysis on sport. My passion for a competitive event, and appreciation for an acheivement at the highest level in any sport, is still there, but is a little cooler than it was when I was a younger man with the energy to get carried away, whooping and cheering on an underdog or applauding the very best in a discipline.
Basketball for me has never really been a thing. To be honest, I barely understand the rules beyond the basics. It just wasn’t something that was on British TV that often as I grew up, the Olympics being an exception. The skill level (and height above Sea level) needed to be good enough for NBA glory does not escape me though, and neither has the exceptional career of Michael Jordon, who is a clear contender for greatest sportsman of all time, in any sport.
What I do enjoy though is the drama of over-coming hurdles and records against all the odds. The underdog story really appeals to me, as does the story of an older athlete doing it one last time, when no one thinks it’s possible. The Last Dance is exactly that. But not told by actors in a Hollywood way, like the wonderfully under-rated Miracle starring Kurt Russell. This is a documentary, in ten parts, with the real guys, and some of the most comprehensive archive material you’d ever want!
In theory, the tale is about the whole team, and their final fling at winning a title before knowing the aging gang would be disbanded, with the key figures forced into retirement. But, it is about Jordan, of course it is. And as a document of a rise to fame, and how the man responded to that fame and increased pressure, it is simply the best sports documentary yet to be made.
Told in parallel timelines of the final year juxtaposed with the backstory of the previous 20 years, it shows in exquisite detail how a franchise was built, maintained and taken to the heights of being the greatest ever to play the game. There are tantrums, fall outs, walk outs, no shows, injuries, and some mind-bending successes riding on single moments of genius.
The main voices of Jordan himself, as he sits in retirement with a cigar and a single malt, Scottie Pippin, and bad boy Dennis Rodman, are in parts fascinating, eloquent and revealing. Even after many years have passed, the emotion of big moments and issues is still fresh. We see the joy, the pride and the exhilaration, but also the regret, the grudges and the pain. It shows every angle of what being an athlete at the very top means, and exposes what kind of mentality you have to have to be that person. To be a champion.
As with me, it really helps with the cliffhanger drama of it if you don’t remember, or never knew at all, the result of that “last dance” season in ’98. It also helps if watching sport raises the pulse, but I wouldn’t say it is essential, as it all plays like an ten part series full of drama, betrayals and gasp out loud moments. Ten hour long episodes is a lot. But this incredible production never out stays its welcome. Some acheivement, and testament to what a charismatic figure Jordan was and is on the context of sport history.
Of course, not every hero is a hero every minute of his life. And that is my final reason to recommend it. See for yourself what kind of personality virtual gods like these invent for themselves. Utterly compelling TV.
Basketball for me has never really been a thing. To be honest, I barely understand the rules beyond the basics. It just wasn’t something that was on British TV that often as I grew up, the Olympics being an exception. The skill level (and height above Sea level) needed to be good enough for NBA glory does not escape me though, and neither has the exceptional career of Michael Jordon, who is a clear contender for greatest sportsman of all time, in any sport.
What I do enjoy though is the drama of over-coming hurdles and records against all the odds. The underdog story really appeals to me, as does the story of an older athlete doing it one last time, when no one thinks it’s possible. The Last Dance is exactly that. But not told by actors in a Hollywood way, like the wonderfully under-rated Miracle starring Kurt Russell. This is a documentary, in ten parts, with the real guys, and some of the most comprehensive archive material you’d ever want!
In theory, the tale is about the whole team, and their final fling at winning a title before knowing the aging gang would be disbanded, with the key figures forced into retirement. But, it is about Jordan, of course it is. And as a document of a rise to fame, and how the man responded to that fame and increased pressure, it is simply the best sports documentary yet to be made.
Told in parallel timelines of the final year juxtaposed with the backstory of the previous 20 years, it shows in exquisite detail how a franchise was built, maintained and taken to the heights of being the greatest ever to play the game. There are tantrums, fall outs, walk outs, no shows, injuries, and some mind-bending successes riding on single moments of genius.
The main voices of Jordan himself, as he sits in retirement with a cigar and a single malt, Scottie Pippin, and bad boy Dennis Rodman, are in parts fascinating, eloquent and revealing. Even after many years have passed, the emotion of big moments and issues is still fresh. We see the joy, the pride and the exhilaration, but also the regret, the grudges and the pain. It shows every angle of what being an athlete at the very top means, and exposes what kind of mentality you have to have to be that person. To be a champion.
As with me, it really helps with the cliffhanger drama of it if you don’t remember, or never knew at all, the result of that “last dance” season in ’98. It also helps if watching sport raises the pulse, but I wouldn’t say it is essential, as it all plays like an ten part series full of drama, betrayals and gasp out loud moments. Ten hour long episodes is a lot. But this incredible production never out stays its welcome. Some acheivement, and testament to what a charismatic figure Jordan was and is on the context of sport history.
Of course, not every hero is a hero every minute of his life. And that is my final reason to recommend it. See for yourself what kind of personality virtual gods like these invent for themselves. Utterly compelling TV.
Bob Mann (459 KP) rated Greyhound (2020) in Movies
Aug 9, 2020
Hanks and Stephen Graham. (1 more)
Tense cat and mouse hunting
Grey but exciting.
Here's a great movie trivia question for you.... which 2020 movies link Claire Duburcq and Elizabeth Shue, and why? The answer is at the end of this review!
The battle of the Atlantic, which ran from 1939 to the end of the war, was a key battleground of World War 2. Failure to supply the European battlefront with fresh supplies and troops from the States would spell certain failure. (The wiki page addressing this is here.) But it's a field of combat that has been relatively overlooked at the movies. Of the handful of feature films, the most famous are that famously stiff-upper-lipped British offering "The Cruel Sea" from 1953 and Wolfgang Petersen's original 1981 U-boat film, "Das Boot", seeing it from the German's side.
Here, the subject gets the full Tom Hanks treatment. Not only does he star in the movie, but he also wrote it, based on the C.S. Forester novel "The Good Shepherd".
We join Captain Krause (Tom Hanks, with a strangely German-sounding name!) on dry land awaiting his beloved Evelyn (Elizabeth Shue) for a proposal. But that's the last dry land we see in the movie, since Krause is captaining the US destroyer "Greyhound" on its maiden voyage to protect a convoy of UK and US ships heading for England. But danger lurks beneath the waves as a pack of U-boats attempt to sink as many vessels as possible.
The issue with a movie about a war-time transatlantic crossing is that the ships are grey, the sky is grey and the sea is grey. It's a monochromatic and rather depressing context for a movie. To combat that, the CGI used to recreate the action needs to be good, and thankfully the film delivers in that department.
Where I had quibbles - and I'm not sure whether this was in Hank's original screenplay or the result of director Aaron Schneider's attempts at "added flair" - was in stopping the action mid-scene for a zoom up above the clouds to see the Aurora Borealis. Unnecessary and distracting.
Where the film really scores is in the tense action sequences. As a viewer, I found myself straining forwards in my seat for the "ping" of the sonar! The cat and mouse games being played out with the hidden foe are certainly well done.... albeit a colleague of mine refuses to watch it because "torpedoes don't bounce off the sides of ships" as shown in the trailer!
Perhaps what might have made the film richer still would have been the view from the German side. Another star name as the 'heard but never seen' mocking U-boat commander might have turned this into even more of a Shakespearean battle-royale.
Overall, this is an enthralling and enjoyable watch that I would recommend. Tom Hanks delivers YET another compelling captain role. It seems to be the rank that he naturally gravitates to.... having the gravitas to command, but not being too far removed from the common man. Here he is supported by the omnipresent Stephen Graham, also equally good.
It's a great shame that this never got the wide-screen cinematic release, because Greyhound deserved it. Who knows, perhaps with cinemas spasmodically opening up, there's still time for a national release. That would be good, and I'd certainly go and see it again on the big screen.
And, by the way, the answer to my trivia question is this film - Greyhound - and 1917. The reason being that in both movies the actresses named were the sole female players within the whole cast.
(For the full graphical review, please visit https://bob-the-movie-man.com/2020/08/01/one-manns-movies-film-review-greyhound-2020/ .)
The battle of the Atlantic, which ran from 1939 to the end of the war, was a key battleground of World War 2. Failure to supply the European battlefront with fresh supplies and troops from the States would spell certain failure. (The wiki page addressing this is here.) But it's a field of combat that has been relatively overlooked at the movies. Of the handful of feature films, the most famous are that famously stiff-upper-lipped British offering "The Cruel Sea" from 1953 and Wolfgang Petersen's original 1981 U-boat film, "Das Boot", seeing it from the German's side.
Here, the subject gets the full Tom Hanks treatment. Not only does he star in the movie, but he also wrote it, based on the C.S. Forester novel "The Good Shepherd".
We join Captain Krause (Tom Hanks, with a strangely German-sounding name!) on dry land awaiting his beloved Evelyn (Elizabeth Shue) for a proposal. But that's the last dry land we see in the movie, since Krause is captaining the US destroyer "Greyhound" on its maiden voyage to protect a convoy of UK and US ships heading for England. But danger lurks beneath the waves as a pack of U-boats attempt to sink as many vessels as possible.
The issue with a movie about a war-time transatlantic crossing is that the ships are grey, the sky is grey and the sea is grey. It's a monochromatic and rather depressing context for a movie. To combat that, the CGI used to recreate the action needs to be good, and thankfully the film delivers in that department.
Where I had quibbles - and I'm not sure whether this was in Hank's original screenplay or the result of director Aaron Schneider's attempts at "added flair" - was in stopping the action mid-scene for a zoom up above the clouds to see the Aurora Borealis. Unnecessary and distracting.
Where the film really scores is in the tense action sequences. As a viewer, I found myself straining forwards in my seat for the "ping" of the sonar! The cat and mouse games being played out with the hidden foe are certainly well done.... albeit a colleague of mine refuses to watch it because "torpedoes don't bounce off the sides of ships" as shown in the trailer!
Perhaps what might have made the film richer still would have been the view from the German side. Another star name as the 'heard but never seen' mocking U-boat commander might have turned this into even more of a Shakespearean battle-royale.
Overall, this is an enthralling and enjoyable watch that I would recommend. Tom Hanks delivers YET another compelling captain role. It seems to be the rank that he naturally gravitates to.... having the gravitas to command, but not being too far removed from the common man. Here he is supported by the omnipresent Stephen Graham, also equally good.
It's a great shame that this never got the wide-screen cinematic release, because Greyhound deserved it. Who knows, perhaps with cinemas spasmodically opening up, there's still time for a national release. That would be good, and I'd certainly go and see it again on the big screen.
And, by the way, the answer to my trivia question is this film - Greyhound - and 1917. The reason being that in both movies the actresses named were the sole female players within the whole cast.
(For the full graphical review, please visit https://bob-the-movie-man.com/2020/08/01/one-manns-movies-film-review-greyhound-2020/ .)
Emma @ The Movies (1786 KP) rated Stumptown: The Case of the Girl Who Took Her Shampoo: Volume 1 in Books
May 21, 2020
After spotting in the trailer for the TV adaptation that it was based on a book I nipped off to order it straight away... I think it's great that people can see the potential in books that will make an interesting adaptation, with Stumptown I find that particularly impressive because I didn't find it that gripping. This first volume is four issues with one storyline and beyond that there are three more books which I haven't read, potentially there are things I picked up on that are resolved in later volumes. If that is the case though it's a bit of a problem for me because I don't really want to read any more of them.
I found the characters to be mostly non-descript both in the story and visually. On my first read-through I kept having to pop back a few pages and rereading when I lost track of who was who in a scene. It sadly didn't get much clearer on my second read-through.
Our main character is Dex Parios, a PI with a gambling problem. From the very beginning she isn't painted as a very likeable person, it's more than just some of the personality traits, she's been created as a gungho, mildly sex-driven, incompetent woman. At one point I put the book down because she was getting beaten up again with seemingly no real point. There's an almost leering quality to her (as well as other characters) in the illustrations and the inference from the text, as the only character that we really get to know this doesn't make compelling reading.
The storyline runs around the disappearance of a girl, her grandmother who runs the casino Dex is in debt to asks her to investigate and bring her back. That was perfectly introduced, though it took up a lot of pages, but other parts of the story don't click. As I said, I've read the book twice and still can't remember the reason for the second major part of the story... it feels very cloak and dagger which is perhaps why it wasn't very engaging.
Illustrations in comics/graphic novels are either hit or miss for me. The lettering here is pretty standard and managed to be clear and well laid out which was a great boost as sometimes it can get very chunky making it difficult to read. With the illustrations themselves you've got a nice colour palette that changes with the scenes and definitely helps move things along. Beyond that though I'm ultimately not a fan of the finished style, there's not enough differentiation between the characters and, as I mentioned above, it made for a difficult first read.
As an overall story there's something in it but it's a real challenge to like the characters, there wasn't anyone who I was looking forward to seeing again. Dex is given what feels like token bisexuality, it's not expressly pointed out but it's hinted at in a variety of ways. Her sexuality in general is quite heavy handed and I wouldn't be surprised if later down the line we find out she's slept with most of the recurring characters.
After I finished my first reading of Stumptown I messaged a friend... "It was bad and now I'm not sure I want to watch the series they made of it"... I pondered on that for a while because I was tired and maybe I was grumpy while reading it, the second reading came the next day, but even being more alert and less distracted by unfamiliar content I didn't get anything better out of this volume.
Originally posted on: https://emmaatthemovies.blogspot.com/2020/05/based-on-stumptown.html
I found the characters to be mostly non-descript both in the story and visually. On my first read-through I kept having to pop back a few pages and rereading when I lost track of who was who in a scene. It sadly didn't get much clearer on my second read-through.
Our main character is Dex Parios, a PI with a gambling problem. From the very beginning she isn't painted as a very likeable person, it's more than just some of the personality traits, she's been created as a gungho, mildly sex-driven, incompetent woman. At one point I put the book down because she was getting beaten up again with seemingly no real point. There's an almost leering quality to her (as well as other characters) in the illustrations and the inference from the text, as the only character that we really get to know this doesn't make compelling reading.
The storyline runs around the disappearance of a girl, her grandmother who runs the casino Dex is in debt to asks her to investigate and bring her back. That was perfectly introduced, though it took up a lot of pages, but other parts of the story don't click. As I said, I've read the book twice and still can't remember the reason for the second major part of the story... it feels very cloak and dagger which is perhaps why it wasn't very engaging.
Illustrations in comics/graphic novels are either hit or miss for me. The lettering here is pretty standard and managed to be clear and well laid out which was a great boost as sometimes it can get very chunky making it difficult to read. With the illustrations themselves you've got a nice colour palette that changes with the scenes and definitely helps move things along. Beyond that though I'm ultimately not a fan of the finished style, there's not enough differentiation between the characters and, as I mentioned above, it made for a difficult first read.
As an overall story there's something in it but it's a real challenge to like the characters, there wasn't anyone who I was looking forward to seeing again. Dex is given what feels like token bisexuality, it's not expressly pointed out but it's hinted at in a variety of ways. Her sexuality in general is quite heavy handed and I wouldn't be surprised if later down the line we find out she's slept with most of the recurring characters.
After I finished my first reading of Stumptown I messaged a friend... "It was bad and now I'm not sure I want to watch the series they made of it"... I pondered on that for a while because I was tired and maybe I was grumpy while reading it, the second reading came the next day, but even being more alert and less distracted by unfamiliar content I didn't get anything better out of this volume.
Originally posted on: https://emmaatthemovies.blogspot.com/2020/05/based-on-stumptown.html
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