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Jeffrey Kimball

Jerry Bruckheimer at an event for The Sorcerer's Apprentice (2010)
Glory Road
Jerry Bruckheimer at an event for The Sorcerer's Apprentice (2010)
"Glory Road" is an appealing story about a basketball coach who almost accidentally engages in social engineering in his quest to win games. This is the mostly true story of the 1966 Texas Western Miners, who won the NCAA championship with an all-black lineup against the all-white University of Kentucky Wildcats. That win not only broke an unspoken barrier and transformed the college game itself but arguably helped fuel the desegregation movement in this country. The coach, Don Haskins, played with energy and dedication by Josh Lucas, was no political activist but did realize that recruiting black players was a shortcut to winning in all-white Southern conferences.

This Jerry Bruckheimer production, directed by commercial director James Gartner in a solid feature debut, should please male fans as well as those who don't mind a dose of social commentary with their sports heroics. "Glory Road" will get the new year off to a fine start for the Walt Disney Co., which no doubt is aware that another basketball movie, "Coach Carter", racked up more than $67 million in boxoffice grosses playing at the same time last year.

With so much story to tell, the movie, written by Christopher Cleveland and Bettina Gilois, gets under way in a rush so it's hard to tell if Haskins is aware of the implications of his basketball revolution. The movie never quite explores whether he realizes the amount of hatred and abuse he is exposing his athletes to and how he prepares them to face those challenges.

Instead the movie sticks to a rags-to-riches tale of a high school girls basketball coach who gets an out-of-nowhere offer to coach at Texas Western University (now the University of Texas at El Paso). With virtually no budget for recruiting and a program he can't sell to talented white athletes, Haskins travels through northern cities to offer scholarships to black standouts.

To position a deserved halo even more prominently above Haskins' head, the movie stretches the truth in two ways. Haskins won the championship in his sixth season, not his first as the movie has it. And even before Haskins' arrival, Texas Western was the first college in a Southern state to integrate its athletic teams. Indeed, the coach inherited three black players from a previous coach.

While the film doesn't soft-peddle ugly incidents of overt racism, it treats most off-court conflicts with humor instead of studied seriousness. The film views its characters as college youngsters, engaging in good-natured byplay and looking for fun.

The actors do fine jobs of capturing aspects of each player's personality that underscore his contribution on the court. Derek Luke stars as Bobby Joe Hill, the agile backcourt artist whose resentment of racism feeds his athletic prowess. Schin A.S. Kerr has a glowering presence as the formidable center David Lattin.

Damaine Radcliffe is a determined Willie "Scoops" Cager, fighting to overcome a heart ailment to get back on the court. Sam Jones III makes pint-size Willie Worsley a spark plug at guard. Mehcad Brooks as forward Harry Flournoy must battle scholastic problems to stay in the lineup. And Austin Nichols has serious and humorous moments as Jerry Armstrong, a white player forced to adjust his game and social attitudes.

Jon Voight plays legendary Kentucky coach Adolph Rupp with a face that alternates between a scowl and a look of astonishment. The film does a delicate balancing act of making Rupp the nominal villain while giving him his due as a shrewd strategist who simply meets his match in a younger and hungrier rival coach.

All the game footage is well shot and edited. The cinematography by John Toon and Jeffrey Kimball is outstanding, though Trevor Rabin's music is conventional, even at times overbearing. Designer Geoffrey Kirkland makes the gyms and locker rooms all but reek of stale sweat.

GLORY ROAD

Buena Vista Pictures

Walt Disney Pictures in association with Jerry Bruckheimer Films

Credits:

Director: James Gartner

Screenwriters: Christopher Cleveland, Bettina Gilois

Producer: Jerry Bruckheimer

Executive producers: Mike Stenson, Chad Oman, Andy Given

Directors of photography: John Toon, Jeffrey Kimball

Production designer: Geoffrey Kirkland

Music: Trevor Rabin

Costumes: Alix Friedberg

Editor: John Wright

Cast:

Don Haskins: Josh Lucas

Bobby Joe Hill: Derek Luke

Jerry Armstrong: Austin Nichols

Adolph Rupp: Jon Voight

Moe Iba: Evan Jones

David Lattin: Schin A.S. Kerr

Orsten Artis: Alphonso McAuley

Harry Flournoy: Mehcad Brooks

Willie Worsley: Sam Jones III

Willie "Scoops" Cager: Damaine Radcliffe

Mary Haskins: Emily Deschanel

MPAA rating PG

Running time -- 114 minutes...
  • 2/3/2006
  • The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Kevin Bacon
Film review: 'Wild Things'
Kevin Bacon
"Wild Things" is swamp soap, slippery and sexy, and it's likely to clean up with a sizable section of young viewers. A steamy, campy thriller starring Kevin Bacon, Matt Dillon and Neve Campbell and pulsating with a seductive performance from relative newcomer Denise Richards, this Sony release should win the approval of all who prefer dramas to resemble wet T-shirt contests.

As Boca Raton literally means "bay of the rats," this Blue Bay, Fla.-set boiler may be figuratively dubbed "bay of the vamps." With its story docked in this tony, upper-crust enclave, the narrative gyrates around the kind of rich decadence one usually associates with West Palm Beach, with bored blondes taking trumpets to bed.

In this sizzling scenario, the bored blonde is Sandra Van Ryan (Theresa Russell), a sultry sexpot whose husband has done himself in and whose precocious daughter Kelly Richards) is on the prowl for a daddy figure. Kelly has her coquettish eye on her rock-solid high-school guidance counselor, Sam Lombardo (Dillon), who has a reputation for womanizing.

Outfitted in the hottest topical storywear, sexual harassment, "Wild Things" is a juicy plot teaser, heaving its way through enough twists and reversals to fill six seasons of a TV soap. Its characters are a combustible lot, including Campbell as Suzie, a drug-addled trasher who also looks to the good guidance counselor for advice. Screenwriter Stephen Peters has also steamed it up with some standard staples of the genre, caste/class rivalry and wicked anti-establishment slants that will appeal to viewers of all shapes and forms.

Admittedly, Peters pops "Wild Things" over the top with swamp camp, dicing it with straight-faced nonsense that is a satire of the genre itself. Similarly, director John McNaughton's grip is a bawdy mix of suspense, sex and silliness, all served up with a huge tongue sticking in his cheek.

It's a foamy mix, topped off by highly charged performances. As the beleaguered bedder, Dillon is well-cast as the authority figure from the wrong side of the tracks who is at once powerful and powerless in this decadent little world. Bacon is similarly well chosen to play a driven lawman who finds his wings clipped by the local power authorities, while Campbell strings out a complex performance as a cunning druggie. It's Richards, however, whose sizzle makes things boil. As the sultry, rich bitch, she's deliciously deadly.

Supporting performances are high-camp hilarious. As a sleazy, ambulance-chasing lawyer, Bill Murray is at his insincere, cerebral best, while Russell is the crunchiest snapper in this amoral swamp. Give the best parking spot at the club to Robert Wagner, who as a starchy power-lawyer does a sly number on his professional persona.

Technical contributions are fittingly slick and murky, beginning with cinematographer Jeffrey Kimball's torrid colors and fractured compositions.

WILD THINGS

Sony Releasing

Columbia Pictures, Mandalay Entertainment

Producers: Rodney Liber, Steven A. Jones

Director: John McNaughton

Screenwriter: Stephen Peters

Executive producer: Kevin Bacon

Directory of photography: Jeffrey Kimball

Executive music producer: Budd Carr

Music: George Clinton

Production designer: Edward McAvoy

Editor: Elena Maganini

Costume designer: Kimberly Tillman

Casting: Linda Lowry, John Brace

Sound mixer: Peter Devlin

Color/stereo

Cast:

Ray Duquette: Kevin Bacon

Sam Lombardo: Matt Dillon

Suzie Toller: Neve Campbell

Sandra Van Ryan: Theresa Russell

Kelly Van Ryan: Denise Richards

Gloria Perez: Daphne Rubin-Vega

Tom Baxter: Robert Wagner

Ken Bowden: Bill Murray

Ruby: Carrie Snodgress

Running time -- 113 minutes

MPAA rating: R...
  • 3/18/1998
  • The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Matt Damon
Film review: 'Good Will Hunting'
Matt Damon
"Good Will Hunting" equals good certain Oscaring.

Once again put Miramax smack dab in the midst of the best-picture race with this jarringly powerful film about a working- class kid with a genius IQ who can play stump-the-professors and win big but can't muster a passing score in the one category that counts -- his personal life.

Likely to garner critics group honors, this Gus Van Sant-directed film will score not only with the intelligentsia on an abstract as well as emotional level, but its multiple heart-wrenching and heartfelt story lines will win over mainstream audiences in the manner of "Mr. Holland's Opus".

The shortest distance between two points is not a straight line, and that's especially true for young Will Hunting (Matt Damon) in this personal saga. Geographically, Will's trek is but a short distance, from his working-class South Boston neighborhood to the patrician elitery of Cambridge and M.I.T. But emotionally, it's an infinite and unattainable distance for Will, despite the fact that he has a gift for finite math, a photographic memory and a capacity to assimilate knowledge and then to synthesize it to reach new dimensions of understanding.

Although Will can factor in math of the highest theoretical level, his own life, in mathematical terms, is governed by chaos theory. By day, he slogs away as a janitor at M.I.T.; by night, he prowls the bars with his Southie buddies, chugging beers and provoking fights.

In between these parallel and never-meeting courses, Will devises a proof of a highly complex mathematical theorem that M.I.T. poses as a challenge to the brightest graduate students. The head of the math department, Professor Lambeau (Stellan Skarsgard) is daunted by the genius of Will's solution. Even his brainiest graduate students can barely fathom its pristine brilliance.

To say the least, the M.I.T. intellectual establishment is dumbfounded when it is discovered that a mere janitor solved the "unsolvable" problem. In the meanwhile, Will hasn't given it much thought, beering and brawling with his working-class buddies.

Indeed, it's his temper, rather than his intelligence, that dominates his life and, not surprisingly, Will is arrested for assault (not his first offense). He's an unbalanced equation emotionally and jail-time looms. But Will is offered an unusual deal by the court, courtesy of Professor Lambeau's intervention. He will be granted probation if he meets two conditions: (1) he studies math at M.I.T. with Professor Lambeau and, (2) attends therapy sessions. In the annals of jurisprudence, that's not exactly cruel (cruel would be studying government at Harvard) but it's certainly highly unusual.

On a purely linear, visceral level, Ben Affleck's and Matt Damon's brainy scenario balances out as an appealing, anti-establishment, underdog movie, but "Good Will Hunting" is no mere formulaic equation of the outsider triumphing over the establishment. The narrative calculus is far more complex and in Will's personal case, he simply cannot integrate his life beyond the arithmetical predictability of hanging with his buddies.

The most remarkable and rousing aspects of this ornately differentiated story line are the varied, wisely textured subplots. Affleck and Damon have created, not calculated, a story line that encompasses and embraces a rich multitude of personal demons through the supportive characters.

Although the story clearly rotates around Will, the narrative is packed with an array of touching subplots, all catalyzed by Will's vexing complexities. Most powerful among these is the torment of Will's therapist (Robin Williams), a fellow Southie who, in his own measured way, faces debilitations as staggering as Will's.

We feel also for a silver-spoon, pre-med student (Minnie Driver) who falls in love with Will but finds his is a closed universe. There's even an "Amadeus" motif, achingly played out by Professor Lambeau who must face the immutable fact that he is, in movie terms, only a Salieri.

Add to this the boys back in the neighborhood who, beneath it all, are tormented by Will's inability to leave the roost. He is their vicarious idol and his hanging with them is a conundrum -- they enjoy it but they feel let down because he will not seek out what they can only dream.

The best thing about "Good Will Hunting" is not in its well-crafted, psychological symmetries but in the just-plain messiness of its humanity. It's rowdy, it's funny, it's heartbreaking -- it rings of life.

Director Van Sant ( "To Die For", "My Own Private Idaho") has distilled the personal stories to breath-gasping dimension and he has layered in the philosophical themes in correct perspective -- as subsets to the human stories.

The acting is brilliant overall, with special praise to Matt Damon for his ragingly tender portrayal of the boy cursed with genius.

As the physician who must first heal himself before he can heal Will, Williams is brilliant. He plumbs levels of pain and love rarely seen on screen. It's far and away the best supporting performance of the year. High grades also to Driver for her portrayal of Will's embattled girlfriend and to Affleck for his Southie characterization.

Technically, the film is well-realized, from costume designer Beatrix Pasztor's perceptive clothings to cinematographer Jean Yves Escoffier's visualizations of the huge dichotomies in the world of troubled Will Hunting.

GOOD WILL HUNTING

Miramax Films

A Lawrence Bender production

A film by Gus Van Sant

Producer: Lawrence Bender

Director: Gus Van Sant

Screenwriters: Ben Affleck, Matt Damon

Executive producers: Su Armstrong, Bob Weinstein, Harvey Weinstein, Jonathan Gordon

Co-executive producers: Kevin Smith, Scott Mosier

Co-producer: Chris Moore

Director of photography: Jean Yves Escoffier

Production designer: Melissa Stewart

Editor: Pietro Scalia

Music: Danny Elfman

Music supervisor: Jeffrey Kimball

Costume designer: Beatrix Pasztor

Casting: Billy Hopkins, Suzanne Smith, Kerry Barden

Color/stereo

Cast:

Will Hunting: Matt Damon

Sean McGuire: Robin Williams

Chuckie: Ben Affleck

Skylar: Minnie Driver

Lambeau: Stellan Skarsgard

Morgan: Casey Affleck

Billy: Cole Hauser

Running time -- 122 minutes

MPAA rating: R...
  • 12/1/1997
  • The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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