The Screengrab : he got game

The Screengrab Highlight Reel: July 5-11, 2008

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 21:00:00 GMT

And so ends another thrilling week at the Screengrab. It’s always hard to say goodbye, but let’s concentrate on the good times we’ve shared.

Paul Clark and Leonard Pierce divulged their favorites from the first half of 2008. Always a ray of sunshine, yours truly brought you the Unwatchables from the year so far.

Speaking of Unwatchables, Anus Magillicutty definitely qualifies. And though it’s not an official entrant, it sounds as if Three on a Meathook gets an honorable mention. But The Quick and the Undead deserved (slightly) better.

We shared two summers in one week: Summer of ’42 and Suddenly Last Summer.

We finished up our trilogy of patriotic lists with America the Dissonant: Seven Movies That Send Mixed Messages About U.S. And we asked for your help in picking the lists of the future.

We looked ahead to Tarantino’s Inglorious Bastards, remakes of Red Dawn and The Day the Earth Stood Still, Alex Cox’s proposed Repo Chick, and…Beverly Hills Chihuahua?

We listened to the He Got Game soundtrack while enjoying a big bowl of Jeff Garlin. Then we looked at pictures of Maggie Gyllenhaal in her underwear.

And we wrapped the whole thing up with our favorite Psychics. My crystal ball says: it’s Miller Time.

OST: "He Got Game"

Leonard Pierce — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 21:30:00 GMT

Although there's no reason that a bad movie can't feature a good soundtrack -- after all, there's plenty of good movies that feature rotten ones -- we've tended to focus, here in the OST feature, on movies that have both. A soundtrack, after all, is meant as complementary; it's an enhancement to a good movie, not a substitute for one. Still, every once in a while, a movie rolls around where the product on screen is pretty lousy, or at the very least forgettable, but which provides us with a soundtrack or score that will provide enjoyment years after anyone's forgotten what the movie was even about. The relatively recent Hollywood trend of propagating otherwise mediocre would-be hit movies with pop songs -- often by bands under contract with the studio's parent company -- has been particularly helpful in this regard, as it can ensure that the filmmakers will be able to recoup at least some of the losses they took from no one going to see the movie from those same people deciding to take a flyer on the soundtrack, because at least it has that one good song on it by Sevendust or whoever.

Which is not to say that Spike Lee's movie on the wicked world of college basketball, He Got Game, is a terrible movie. It's not even a terrible Spike Lee movie. It's just not a great movie. A skillful performance by Denzel Washington gets cancelled out by a pretty dismal one by real-life basketball star and non-actor Ray Allen; a skillful script about a subject of genuine interest is scuttled by one too many over-the-top scenes, and -- surprisingly, given Lee's love of basketball and the presence of genuine NBA stars in the cast -- the sports action scenes generally fall somewhat flat. However, the soundtrack definitely has emerged as a much more worthwhile endeavor than the movie. Originally conceived by Spike and Public Enemy frontman Chuck D. as a straightforward soundtrack to the film, PE's He Got Game eventually emerged as an entire and distinct album by the revolutionary rap group -- and one which came at a time when many critics had written them off as a thing of the past. Taking the thematic elements of the film (basketball, family life, big money, and the temptations of being successful and black) as jumping-off points for their usual firebrand political concerns, Chuck and his crew crunched their lyrics down over the baddest beats they'd used since Fear of a Black Planet -- more stripped down and minimalist than their old Bomb Squad production work, but perfectly suited to the material, and timely insofar as they were heavily influenced by the dense East Coast hardcore style pioneered by the Wu-Tang Clan's RZA and others. Although they'd never recapture the groundbreaking immediacy and power of It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, Public Enemy -- fronted by a then 40-year-old Chuck D who sounded as furious as ever -- proved that they were still a going concern; the Bomb Squad proved that there was more to their sound than just the busy collage-making that gained them such fame in the late 1980s; and Spike Lee proved that, even with his lesser projects, he was still capable of inspiring those who worked with him to hit new heights. Film and hip-hop have been together since the rap genre was invented, and it's often been a rocky relationship, but rarely has a hip-hop soundtrack so complimented, dominated, and eventually surpassed a movie than in He Got Game.

BEST TRACKS: The track most remembered from the He Got Game soundtrack is the title song, noteworthy for the catchy hook which straightforwardly samples the hook from Buffalo Springfield's "For What It's Worth". But in a lot of ways, it was one of the weaker tracks on the album, overly simplistic and with lyrics that didn't do a strong enough job of selling the hook as relevant to a young black audience. Far stronger, however, are many of the less celebrated tracks: "Unstoppable", which finally pairs Boogie Down Productions' KRS-One with his chief rival from the 1980s, Chuck D, and makes us wish that they'd been collaborating all along; the cutting, incisive and insightful "Politics of the Sneaker Pimps"; the perennially underrated Flavor Flav showcases (the raucous party anthem "Shake Your Booty" and the sinister, insinuating "Is Your God a Dog?"); the nasty, plodding "Super Agent", which, with its rattling percussion and taunting background vocals, wouldn't have seemed out of place on Fear of a Black Planet; and, perhaps best of all, the powerhouse "What You Need is Jesus", which starts off with a mocking Charles Barkley saying "Hallelujah, Jesus, hallelujah!" to the movie's title character and goes on to feature Chuck D kicking some of his fiercest rhymes in a decade.

Take Five: We're Playin' Basketball

Leonard Pierce — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 19:45:00 GMT

Opening in limited release this weekend, the goofily titled Gunnin' for That #1 Spot is a compelling documentary look at the annual Rucker Park basketball tournament, made up of the majority of New York's best streetball players. It may not be the biggest money game in the history of professional hoops, and it hasn't produced many NBA superstars, but its distillation of pure street ball has been hugely influential, and the style of play in both the pro and college ranks has been greatly affected by the smooth moves and trash-talking traditions that evolved in Rucker Park. Gunnin' for that #1 Spot is also attracting a great deal of attention because of who's behind it: Oscilloscope Pictures is a new production house headed by the film's director, Adam Yauch, better known as MCA of the Beastie Boys. Having polished his craft directing videos for his crew, he's now taking his game to the next level, and has made sure that the banging soundtrack matches the smooth hoops action on screen. The movie's release, in seven cities (all of which have NBA franchises), is being timed to coincide with the NBA draft; if all that isn't enough for your hoops-hungry self, try these five examples of big-screen action from the world's most cinematic sport.

HOOSIERS (1986)

Generally acknowledged as the greatest basketball film of all time, Hoosiers -- directed by the forgotten David Anspaugh and written by sports-triumph specialist Angelo Pizzo -- is based on the true story of the Milan Indians, an unlikely small-town outfit who went on to win the 1954 Indiana State Championships against some of the powerhouse teams in that basketball-crazy state. Unabashedly sentimental and unrepentently traditional, Hoosiers is nonetheless is a winner, illustrating that you can avoid criticism for making a straightforward sports film by simply getting it right at every turn. From the terrific period details and the astonishing degree of verisimilitude to the terrifically staged sports action scenes, Hoosiers never makes a wrong turn, and is held together from the first frame to the last by a tremendous performance by Gene Hackman as the gruff coach, Norman Dale.

HOOP DREAMS (1994)

Even if it hadn't turned into one of the most successful documentaries of the modern era, Hoop Dreams -- the story of two struggling African-American teens with visions of making it to the National Basketball Association in their heads -- would have been noteworthy just on its own merits. It's an assured, moving piece of filmmaking, an exemplary specimen of what its director likes to term the "longitudinal documentary", a film which follows its subjects over a long period of time with no fixed idea of what the outcome will be or what story specifically they're eventually going to tell. But beyond that, it's also important for what it accomplished: it helped usher in a golden age of documentary filmmaking; it launched director Steve James' productive career, and it almost single-handedly kick-started a national conversation of the perils of young black men investing all their dreams of success in the idea of playing in the NBA.

REBOUND: THE LEGEND OF EARL "THE GOAT" MANIGAULT (1996)

Originally made for HBO, Rebound: The Legend of Earl "The Goat" Manigault proved so popular that it was almost immediately released to home video. It tells the story of Earl Manigault, an original superstar of the Rucker Park scene (and student of Holcombe Rucker himself) who many say is the greatest street basketball player of all time. He's also one of the great basketball tragedies of all time, as his natural talent, determination, and constant self-improvement never led to a professional career thanks to years of drug addiction. Rebound is hindered by its below-average action sequences (especially unforgivable when placed in the context of the pure poetry of street ball), but it's bouyed to the rim by surprisingly competent di rection from actor Eriq LaSalle, and a handful of powerhouse performances from the cast, including a fiery Don Cheadler in the lead role, terrific supporting turns by James Earl Jones, Forest Whitaker, Glenn Turman and Ronny Cox.

HE GOT GAME (1998)

Spike Lee has always been obsessed with basketball since his directorial debut, and has even managed to noisily insert himself -- to the joy of everyone except fans of his beloved New York Knicks -- in actual NBA games. Curious, then, that his first movie totally devoted to basketball would receive such a cool reception. In fact, He Got Game is one of his finest and most underrated movies, and in some ways, it serves as a dramatic adaptation of the issues and emotions that ran through Hoop Dreams. If real-life NBA star Ray Allen is less than convincing in his first acting role, a smoldering, exceptionally intense Denzel Washington more than makes up for it in his role as the father of a widely feted college basketball star who looks to use his son's imminent fame as a big-time hoops player to secure his own legal and financial security. It's also noteworthy for the stylish action sequences, assured direction, and a minor comeback by Public Enemy, who put together the must-have soundtrack.

QUANTUM HOOPS (2007)

Any successful athlete will tell you that accomplishment is a matter of perspective. For someone at the top of his game, the goal is constant self-improvement, to go from good to great; for someone in the middle of the pack, the goal is to win that elusive championship; and for someone at the very bottom, even one victory can be enough. Such is the case with the hapless Cal Tech basketball team. Despite the school's reputation as producing some of the greatest scientists, computer programmers, and academics of our age, its athletic program is substantially less respectable; when Rick Greenwald filmed this alternately hilarious and moving documentary about the team, they were on a losing streak that had lasted over twenty years without a single win and seen the team lose by an average of 60 points per game as recently as 2004. In the 2006 season, however, Greenwald found a team of earnest but realistic players -- many of whom are likely to win Nobel Prizes in their respective fields someday -- who were thrilled at the prospect not of winning an NCAA title, but of maybe, possibly, walking off the court one time as the winners of a single game. A wonderful inversion of the typical sports-team film.

The Twelve Greatest Opening Credits in Movie History, Part 2

Scott Von Doviak — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 22:00:00 GMT

THE HAWKS AND THE SPARROWS (1966)

The great Ennio Morricone has contributed to some of the greatest opening credit sequences of all time, but the opening to Pier Paolo Pasolini’s 1966 masterpiece The Hawks and the Sparrows holds a special place in the hearts of anyone who has seen and heard it. Here, in tune with Pasolini’s conception of the film as “a comic opera,” the credits are actually sung, in a boisterous vocal performance (courtesy of the great Domenico Modugno) that ranges from cackling laughter to pronounced wail to gentle whisper. Reminiscent of both the rhythmic Spaghetti Western scores Morricone was becoming famous for and the more wacked-out electronic experimentation he was beginning to dabble in, it also displays a weirdo playfulness that is pure Pasolini. Indeed, try to imagine what’s going through the head of this fellow, as he performs this strangest of compositions in concert with Morricone, decades later.

RAGING BULL (1980)

With Martin Scorsese directing and Michael Chapman doing the cinematography, it’s no surprise that the Jake LaMotta biopic has opening credits that are a treat for the eyes (and they’re tremendously aided by the simple choice of making the title of the film show up in red against the black and white of the rest of the sequence, another little touch that makes the whole so incredibly memorable). The ears are also given their due, with the selection of the intermezzo from Pietro Mascagani’s Cavalleria Rusticana providing a mournful, rising sound against which the slow-motion camerawork and the silently exploding flash bulbs play like a dream. But the truly astonishing thing about the opening credit sequence of Raging Bull is how perfectly and precisely it echoes the thematic content of the film: the ring seems impossibly huge, almost as if it’s an open field, but to Jake LaMotta – a snarling, raging animal even before the fight starts, bounding about and throwing phantom punches, champing at the bit for the violence to start – it’s a cage that stifles him, that can barely contain him. Fighting is as close as he gets to Heaven, yet smoke encircles the arena and transforms it into Hell; and while he is at his greatest, his most legendary, in the ring, he seems somehow tiny against its permanence, and he grows as he dances, faceless, towards the camera, only to shrink again into anonymity and nothingness as he once again drifts away. It’s as if the entire film and everything it has to say is contained in these two and a half minutes.

DO THE RIGHT THING (1989)

Even the stinkiest of Spike Lee joints generally boast memorable opening credits; think of the kids playing street games like hopscotch and double-dutch in the otherwise problematic Crooklyn, or the unlikely slice of Americana – a lyrical slo-mo basketball montage scored to Aaron Copland’s “John Henry” – that opens He Got Game. So it’s no surprise that Lee’s finest film features one of the most vivid, arresting main title sequences of the past 20 years. Lee obviously knew he had created an incendiary piece of work, and determined to grab the audience by the throat right from the beginning as the pulsating, near-apocalyptic beat of Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power” kicks in on the soundtrack, accompanied by a take-no-prisoners one-woman dance-off. Alternately clad in colorful, curve-hugging tights and boxing apparel, Rosie Perez embodies the tale of tensions boiling over on a hot summer day with her aggressive, near-violent gyrations. This was Perez’s first screen appearance; it’s hard to imagine a more mesmerizing introduction.

SE7EN (1995)

It’s hard to believe how long ago Se7en was. It was not only pre-Brangelina, it was pre-Brad&Jen – it was, in fact, circa Brad and Gwyneth. It was before the gruesome goresploitation of all the Saw flicks and before the mind-f@#$ing of Memento. And the opening credits alerted you right away: you were watching something different. Someone was going to great detail to set a tone, and the tone made you uneasy. The jittery stop-motion, the yellowed pages, hand-scratched letters, red darkroom light, and the Nine Inch Nails “Closer to God” remix, it was all indicative of some serious sociopathology. Like the Tom Waits song, “What’s he doing in there?”, you were privy to someone obsessively doing something. And you just knew all that snipping, scrawling photo-developing, photocopying, and bandaged-fingers hand-sewing would amount to no good. Se7en’s opening credits not only caught you up in the horror of the film before the film started, it also launched director Kyle Cooper’s career. It set the bar pretty high for all the horror flick opening credits that came later. For all we know, it may even be responsible for launching a different creepy trend: the scrap-booking craze.

LOST HIGHWAY (1997)

A great title sequence does not guarantee a great movie, of course; sometimes the opening credits promise more than the filmmaker is able to deliver. The hypnotic opening of David Lynch’s Lost Highway is a prime example. Designed by Jay Johnson, the sequence is deceptively simple: a driver’s seat point-of-view of an endless road stretching out ahead into pitch blackness. Our progress is swift, but unsteady – we’re weaving all over the broken yellow line in the middle as credits swoop out of darkness ahead, pause briefly, then shatter against the windshield. David Bowie is no comfort on the radio, singing “I’m Deranged.” Wherever we’re going, something terrible is going to happen when we get there. Well, the movie that follows isn’t terrible; it has its moments, although on the whole it’s ponderous and half-baked, nowhere near the dangerous thrill ride promised by the opening. With its themes of identity confusion, it’s almost a rough draft of the much more successful Mulholland Drive; you almost wish Lynch could keep the title and the credits and take another crack at the rest of it.

PANIC ROOM (2002)

David Fincher, one of the most visually inventive directors working today, usually pulls out the stops when creating his title sequences (see Se7en, elsewhere on this list, as well as Fight Club and Zodiac). Panic Room, though a neat little thriller, isn’t his finest film, but it’s another fantastic accomplishment in terms of setting the table for what’s to come. Its very simple setup belies how incredibly effective it is: we see a number of exterior shots of Manhattan, as the names of the cast and crew appear in stylized photography throughout the sequence. But this bare-bones description in no way communicates the unsettling nature of the actual credits: the names appear as if they were floating in mid-air, part of the physical landscape of New York, carved into nothingness by the hand of God himself like the writing on the walls at Nebuchadnezzar’s palace as a quietly ominous score by the usually overwrought Howard Shore plays on the soundtrack. There’s a disturbing air to the entire sequence, even though nothing menacing actually happens (other than an almost subliminal glimpse of the film’s tagline – “FACE YOUR FEARS” – that appears on a Telex screen). A collaboration between Fincher, design company Picture Mill and special effects outfit Computer Café, the credits took almost a full year to finish, and the fruits of their labors are extremely rewarding, full of subtle menace and nameless dread.

- Bilge Ebiri, Leonard Pierce, Scott Von Doviak, Pazit Cahlon

Read Part 1 of this feature