30 for 30, "Run Ricky Run": The spliff myth?

A quick review of "Run Ricky Run," the latest "30 for 30" film, coming up just as soon as I put on a wedding dress...

After last week's unsurprisingly polarizing "Silly Little Game" (which I liked even with the wacky re-creations of events), "30 for 30" is back on firmer documentary ground with "Run Ricky Run," Sean Pamphilon and Royce Toni's extremely personal portrait of Ricky Williams. Though Pamphilon's perspective was more inside than, say, Steve James's on Allen Iverson, I appreciated that this wasn't a one-hour apology for Ricky. It looked at his failings, but also at the potential causes of those failings (being molested by his father, anxiety disorders) that go far deeper than the easy media "He just likes smoking pot too much" narrative.

(On the one hand, I found it a nice touch that they kept showing "PTI" clips to see how Tony and Wilbon's take on the guy changed over the years. On the other hand, I'm angry that I was forced to watch even a few seconds of Skip Bayless, after going out of my way to avoid him for several years now.)

I watched this only a few days after a Tribeca Film Festival screening of Ice Cube's "Straight Outta L.A." (it airs May 11), and it's hard for this more low-key story to live up to seeing Al Davis's terrifying face in HD on a giant movie screen. But "Run Ricky Run" did its job in showing me a side of a story I only thought I understood.

What did everybody else think?

30 for 30, "Silly Little Game": Turning fantasy into reality

A quick review of last night's "Silly Little Game," the latest film in the "30 for 30" series, coming up just as soon as I buy you a new dress shirt...

"Silly Little Game" directors Lucas Jansen and Adam Kurland faced a tougher challenge than most of the other "30 for 30" directors, in that there's no exciting archival footage of their subject to keep things interesting between the talking heads. So they decided to do re-enactments, and then spiced those up with a healthy dose of absurdity (the interrogation of the league's first female member, or roto players following real players around the base paths). After so many more traditional documentaries in the series, the dramatization approach could have been a disaster, but it worked. Those scenes were funny, and a nice reminder of the stupid level of obsession that comes with fantasy sports. (And I say this as a guy with too many fantasy teams.)

I knew something of the origins of the game, but the full details were a lot of fun, be it the other players detailing the level of Lee Eisenberg's evil or the revelation that in those early days, fantasy baseball was so exotic that strangers actually wanted to hear about it. (Whereas today, the first rule anyone with a fantasy team learns is "no one wants to hear about your fantasy team.")

But while most of this was played for comedy, there was a definite bittersweet tinge to it all, in the way Daniel Okrent and his friends never figured out how to cash in on their huge discovery, and also in the notion that Okrent never managed to win the original league. (Since Okrent compared the box scores to the Talmud, I may as well compare him to Moses leading the Jews through the desert but never getting to enter the Promised Land.) The scene where Meatloaf expressed complete ignorance to and disinterest in the origins of fantasy spoke to the millions of non-famous fantasy players who surely feel the same way, and I'd like to think at least some of those people happened to watch "Silly Little Game" last night, or will see one of its many later airings.

What did everybody else think?

30 for 30, "No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson": No definitive answers

"30 for 30" is back on ESPN proper tonight at 8 with Steve James' "No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson." James directed "Hoop Dreams," one of the greatest documentaries ever made (about sports or otherwise), and he and Iverson grew up in the same hometown of Hampton, VA, so I had high expectations for this match of filmmaker and subject. I was not disappointed. A few brief thoughts after the jump...

As the subtitle suggests, "No Crossover" focuses on the bowling alley brawl Iverson was involved in as a 17-year-old. But in a broader sense, the film is about the divide between the black and white populations of Hampton, as seen through the lens of both the trial and James's own upbringing. Some of the film's most affecting moments involve detailing little-known pieces of Iverson's biography, but just as emotional are ones where James talks to his mother, or about his father or, in one case, engages his African-American cameraman in an impromptu dialogue on race. There are documentaries where it feels like the director has inserted himself into the story for the sake of self-promotion, but here the two stories blend together beautifully. (And the whole point of "30 for 30" has been to let the directors tell stories they have a personal stake in, whether they include themselves in the action like James and Peter Berg, or not like Dan Klores.)

For those assuming "No Crossover" will be an apology for Iverson, it is not. Nor is it a condemnation. It looks at the case, and at his life, and lets you choose your own answers about The Answer. Iverson's not always a model citizen (and the film was made before some of the latest bizarre/sad twists in his story), but James tries to place his life and behavior in a greater context, to try to find some truth not only about the bowling alley trial, but so much of AI's story. It's a wonderful film, one of the best of this terrific film series, and I highly recommend it.

Watch it tonight and feel free to discuss it here.

30 for 30, "Guru of Go": For Hank

I've been trying to write about each "30 for 30" film after they air, but with the scheduling so irregular lately, I wanted to instead remind you that the next film, "Guru of Go," airs tomorrow at 4 p.m. - and not on ESPN itself, but on ABC. (The plan is to try to give the movie bigger exposure on a day when college basketball fans are pumping themselves up for the two Final Four games on CBS.) A few thoughts on it coming up after the jump...

"Guru of Go" tells the story of coach Paul Westhead, who won an NBA title coaching the Lakers in Magic Johnson's rookie season, only to be forced out a few years later in a power struggle with Magic. The bulk of the film covers Westhead's time as coach at Loyola Marymount University, where he won a lot of games, scored a lot of points and made the college game an awful lot of fun with a breakneck run-and-gun style he called "The System," which turned out to be perfectly-suited for his top two recruits, high-volume shooter Bo Kimble, and powerful leaper Hank Gathers, who became the second player to ever lead the NCAA in both scoring and rebounding for a season. Gathers tragically died on the court from a heart condition, and the moment pictured above with Kimble will give goosebumps to anyone who remembers it (or who will see it for the first time in this film).

Where the last "30 for 30" film, "Winning Time" (as well as the next one, Steve James' "No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson," which will air while I'm on vacation, on April 13 at 8 p.m. on ESPN) was a case of a great filmmaker transcending his story, "Guru of Go" is more of a great story, told well-enough. Director Bill Couturie tries to dress things up in different ways (because Westhead's a Shakespeare nut, each segment gets its own Bard quote to introduce it), but most of the film works because of the power of what these three men did together, and what happened to Hank.

Still, it's another very engaging film in a series of them, and I can't recommend "No Crossover" highly enough when it airs on the 13th.

30 for 30, "Winning Time: Reggie Miller vs. The New York Knicks": Presence of mind

Just a reminder that, in addition to the premiere of "The Pacific" tonight at 9, ESPN is bringing back the "30 for 30" documentary series, with perhaps my favorite entry so far, Dan Klores' "Winning Time: Reggie Miller vs. the New York Knicks," which I reviewed in this column a couple of weeks ago. I'm told the version that's airing tonight is going to have a bonus scene at the end from later in the Knicks-Pacers rivalry, but either way, if you like basketball - or just really smart, funny documentary filmmaking - you'll dig this. Feel free to discuss it here after it airs tonight.

Magic vs. Bird, Reggie Miller vs. the Knicks, and HBO vs. ESPN: Sepinwall on TV

In today's column, I review the latest "30 for 30" documentary - and probably my favorite so far: Dan Klores' "Winning Time: Reggie Miller vs. the New York Knicks," and compare it to HBO's "Magic & Bird: A Courtship of Rivals," which premieres tomorrow and, while good, is very much the sort of traditional HBO thing the ESPN films are rebelling against.

I'll have a separate post to discuss "Winning Time" after it airs a week from Sunday.

Reminder: 30 for 30 is back tonight with 'The U'

Because it's been a few weeks since the last "30 for 30" documentary aired, because the latest one is airing on a different night and time (tonight at 9 on ESPN) and because it runs two hours instead of one, and because this one airs on a weekend when my time is limited, I figured I would do a quick post before it airs, rather than after. A few quick thoughts after the jump, and feel free to discuss the movie here after it airs...

Billy Corben's "The U" covers the longest period of any "30 for 30" film to date - from Howard Schnellenberger's arrival as coach of the Miami Hurricanes in 1979 to Butch Davis's hire in 1995 - and features one of the larger casts of talking heads (Schnellengerber, Jimmy Johnson, Dennis Erickson, most of the famous surviving Miami alums like Alonzo Highsmith and Michael Irvin, plus local columnists like Dan LeBatard, etc., etc.). And the story of the program's rise from afterthought to outlaw national powerhouse certainly merits the extra time(*), as the amount and degree of shenanigans the Hurricanes got into over this period means there's rarely a dull moment. As a piece of filmmaking, it's not as good as some of the earlier films, but the story itself is pretty irresistible.

(*) I'm told that, while most of the future films will stick to the one-hour format we've seen previously, some will be allowed to run two hours like this. The screening I saw a few weeks back of the next film, Dan Klores' delightful "Winning Time: Reggie Miller vs. the New York Knicks" (not airing till March) was long enough, and good enough, that I suspect it'll get the two-hour treatment as well.

Anyway, don't forget to tune in, and I'll be curious what you think.