He Got Game (1998) - Lee's basketball classic

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+ Best Huge Flop Movie of the Year + Best Sports Drama of the Year

 

Star Denzel Washington with a big afro and a praying gesture makes up most of this poster for Spike Lee's He Got Game

Jesus Shuttlesworth may be America's best high school basketball player, and as such he is heavily courted by colleges with deep pockets. Meanwhile his convict father is given a chance for freedom if he can convince his son to choose one particular college...

 

He Got Game is written and directed by Georgian master filmmaker Spike Lee (Joe's Bed-Stuy Barber Shop: We Cut Heads (1983)).

Denzel Washington (Ricochet (1991)) and young actual NBA player Ray Allen (Harvard Man (2001)) are outstanding as father and son in this film, which is first and foremost a riveting high-stakes drama, and secondly a fine basketball-saluting sports picture. Lee knows his effects, and he uses them as a master here:

Strong dramatic scenes - scored with classical music, which heightens their importance, - montages with great cultural and social insight, and a strong knack for strong images and the traps of youth. Rosario Dawson (Iron Fist (2017, TV-series)), Jim Brown (Fingers (1978)) and especially Milla Jovovich (Ultraviolet (2006)) are strong in supporting parts. Public Enemy's songs in the film are very well-made, especially the title track. He Got Game is a highly commendable film.

 

Related posts:
 
Spike Lee: The day after the day after ... the 2019 Oscars

She Hate Me (2004) or, Champion of the Lesbians 

2002 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess 
Top 10: Best crime movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
25th Hour (2002) or, Taking a Second Chance 

1998 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess 

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: 25 mil. $

Box office: 22.4 mil. $

= Huge flop (returned 0.89 times its cost)

[He Got Game premiered 25 April (New York) and runs 136 minutes. Shooting took place from July - September 1997 in North Carolina, Virginia, Chicago, Illinois, New Jersey, New York and in Los Angeles, California. The film opened #1 to a 7.6 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent another 2 weekends in the top 5 (#3-#5), grossing 21.5 mil. $ (96 % of the total gross). The film's foreign gross numbers are not made public: The film was financed by Disney, who sold off the foreign rights, and the international gross stands at a tiny 844k $, which is still credible since US sports films, basketball and black films usually underperform abroad. Roger Ebert gave the film a 3.5/4 star review, equal in rating to this one. Lee returned with John Leguizamo: Freak (1998, TV special) and theatrically with Summer of Sam (1999). Washington returned in The Siege (1998). He Got Game is certified fresh at 81 % with a 6.90/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of He Got Game?

The Dirty Dozen (1967) - Aldrich's rough WWII super-entertainment

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The poster for Robert Aldrich's The Dirty Dozen is an example of a truly exciting, greatly detailed, marvelous ditto

QUICK REVIEW:

Lee Marvin (The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)) plays the undisciplined major, who gets a tough mission during World War II: Train 12 hardened criminals to storm a Nazi stronghold and kill everyone.

- Quite naturally, it seems to me, this great premise results in a fiercely entertaining piece of war suspense here in Long Islander Robert Aldrich's (What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)) The Dirty Dozen. The screenplay, by Nunnally Johnson (The Angel Wore Red (1960)) and Lukas Heller (The Flight of the Phoenix (1965)), is an adaptation of E. M. Nathanson's (Lovers and Schemers (2003)) 1965 novel of the same name.
Dozen is a joy from start to finish for anyone who likes brawling, military-centered action and great actors. - The ensemble cast truly is the core of the film:
Besides Marvin, who is perfect, Ernest Borgnine (The Wild Bunch (1969)) is priceless as the good-hearted general; Oscar-nominated John Cassavetes (Rosemary's Baby (1968)) is good as the rebel in the pack; and Charles Bronson (Once Upon a Time in the West/C'era una Volta il West (1968)) nails it as the good soldier. - Robert Ryan (The Wild Bunch) is a find as the intractable colonel. The only one I feel a little bad for is the great Jim Brown (Mars Attacks! (1996)), who, as the only black among the dozen, as the cliché seems to stipulate, of course dies... Brown was actually made to choose between his formidable football career and acting around the time of Dozen; at 29, already NFL's all-time greatest rusher at the time, he chose acting.
John Wayne (True Grit (1969)) and Jack Palance (The Silver Chalice (1954)) were approached to star in Dozen but ultimately declined due the fact that their characters were prone to adultery and racism, respectively.
Of the actors portraying the dozen, several were real WWII veterans, including Marvin, who fought with the US Marines in the Pacific.
In the world of today, Dirty Dozen serves as the acknowledged basis of David Ayer's coming superhero mega-movie Suicide Squad (2016), - make of that what you will ...

Lee Marvin leads the 12 untraditional warriors in Robert Aldrich's The Dirty Dozen

Watch the exciting trailer for the film here

Cost: 5.4 mil. $
Box office: 45.3 mil. $
= Huge hit
[Though many critics at the time took aim at Dozen's morally dubious heroes and its violence, the film was also Oscar-nominated 4 times: Aside from Cassavetes as Best Supporting Actor, it was nominated for Editing, Sound and Sound Effects, for which it won its only statuette. The film was a huge commercial success, making 24.2 mil. $ in the US alone, (53 % of the total gross); and also a big hit in European countries like France (4.6 mil. admissions) and Sweden (0.8 mil. admissions). It was the 5th highest-grossing film of '67 and MGM's biggest hit that year.]

What do you think of The Dirty Dozen?