Last week I got a taste of Hollywood when I interviewed veteran actor Craig T. Nelson. Best known for his role as college football coach Hayden Fox on the 1990s ABC sitcom "Coach," Nelson is back in the TV spotlight, playing family patriarch Zeek Braverman on the NBC Tuesday night drama "Parenthood." And his latest film, "The Company Men," opens on Friday.
In the movie, Nelson plays the CEO of a company battered by the nation's economic woes. The film chronicles the travails of three of the firm's employees - played by Oscar winners Ben Affleck, Chris Cooper and Tommy Lee Jones - after they become victims of corporate downsizing.
I got in touch with Nelson as part of an upcoming golf article I'm working on - he's an avid 7-handicapper - and he offered insight on his current projects during our phone interview. His comments appear in an article I wrote for the TV, Arts & Entertainment section of the Dec. 5 New Hampshire Sunday News.
According to a news release that graced my in-box yesterday, a sports management professor at Florida's Lynn University is offering a mini-term seminar this month entitled "Caddyshack 101: Lessons from the Coolest Sports Movie Ever Made."
The seminar uses the classic golf film as a springboard for daily discussion of issues such as the dangers of social-class stereotyping, the growth of American sports gambling, the advancement of catchphrases in language, and the importance of civility and etiquette, the release said. The class also deals with animal rights (think Carl Spackler and the pesky gopher) and golf-course based environmental conservation.
"We use this hilarious, crude, wonderful film as a way to get into some very serious discussions," Ted Curtis, an assistant professor of sports management and the apparent driving force behind the course, says in the release.
Kudos to Curtis for bringing a dorm-room favorite to the classroom. I suppose if I were a parent paying tuition I might question my son or daughter enrolling in a class that uses the zany adventures of Spackler, Judge Smails and Caddyshack's other nincompoops as fodder for academic discourse. Still, you've gotta give Curtis "a little somethin' for the effort," as Spackler would say.
My wife and I snuck out last night to see "Invictus," the new Clint Eastwood-directed film about Nelson Mandela, South African rugby and the healing power of sport. Since seeing the previews, I had been eagerly anticipating this movie, which stars Morgan Freeman as Mandela and Matt Damon as Francois Pienaar, captain of the South African Springboks rugby squad.
The film chronicles South African president Mandela's mission to spur the Springboks to victory in the 1995 Rugby World Cup as a way to help rebuild a nation fractured by decades of apartheid. Although the movie is entertaining, with Freeman and Damon turning in solid performances, I left the theatre mildly disappointed.
At the outset, Eastwood portrays the Springboks as a ragtag bunch of losers who stand little chance of contending for a world rugby title despite being revered by South Africa's white minority. Enter Mandela, the newly elected black president who served 27 years in the Robben Island prison under the apartheid regime. "Madiba," as his intimates call him, envisions a Springbok World Cup victory on South African soil uniting the country's races.
Mandela summons Pienaar to his office for a pep talk and instructs the mostly white team to conduct rugby clinics for black children in South Africa's forlorn townships. In the meantime, the Springboks mysteriously coalesce into winners and earn their way to the World Cup final against the fearsome All Blacks of New Zealand.
Before the big match, Mandela arrives at Springbok practice via chopper to wish the team luck and hands Pienaar a handwritten copy of "Invictus," the William Ernest Henley poem whose well-known last lines read: "I am the master of my fate/I am the captain of my soul." Mandela, the viewer has learned, looked to the poem for spiritual sustenance during his long incarceration. The Springboks also visit Robben Island before the final; inside Mandela's tiny cell, Eastwood portrays Pienaar recognizing the greater implications of the Springboks' on-field quest.
Predictably, the Springboks prevail, with their captain issuing the requisite "This is our destiny!" huddle speech. Although it's an inspiring true story based on John Carlin's 2008 book "Playing the Enemy," the film version does little to delve beneath the surface of the tale. I'd like to have seen more about the team's development from doormats to champions, and I had trouble suspending my disbelief that Mandela would be so consumed with rugby. And while Pienaar is a likable character, I wish Eastwood would have explored him more deeply. I'd also have appreciated a greater acknowledgement that, despite its power to inspire, sport itself cannot solve deep social divides.
Although it fell somewhat short of my expectations, "Invictus" is still worth seeing. Judging from its performance at the box office - it raked in $4.2 million nationwide last weekend, almost $6 million less than "The Blind Side," another inspirational sports drama - it may not be in theatres much longer, so if you prefer the big screen to home viewing I'd get out and see it soon.
I overhead someone talking last week about this animated short, which illustrates one of sport's most mind-boggling accomplishments: Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Dock Ellis throwing a no-hitter while on LSD in 1970.
As a fan of 1970s baseball, I had to check it out. Ellis, then 25, no-hit the San Diego Padres at San Diego's Jack Murphy Stadium on June 12. It was hardly a masterpiece, as Ellis walked eight batters, hit one with a pitch and loaded the bases twice. Years later, he claimed to have twirled the no-no while tripping. Before his death from liver disease last December at 63, Ellis recounted the details in an interview, which serves as the soundtrack to animator James Blagden's video.
Ellis was certainly one of baseball's more colorful characters. He sported a flashy wardrobe and wore hair curlers on the field. Once, he pledged he would drill every batter in the Cincinnati Reds' lineup with a pitch and nearly succeeded (he plunked Pete Rose, Joe Morgan and Dan Driessen, walked Tony Perez and buzzed two pitches past Johnny Bench's head before being lifted).
Despite his talent - Ellis went 19-9 for Pittsburgh's world champion 1971 squad and compiled a career record of 138-119 - Ellis was dogged by a fear of failure that led him to drugs. To his credit, he cleaned up after retiring in 1979 and eventually became a drug counselor.
