Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.


Coach Carter had a lot of moments where it was very clearly an MTV movie. It's hard to explain - I think it just tried to hard to be stylish. The trouble with this is when it did that it felt more like a movie trying to be stylish then a movie about it's subject. It felt like it was trying to impress 14-22 year olds and give them something to remark about when they were walking out of the theater. This pulled me out of the movie a bit, reminded me that I was watching a movie, reminded me that these characters aren't real.

At the end of the day the whole thing is a formula sports movie. But it's really close to breaking out of the formula. It's got some reality and depth mixed in. It's not quite the break-out-of-genre that Friday Night Lights was, but it's not too far off. The key place it falls short is its MTV-ness. It can't be a hard edge movie about inner-city basketball kids and still appeal to suburban 16 year olds in the way this movie attempts to do - you gotta pick one.

There's nothing wrong with playing it safe, it's just a less interesting movie.

Side note about that line I quoted about: In the movie it's very clear it's a quotation, there's no way that character says this stuff. Sure enough, it is, but they don't really reference it or speak to it. The whole think felt totally out of place, but since it was something Nelson Mandela said it makes sense why it was there in the context of the movie. You can read the full quote here.


Spoiler Warning

One of the things I like about this movie is that it doesn't follow the cliche all the way. I think it's a great side effect of basing these sports movies on real life event (Friday Night Lights was the same deal.) You have the rag tag team, that does amazingly well, and gets all the way to the big game - but then they lose. It takes a good deal of courage to go against the strong tradition of teams winning it all.

Also interesting: I saw this with my friend Kai, who had a great observation. Both of us believe that there is not one missed shot shown in this entire movie. Not one, every time they shoot the ball (at least in a game) they make it. Every great defensive play isn't a rebound from a missed shot, it's a steal.

I am a leaf on the wind
Watch how I soar

Spoiler Safe Version

I watched Serenity this weekend. This is a space opera/western that is a continuation of a short lived TV series called Firefly (I wrote about Firefly previously.) This was an odd movie. I really liked it, but it just felt a little off. I have a few theories for why this is.

1. This is essentially the second season of the TV show compressed into movie format. They do the same kinds of exposition you'd do for a second season TV show to allow people who didn't watch the first season to pickup on what's going on, but only people who saw the first season are really connected to the whole thing.

2. Joss Whedon is still writing like he does for TV. The movie was more dense then a TV show in plot - but not in character development. Things just have to happen faster in a movie then they do in TV - and his style for this movie really shows the TV roots.

Eventually I found a good point of reference. This is very much like the Star Trek movies. It does work on it's own, but hard to recommend to people who have no previous connection with the show or characters - since it works so much better if that's there. I saw it with some friends who had never seen the series, and they had a great time, but they're also the people who are going to like a space opera/western movie - so not the best sample set.

If you like these space adventure kind of movies go watch it. Then go find the Firefly DVD's and watch those. The whole world is consistent across the two, but there are big reveals in the movie that will make the TV episodes less mysterious. Overall I think the whole thing works better in TV form - and hope that when we see the season 3 plot arcs it's on the small screen instead of the big screen (or perhaps a Sci-Fi miniseries instead of a full TV season?)

I'll geek out with a spoiler ladden version soon enough.

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