Now on DVD: 30 FOR 30 SEASON II/VOLUME I
ESPN’s popular sports documentary series wrapped up its latest season last month. This new boxed set collects half of their most recent offerings, fifteen films covering athletic history, personalities, and issues related to a range of sports. This post and a follow up tomorrow offer very brief thoughts on this collection.
9.79*
I previously wrote about Daniel Gordon’s exploration of Ben Johnson’s steroid use in the controversial 1988 Seoul Olympics (pictured above) out of Toronto here.
YOU DON’T KNOW BO
Mike Bonfiglio tells the story of Bo Jackson, who emerged as one of the most popular – and most marketable – athletes of the 1980s and 1990s, impressing on both the baseball diamond and the football field before a carer-ending injury. Smartly examining the legends that have been built up around Jackson, who embodied our desires to be able to do anything, and do it well, the film presents a humble, human, and incredibly relatable former superstar.
BENJI
Another tale of dreams deferred, Coodie and Chike’s contribution recounts the tragic end of Benjamin Wilson Jr, the first Chicago high school player to be ranked as the country’s top recruit, killed after an altercation just one day before his senior year season was to begin. As much as the film celebrates Wilson’s athletic prowess, it finds its strength in the impact his death had on his community, underlining the potential cut short by the violence that claimed not only his life that year, but hundreds of others.
BROKE
Billy Corben directs one of the more contemporary offerings, looking at the sad but all-too-common phenomenon of highly paid professional athletes going bankrupt. Gathering an impressive selection of players who speak with candor about the various factors that have led to their own financial troubles – youth, lack of basic familiarity with money matters, overextending resources by supporting family and friends, not planning for injuries or retirement – Corben tackles an often fascinating topic, but unfortunately allows an incessant, annoying, distracting soundtrack to undermine his content.
THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HOME
Also weakened by an annoying presence, in this case not the music but the filmmaker himself, Josh Swade and Maura Mandt’s entry follows the former, a University of Kansas alumnus and basketball “superfan,” on his personal Morgan Spurlock-like quest to raise the funds necessary to purchase basketball creator (and U of K connected) Dr James Naismith’s original rules of the game at a Sotheby’s auction in order to return it to his alma mater. Swade is more irritating than charming, and his mission often feels much ado about nothing, but the film unexpectedly works more than one might expect in a sort of root-for-the-underdog, watching-a-Kickstarter-campaign kind of way.
GHOSTS OF OLE MISS
Unfortunately, Fritz Mitchell’s confused look at segregation at the University of Mississippi and football just doesn’t work at all. The film struggles to find a way to incorporate sports in what is otherwise an exploration of civil rights era history, as James Meredith recounts his experiences as the first African American student at Ole Miss, breaking segregation under federal government protection. In the face of a racist riot that breaks out on campus in protest of the forced integration, the doc strangely decides to focus on the school’s all-white football team managing to pull together and have a winning season amidst the strife. With Meredith not even able to attend games for fear of his own safety, there’s no compelling connection, resulting in a wrong-headed non-starter of a film.
SURVIVE AND ADVANCE
Less of a documentary and more an extended reminiscence of past glory days, Jonathan Hock’s film reunites the members of the 1983 North Carolina State Wolfpack basketball team. Unless the viewer is already a college basketball fan, or a particularly fan of this team, it feels too insider to transcend its specificity, making it a miss for me.
what (not) to doc 