Documentary Films and Programs

Subterms

    More stories

    • 63 Shares109 Views

      in Tennis

      John McEnroe Gets His Revenge

      by

      John McEnroe was sitting on a couch 43 stories above Manhattan, his gray curls and sleepy, crinkled eyes betraying every one of his 63 years, some of them hard ones, regaling an awe-struck podcaster with stories of his glory years. His rivalry with Bjorn Borg, his battles with chair umpires and his own demons.The awe-struck podcaster was Kevin Garnett, the N.B.A. champion, Olympic gold medalist and 15-time N.B.A. All-Star who is 17 years younger than McEnroe. Garnett was 8 years old when McEnroe won his last Grand Slam singles title in 1984.Somehow, that does not matter, not even a little bit.Thirty years after McEnroe played his last match at the U.S. Open, the irascible kid from Queens, the notorious hothead who griped and cussed and kicked his way across the hallowed grass of Wimbledon and every other tennis court, possesses a star power that has barely faded. It is especially bright during the U.S. Open. He is the leading voice of the tournament on ESPN, the subject of a new documentary, even the narrator and superego of a lovesick and unathletic teenage Indian American girl with a hot temper on Mindy Kaling’s comedy “Never Have I Ever.”The staying power is sweet revenge for the man whom much of tennis officialdom once viewed as toxic to their genteel game.“Maybe I wasn’t so bad after all,” McEnroe said during a recent interview at the end of a day that began with an early-morning appearance on “CBS Mornings” and then was jam-packed with chats with journalists, including from N.P.R.’s “Fresh Air.” “These guys who were trying to run me out of the game, maybe they should have been trying to help me instead of hanging me out to dry back in the ’80s.”‘The Weight of the Name’McEnroe won seven Grand Slam singles titles, plenty no doubt, but not as many as Jimmy Connors or Andre Agassi or Ivan Lendl, who each won eight, to say nothing of Borg’s 11, Pete Sampras’s 14 or Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic, who have tripled his tally.Yet, McEnroe still looms over his contemporaries, as well as Sampras, who dominated the era just after McEnroe’s. When he walks the grounds of the U.S.T.A. Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, he is still the quarterback of the varsity football team in the high school cafeteria.“Johnny Mac!” fans yell to him as he passes.If they can get a word with him, they often tell him how they liked how he thumbed his nose at authority, in a way that perhaps they have never felt empowered to.Word got back to Nadal last week that McEnroe was griping on television that the Spanish champion was violating the time limit between serves. “I’m going to have a chat with him,” Nadal said with a wry smile.He has written two memoirs and been the subject of multiple books. There was a feature film in 2017 about his rivalry with Borg, the Swedish great he vanquished into retirement. The next year came a documentary about him focusing on his brush with perfection in 1984. He has hosted a game show.John McEnroe and Coco Gauff during Tennis Plays for Peace, an exhibition to benefit Ukraine.Jamie Squire/Getty ImagesWhen the United States Tennis Association wanted to hold an exhibition to raise money for relief efforts in Ukraine, McEnroe was among its first calls. In that exhibition he played doubles with Nadal, Coco Gauff and Iga Swiatek. All are younger than his oldest child. He’d love a chance to coach Denis Shapovalov of Canada, the flashy and talented, but temperamental, lefty — sound familiar? — but has yet to get the call.Showtime released the latest documentary last week. The 100-minute film — McEnroe’s longtime agent, Gary Swain, is among the executive producers — is an exploration of his tortured psyche and the seemingly unfulfilled promise of someone who was, for a brief few years a long time ago, both the greatest player who ever lived and perhaps the most miserable.“The weight of the name ‘McEnroe,’ it’s heavy all across the globe,” said Barney Douglas, who directed the latest documentary.But why?McEnroe’s younger brother, Patrick, who also played professional tennis and now commentates (and squabbles) with him on ESPN, thinks he knows the main reason.“He’s authentic,” Patrick McEnroe said.Mellowing, Just a Little, With AgeDuring his playing days, John McEnroe may have been a bit too authentic. Tennis officials and some of their comrades in the news media viewed McEnroe as a menace to the sport. They fined and penalized him and threatened him with suspensions. They derided his penchants for hopping on concert stages to jam with rock stars and indulging in their late-night habits. The British press and the paparazzi hounded him so intensely, especially after his marriage to the actress Tatum O’Neal, that he skipped Wimbledon at the height of his career.As it turned out, McEnroe was already where tennis was headed long before it arrived, in good ways and bad.His game, which was all serve-and-volley all the time, may be completely out of step with nearly every top pro these days. But McEnroe possessed in spades something that continues to separate the best from the merely great — that magical and unteachable touch and creativity that allow a player to blast one shot and feather the next one. He could hit an opponent off the court on one point, then practically catch a 100-mile-per-hour forehand rocket on his racket on the next one.John McEnroe won the 1981 U.S. Open after defeating his rival Bjorn Borg in the final. He finished his career with seven Grand Slam singles titles.Photo by Professional Sport/Popperfoto via Getty ImagesHe also brought to the court the petulance and nastiness, the relentless attacks on chair umpires and equipment that have become so integral to the modern game, whether it was Serena Williams threatening to shove a ball down a linesman’s throat during her 2009 U.S. Open semifinal against Kim Clijsters or Nick Kyrgios’s tireless tirades at Wimbledon this year.The tennis gods blessed him with limitless talent. But they also saddled him with a mind prone to the anguish of tennis in a way that many top professionals now openly discuss. There have been therapists who have tried to help McEnroe explore that struggle, sometimes by his own choosing, sometimes at the direction of the legal system, with varying degrees of success, he said.And it all played out when television cameras first began treating tennis players like the reality television stars they are today. (Stay tuned for Netflix’s tennis version of “Drive to Survive,” the Formula 1 series, that is now in production.) That made McEnroe that rare character remembered, even lionized, not just for how he won but also for how he stumbled and fell short, a narrative of triumph and also a cautionary tale.“I was a little shy, and it was all a little overwhelming, and then somehow it all started to become magical,” McEnroe said of his journey.Like so many other modern stars of the game, though, he struggled to enjoy it.The tennis commentator Mary Carillo, a fellow New York native and his mixed doubles partner for their win at the French Open in 1977, recalled an 18-year-old McEnroe losing his temper with a waiter at a Paris cafe that spring. McEnroe spent several minutes yelling, “omelet du fromage,” which was the only French he spoke, at a waiter who ignored him. The waiter finally wandered over and quietly, but dismissively, told McEnroe, “The omelet is closed.”“To this day, when we’re arguing about something and I’m done with it, I just say, ‘The omelet is closed,’” Carillo said.John McEnroe argues with the chair umpire during Wimbledon in 1981.Bettmann / ContributorLooking back, McEnroe acknowledges a lot of what he sees in himself still angers him. Long before Djokovic and Kyrgios and plenty of others started using the coaches and family members in the player boxes to vent their frustrations, McEnroe directed an expletive at his father as he clapped for him during a match at Wimbledon.McEnroe later told him he was yelling at someone else in the crowd. His father accepted the explanation, though McEnroe is pretty sure his father knew he was lying.“It gave us both plausible deniability,” he said.Even his mother landed in the line of fire sometimes. He was still living at home when he won his first U.S. Open, sleeping in his childhood bedroom each night, eating his mother’s food, which he would impolitely order her to provide at a specific time before his matches.Fed up with his behavior, she asked him why he couldn’t behave more like his friend Peter Rennert, the tour pro who was his constant sidekick.“That made me feel like I was an inch tall,” McEnroe said.Age has mellowed him, though not entirely. His second marriage, 25 years and counting, to Patty Smyth, the lead singer of the rock band Scandal (“I am the warrior. …”), and six children have given him some perspective, as well as a few talking-tos when he gets out of line.But when he hears people saying his serve-and-volley game would not have a prayer against the likes of Djokovic, Nadal and Roger Federer, his voice rises to resemble that unmistakable ranting of the man who made chair umpires’ lives deeply unpleasant.Dial back time to the peak of his powers, put him on a grass court at maximum intensity, and McEnroe is comfortable in his belief that every so often he could have beaten the modern greats.“I would have gotten under the skin and made them think,” he said. “Would not have had a winning record, but I would have gotten to them a few times.”Sounds plausible. In his own way, McEnroe has gotten to all of us — and still does. More

    • 150 Shares189 Views

      in Basket

      A Paean to the Gods (and Shammgods) of New York City Hoops

      by

      Some of the most memorable characters in New York basketball history gathered in Manhattan for a screening of the documentary film “NYC Point Gods,” a tribute to — well, to them.There is little left that defines New York City basketball, save for the Knicks’ eternal search for an impactful lead guard. It’s a search that has always been inflamed, exacerbated and magnified by the abundance of point guards bred by the city.There was the incandescent Pearl Washington, who rode a motorcycle and sometimes wore a fur to playground games, and whose tremendous dribbling for Syracuse destroyed Georgetown’s dominant full-court press in the Big East tournament.And God Shammgod, the worshiped Harlem guard who played a game within the game by offering the ball up to defenders with his right hand and then ripping it back with his left. The move, still replicated in N.B.A. games by Russell Westbrook and others, is known as the Shammgod.From them and others, New York point guards learned that moxie, flair and unimpeachable handles were just as important as the ability to initiate an offense. But the era that established the archetype of the New York point guard — pillared in the 1970s and 80s by Catholic schools that have since closed for lack of funding and playground courts that saw their rims removed during the Covid-19 pandemic — is gone.For a rare moment on Wednesday night, it was reanimated at a screening of “NYC Point Gods,” a feature-length Showtime documentary that pays homage to the guards who gave the city its rep. The film was produced by Kevin Durant and his business partner and agent, Rich Kleiman. Durant, a New York transplant, wore Dior as he doled out hugs to the documentary’s subjects. Kleiman, a native, gleamed in gold aviator glasses as he introduced the film to shouts from the audience that referred to him as Ace, as in Rothstein, the protagonist of the movie “Casino.”Durant and God Shammgod greet each other at the premiere.Theo Wargo/Getty ImagesThe venue was Manhattan West Plaza, a cathedral to the power of real estate development ordained into usefulness by a New York tradition: hoopers paying homage to hoopers.That term is an honorific that disregards professional status and statistics and can be conferred only by another hooper. It doesn’t matter if you had a 20-year N.B.A. career or if your best performances are now remembered only by basketball griots. There’s a reverence among hoopers. Did you make those who watched you play love the game as you did? Did you give the crowd an “I was there when” story?Outside the Midnight Theatre, camera flashes greeted Rafer Alston and Kenny Anderson, who walked the red carpet with his mom. Sabrina Ionescu, of the W.N.B.A.’s Liberty, sidled up for hugs with Nancy Lieberman and Niesha Butler. Jayson Tatum, of the Boston Celtics, deferentially cupped hands with Anderson as Paul Pierce spelled his name for a puzzled list-holding publicist.Once the film rolled, though, the guards’ trademark toughness washed away as they listened to each other’s stories. “It was very emotional, not just for myself, but, you know, I lived and witnessed those stories of the other guys and girls also,” said Mark Jackson, a former Knicks point guard who starred at St. John’s. Seated alongside his four children, he dabbed at his eyes as he heard Kenny Smith, a Queens-born retired N.B.A. champion, describe how Jackson’s smarts led him to a nearly 17-year pro career.Mark Jackson with his children.Amanda Westcott/ShowtimeAt its heart, “Point Gods” is the hoopers’ oral history of how the city created a lineage at the position. Shammgod developed his dribble because his gym teacher, Tiny Archibald, told him it would make him perpetually valuable to any team. Only by watching a V.H.S. mixtape compilation of point guard highlights called “Below the Rim” did he learn of Archibald’s previous work.That revelation drew a crack of laughter inside the screening, where, earlier, attendees jostled over seats and settled in with the shoulder-to-shoulder intimacy of the city’s bandbox parks. Dao-Yi Chow, a lauded fashion designer, sat near a far wall wearing Jackson’s Knicks jersey. Clark Kent, whose real name is Rodolfo Franklin and who goes by the Rucker Park-ian nickname “God’s Favorite DJ,” held down a back-row seat. Kent produced a chunk of Jay-Z’s debut “Reasonable Doubt,” which dropped in 1996, the year Jeff Van Gundy took over the Knicks.For his part, Jay-Z had welcomed Shammgod on a nearby rooftop patio before the screening. The rapper and mogul was a mainstay of Rucker Park’s Entertainer’s Basketball Classic in the early aughts, and his attempt to woo Kareem Reid from a rival’s team with a bag of cash is told by that rival, the rapper Fat Joe. The exact sum, rumored to be in the thousands, is bleeped out in the retelling as Joe recounts the Mafioso-style meeting he had with Reid to convince him not to jump ship. Reid, who had a cup of coffee with the N.B.A.’s Hornets in 2003, stayed.When the film showed LeBron James, Beyoncé and N.B.A. Commissioner David Stern (wearing Joe’s platinum and diamond chain) making summer pilgrimages to the park, a woman seated four rows from the screen yelped, “I was there,” “I was there,” “There too,” both tallying her attendance and bringing Harlem into the room.In another scene, the rapper Cam’ron — a Harlem native who played on several high school travel teams alongside some of the documentary’s subjects — explained that oohs and ahhs from the crowd were worth “five or six points” to a New York point guard.Cut to Anderson in a 1991 A.C.C. game. He’d been a high school legend at Archbishop Molloy in Queens, and New Yorkers who followed his career to Georgia Tech couldn’t wait to see him mix up Duke’s Bobby Hurley, who was notorious for his lax defense. The point guard cast hypes up what’s about to come, and Smith urges the director to pull the game footage up so he can narrate a grainy ESPN clip of the one-on-one clash.Kenny Anderson on the red carpet.Amanda Westcott/ShowtimeAnderson meets Hurley at the elbow, then takes his dribble behind his back and between his legs before gliding past a dazed Hurley for a floating layup. Unnoted was the fact that Duke won the game.Small matter. When it happened, only Dickie V’s hyperventilation on ESPN marked the moment as something special. “NYC Point Gods,” though, layered in the soundtrack of the hoopers who have told and retold the story as one of many chapters in their aggrandizing mythology.On film, though, Shammgod is awed. Stephon Marbury, who sported Anderson’s center-parted haircut in high school and followed him to Georgia Tech, leans into the retelling. The unscripted, ephemeral whoops from inside the screening, from N.B.A. stars and high school coaches and their playground peers, fell anew upon Anderson in the theater’s dark. More

    • 138 Shares199 Views

      in Basket

      Naomi Osaka Starts a Media Company, With Help From LeBron James

      by

      The tennis star, who has struggled on the court of late, is behind an entertainment company called Hana Kuma in partnership with Mr. James’s fast-growing SpringHill.She is a four-time Grand Slam singles champion who ranks as the world’s highest-paid female athlete, having earned $57 million in 2021, mostly from sponsorships. Walmart recently began to stock products from her skin care company, Kinlò, in nearly 3,000 locations. Last month, she started a sports representation agency.And now Naomi Osaka is pushing into Hollywood — with an assist from LeBron James.Ms. Osaka, 24, has started a media company called Hana Kuma in partnership with SpringHill, a fast-growing entertainment, marketing and products company co-founded by Mr. James. Ms. Osaka said in a brief Zoom interview that her ambitions for Hana Kuma, which stands for “flower bear” in Japanese, include scripted and unscripted television series, documentaries, anime and branded content, which is entertainment programming that has embedded or integrated advertising.“I honestly can’t say if I’ll personally be in anything right now,” Ms. Osaka said. “What excites me is being able to inspire people and tell new stories, particularly ones that I would have wanted to see when I was a kid. I always wanted to kind of see someone like me.” Ms. Osaka is of Japanese and Haitian ancestry.Fans should expect Ms. Osaka’s advocacy to underpin at least some of Hana Kuma’s offerings, most of which are still in development. Ms. Osaka has been outspoken on topics that many elite sports stars try to avoid. She was an early supporter of the Black Lives Matter movement. Last year, she started a global discussion about mental health in sports when she withdrew from the French Open, citing a need to make her own well-being a priority. She also disclosed past struggles with depression and anxiety.Ms. Osaka’s candor has resonated with an audience far beyond sports — young people in particular — making her a sponsorship dream even though she has recently struggled on the tennis court. (She lost in the first round of the French Open last month. She said in a social media post on Saturday that she would not play at Wimbledon this summer because of an Achilles’ injury.)One project in development involves cooking and the Haitian community. “I watch a lot of food-related shows, cooking competitions, because I like to cook,” Ms. Osaka said with a laugh. The first project with Hana Kuma credits will be a New York Times Op-Doc about Patsy Mink, the first woman of color elected to Congress. Hana Kuma is also working on unspecified documentary content for Epix, a premium cable channel now owned by Amazon.SpringHill, co-founded by Maverick Carter in 2020, will serve as a financing, operations and producing partner for Hana Kuma. SpringHill has roughly 200 employees and was valued at $725 million when selling a minority stake to raise capital last year. Operations include a marketing consultancy and a media and apparel division dedicated to athlete empowerment. Another unit focuses on film and television production. There is also an events team.“Naomi can just plug into what we have built,” Mr. Carter said.SpringHill wants to replicate the Hana Kuma deal with other athletes who have global appeal. “We want to do a lot more of this in the future,” Mr. Carter said, noting that discussions have started with other sports stars.It must be asked: Isn’t this just a newfangled vanity deal? For decades, old-line studios gave favored stars funding to start affiliated companies, most of which never amounted to much — aside from keeping the star happy.“Under the old system, sometimes those ended up being for vanity,” Mr. Carter said. “But the goal here is to build Hana Kuma into a real company and a real brand.” SpringHill’s emphasis on branded content sets it apart from old-line studios, he added. Hana Kuma has been hired by FTX, a cryptocurrency exchange, to produce branded content.LeBron James at the premiere of Netflix’s “Hustle” in Los Angeles this month.Kevin Winter/Getty ImagesMr. James said by telephone that Ms. Osaka’s “grace and power” on and off the court made her a good match for SpringHill, “which exists to empower athlete creators.”“We don’t take for granted the position we are in to lend a helping hand, in this case to Naomi, to help empower her to do even more great things,” Mr. James said.Ms. Osaka has 12 sponsors, including Nike, Mastercard, Louis Vuitton and Panasonic. Her longtime agent and business partner, Stuart Duguid, said some could be involved with Hana Kuma content. Mr. Duguid is a Hana Kuma co-founder.“We really want to bring that number down and have more in-depth relationships with the ones that continue,” Mr. Duguid said, referring to corporate sponsors. “We want to take bigger swings and start companies, invest in companies, things that might have potentially a bigger outcome than if you did a McDonald’s deal and got paid year to year. What will really move the needle?”Building a portfolio of businesses — while still in the middle of her tennis career — makes Ms. Osaka something of a pioneer among female athletes. At least, it will if she succeeds.“We haven’t seen any female athlete do anything like what we are trying to achieve,” Mr. Duguid said. “Serena has done well with her venture business. But she’s toward the end of her career, and, you know, we’re in the middle.” He was referring to the tennis legend Serena Williams, whose venture capital firm, Serena Ventures, has raised an inaugural fund of $111 million to invest in founders with diverse points of view.Because she is still playing tennis, Ms. Osaka will not be sitting in on many production meetings. “But everything creative and everything strategic, it’s obviously going to have Naomi’s stamp on it and her style and her input,” Mr. Duguid said. More

    • 88 Shares149 Views

      in Basket

      ‘Aulcie’ Review: Love and Basketball, in Israel

      by

      This melodramatic documentary chronicles how Aulcie Perry, a basketball center from New Jersey, became a celebrity in Israel after he joined the Maccabi Tel Aviv team.You may not know the name Aulcie Perry, but in Israel, the former basketball center is a legend — like “Michael Jordan and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar rolled into one,” as a sports journalist in the documentary “Aulcie” puts it. Through interviews, archival images and illustrated sequences, the movie, directed by Dani Menkin, offers a treacly biography of the overseas celebrity athlete whose career was ultimately derailed by an addiction to heroin.Born in Newark, N.J., the 6-foot-10 Perry always saw basketball as his calling. Hoop dreams propelled him to the N.B.A., but after he was promptly cut from the Knicks, Perry took a chance: He accepted a spot with Maccabi Tel Aviv. The team proved a solid fit, and Perry led Maccabi to European Champions Cup victories in 1977 and 1981, before drug addiction and a trafficking charge forced him to shelf his remarkable career.
      There is a contagious thrill to the movie’s portrait of its subject’s achievements, especially his whirlwind romance with the Israeli supermodel Tami Ben Ami. But when it comes to Perry’s moments of struggle, “Aulcie” trips up. Schmaltzy music and fuzzy pictures give a hard tug at the heartstrings, and footage of Perry missing shots on an empty court is frequently deployed as a superficial visual metaphor for hardship. The movie also declines to engage with Israel’s evolving politics or culture and where Perry fit in, opting instead for a melodramatic portrait of a star that fell too soon.AulcieNot rated. In English and Hebrew, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 15 minutes. In theaters and on virtual cinemas. More

    • 125 Shares189 Views

      in Basket

      Kevin Garnett Talks Missed Opportunities, On and Off the Court

      by

      Garnett, the 15-time N.B.A. All-Star, discusses the new owners of the Timberwolves, whether he’s ready to forgive Ray Allen and his thoughts on player activism.At one point in a new Showtime documentary, Kevin Garnett unexpectedly jumps out of his seat during an interview to curse into a boom microphone.Sitting down has never been one of his strengths, whether on the basketball court or in typically sleepy affairs, like talking about yourself on camera.The film, titled “Kevin Garnett: Anything Is Possible,” premieres on Nov. 12. It traces Garnett’s life story, from his upbringing in South Carolina through his ascent to being one of the most celebrated prep-to-pros players in basketball history by winning an N.B.A. championship with the Boston Celtics in 2008.This documentary is the latest in a trend of athletes trying to shape the narratives about themselves through their own productions. Michael Jordan, Tom Brady and Russell Westbrook have been involved in similar projects.In Garnett’s documentary, for which he is an executive producer, one scene stands out. Garnett and the rapper Snoop Dogg are in a recording studio discussing athlete activism, and Garnett criticizes the N.B.A. players who resumed the playoffs after walking out to protest social injustice in the summer of 2020.“I actually thought for a second that the players had momentum to where, if they could’ve took a stance, all of them together, and said, ‘No, we’re not playing,’ that they could’ve actually went on Capitol Hill and started a conversation, a real one, and started talking about police reform,” Garnett tells Snoop Dogg.Garnett added, “Just falling in line actually didn’t really help anything.”In a recent interview, Garnett discussed those comments on player activism, his acting ambitions and his relationship with his former Celtics teammate Ray Allen.You do a very impressive impersonation of Doc Rivers, the former Celtics coach, in the documentary. We’ve seen your acting skills in “Uncut Gems.” What is your interest in continuing your acting career?I feel like obviously the character that I played in the “Uncut Gems” was myself, and I didn’t think that I can mess that up, and I felt confident in that. I’m getting some opportunities, just nothing that speaks to me. Some of the things that have come across my desk are just things that I can’t relate to and I don’t feel like fit me. But I have very high interest. I would love to do more movies if possible.There’s an interesting scene with Snoop Dogg where you’re talking about the N.B.A. players and the post-George Floyd protests. You essentially suggested that the players fell in line when it came to protesting police shootings, and that they should have stopped playing until there was real reform. Is that an accurate framing of how you feel?Well, if I’m being frank, yeah. I think what I tried to insinuate, if not say, was that I just think that if players really, really felt passionate about the George Floyd situation, and they wanted to do more, I think the way that — or at least the way I thought that — you should actually effect change is changing. If that meant you all not playing, then you shouldn’t. I thought that should’ve been an option.I thought the league actually took advantage of the players and knowing that the majority of the players needed to play and needed the opportunity to play, and that wasn’t going to be an option.It seems like during the pandemic, the world linked on sports for entertainment, or to keep things at a calm. With that type of leverage, you got to know how to actually use that leverage. I don’t think the players really had a firm leadership in being able to devise a plan and put it together.Were you particularly political in your playing career? For example, would you have been willing to stop playing until there was legislation addressing a reform that you were passionate about?I would have taken the opportunity to go on Capitol Hill and use my platform to be loud and to say whatever it was I felt. You’ve got to remember, this is your livelihood. And as 400-plus players, you’re not just speaking for yourself. You’re trying to speak for a body of players that think differently, on all accounts. This is how you eat. This is how you feed yourself, and everybody is in different categories as far as economics, when it comes to the league.I probably would have been in a position to take a stance and actually want to initiate a conversation. But, again, I felt like it would have been important to have proper people, proper politicians and proper partnerships to be able to go to the table with proper vision to talk about reform. That’s all.[Later, Garnett added a clarification.]I want to make clear that I actually love the way the players stayed together, and whatever decision they came up with, they were in unison with it. I don’t want to come off like I’m going at the future players or the players that are current and they should have did this.I actually support the players, LeBron, Chris Paul and all they do for the union and for the players.Garnett and some of his Celtics teammates were upset that Ray Allen, left, would join the Miami Heat right after Miami defeated Boston in the 2012 playoffs.Mike Blake/ReutersPaul Pierce is featured heavily in the documentary, as are several other Celtics teammates from 2008. One who is barely mentioned is Ray Allen. Have you softened your stance toward Ray at all? [Some of Allen’s teammates were angry after Allen, who was with the Celtics from 2007 to 2012, left for Miami in free agency after the Heat defeated the Celtics in the playoffs.]I wish Ray all the best, and I wish him and his family all the best, and whatever he’s doing, I’ll always be supportive of it. And that’s all I got to say.Your teammates from that team have said, “It’s K.G. who has to be the one who wants to talk to Ray.” Are you open to any sort of reconciliation with him?It’s not that big of a deal to me. I think Ray’s living his life. I’m living mine. That’s where I stand on it. I think if people wanted to do something, we would have done it by now. So it’s pretty obvious where we’re at, but I wish all the best to all my teammates and people that I played with. Not just Ray, everybody.Paul Pierce mentioned recently that you and he were in the process of maybe starting a podcast. Who would you have as your first guest?Probably [former President Barack] Obama or Jamie Dimon [the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase]. Yeah. You caught me off guard.Well, you can call Paul after and talk about it.I was just about to say, right? “So Paul, since you put it out, who would be the first guest, right?” Paul would be like, some “Girls Gone Wild”-type stuff.Garnett was the fifth overall pick in 1995 when the Minnesota Timberwolves drafted him out of high school.Ann Heisenfelt/Associated PressCan you tell me a bit about your relationship with Marc Lore and Alex Rodriguez, the new ownership group of the Minnesota Timberwolves?I haven’t had any conversations with them. I haven’t spoken to A-Rod personally.Do you have any interest in being part of the new ownership group, whether in basketball operations or as a minority owner or in some way being part of the franchise?I think that opportunity has passed. I actually think I’ve been hearing whispers that A-Rod is actually going to take the Timberwolves to Seattle. So we’ll see. I don’t know.Would you be upset if that happened? [The Timberwolves didn’t respond to a request for comment.]No one wants to see the Wolves leave Minneapolis, but you know, it’s business. I would never want the Timberwolves to leave Minneapolis and Minnesota. I think that team means a lot to that state. More

    • 138 Shares189 Views

      in Soccer

      Review: ‘Sisters on Track,’ ‘LFG’ and the Price of Star Power

      by

      Two documentaries explore the flaws of the financial reward systems in elite sports and their effects on the athletes involved.Two documentaries, “Sisters on Track” and “LFG,” explore the achievements of world-class athletes and, more intriguingly, the way money is allocated within sports.“Sisters on Track” follows Tai, Rainn and Brooke Sheppard, three preteen sisters who qualified as junior Olympians in track. The film begins in their first moments of national recognition, as they are invited on to shows like “The View” to discuss their family’s achievements. At the time, their mother was single, working minimum-wage jobs that were insufficient to cover their rent in Brooklyn. The Sheppard family was living in a homeless shelter, and their athletic success is presented as a story of resilience.The documentarians Corinne van der Borch and Tone Grottjord-Glenne show how this flash of national attention granted them immediate opportunity, including an offer by the entertainer Tyler Perry to pay for the family’s housing for two years. Their film follows the Sheppard sisters in vérité style through this period, as their mother, Tonia, and their coach, Jean, guide them through middle school, puberty, nerves and indecision. The shared dream is for all three girls to earn college scholarships.“Sisters on Track” shows a family working within the imperfect system that controls the financial rewards available to them. By contrast, the subjects of “LFG,” (it stands for a soccer rallying cry), are looking to upend the entire pay structure of their sport. The documentary follows the U.S. women’s soccer team as the players pursue a lawsuit against their employer, the United States Soccer Federation, for institutionalized sex discrimination.Soccer stars like Megan Rapinoe, Christen Press and Jessica McDonald explain how the women’s team has to win more games, secure more viewers and generate more revenue to make a wage that is comparable to that of the men’s team. In talking-head interviews with the documentary’s directors, Andrea Nix Fine and Sean Fine, the teammates express their hopes that future generations of girls will be able to earn a living as athletes without having to maintain an unparalleled record within their sport.Jessica McDonald in the soccer documentary “LFG”.HBO MaxBoth films are conventional in cinematic style, and they constitute the kind of feel-good entertainment that is easy to recommend. But what is timely and interesting — even thorny — about these films is their focus on the economic opportunities generated by athletic achievement. For the Sheppard family, continued track success pushes closed doors open, granting the sisters access to shelter, scholarships and private school admissions that might have otherwise been beyond their means. But as they plan ahead for college — its opportunities and its expenses — they know they have to maintain their national records if they want to translate early success into lifelong stability.Unlike the Sheppards, who are at the start of their athletic careers, the women of the national soccer team have already proven themselves as world champions. But their astronomical achievements have not translated into astronomical earnings, suggesting that a glass ceiling looms over all women in sports. Both documentaries question how much success women must achieve to attain financial stability, and both films find that it’s not enough to be very good. To translate physical ability into financial gain, you have to be the best in the country, if not the best in the world.Though both movies are peppered with promises that everything will work out in the long run, they also function as documents of the exploitation that elite athletes experience. Here, superhuman strength runs straight into all-too-recognizable barriers — poor working conditions, low wages, discrimination, corporate greed. The subjects of “Sisters on Track” and “LFG” confront challenges with the mentality of champions, but that doesn’t make the opposition any less daunting.LFGNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes. Watch on HBO Max.Sisters on TrackRated PG. Running time: 1 hour 36 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More

    • 113 Shares189 Views

      in Golf

      Tiger Woods's Past Was Examined in Recent HBO Documentary

      by

      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyTiger Woods Live Updates and Video: Golfer Hospitalized After Car CrashWoods’s complicated past was put under a microscope in a recent documentary.Feb. 23, 2021, 5:30 p.m. ETFeb. 23, 2021, 5:30 p.m. ETMargaret Lyons and [embedded content]Tiger Woods was the subject of a recent two-part documentary on HBO called “Tiger,” which chronicles the golfer’s intense relationship with his father and especially the ways the elder Woods shaped his son’s understanding of sex and masculinity. The documentary was based on a book, “Tiger Woods,” by Armen Keteyian and Jeff Benedict.“Tiger” depicts the relentless scrutiny focused on Woods, particularly though not exclusively from tabloid media, and the tensions of a celebrity culture that can be both wildly permissive and swiftly judgmental. A number of golfers, former caddies and friends participated in the documentary, but perhaps the most revealing sources were two women who were involved with Woods at very different times in his life: Dina Parr, who dated Woods in high school, and Rachel Uchitel, who had an affair with Woods in 2009.While archival footage of Woods features heavily, he declined to participate in the documentary, and his longtime agent, Mark Steinberg, released a statement blasting it. “Just like the book it is based off of, the upcoming HBO documentary is just another unauthorized and salacious outsider attempt to paint an incomplete portrait of one of the greatest athletes of all-time,” Steinberg said.The first part of the documentary, which was released in January and is streaming on HBO Max, was HBO’s most watched sports documentary in almost three years.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

    • 63 Shares179 Views

      in Soccer

      ‘Pelé’ Review: A National Treasure

      by

      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main story‘Pelé’ Review: A National TreasureThis Netflix documentary surveys the Brazilian soccer player’s pioneering career.Pelé, the famed Brazilian soccer player, is the subject of a documentary.Credit…NetflixFeb. 23, 2021, 7:00 a.m. ETPeléDirected by Ben Nicholas, David TryhornDocumentary, Biography, Sport1h 48mFind TicketsWhen you purchase a ticket for an independently reviewed film through our site, we earn an affiliate commission.There are two documentaries contained within “Pelé,” David Tryhorn and Ben Nicholas’s film about the Brazilian soccer phenom. The main one is the starry survey of Pelé’s record-setting achievements and national adulation. But a second, more sobering story steadily drops the temperature in the room, once Brazil’s military violently takes power in 1964 and shows a strategic interest in “the beautiful sport.”The filmmakers run through a storied history, from Brazil’s 1950 loss to Uruguay in the World Cup (when Pelé, as a boy, told his sobbing father that he’ll win it back) to its triumph at the 1970 final. In a recurring sit-down interview, the now 80-year-old legend is both genuine and diplomatic after decades of worship as “the King.” Teammates remain fond, journalists kibitz, and the singer-songwriter Gilberto Gil and Brazil’s former president, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, proffer pop analysis.[embedded content]But as we hear soccer repeatedly invoked as the life-force to Brazil’s sense of self, one interviewee sticks out: a matter-of-fact former cabinet minister, Antônio Delfim Netto, who signed the dictatorship’s infamous “AI-5” act institutionalizing torture and censorship. The filmmakers go on to suggest that the national team’s success became part of military propaganda, and Pelé shares his own guarded thoughts on the era.The dictatorship’s involvement takes the pressures of championship play to another level; Pelé later calls the 1970 World Cup victory simply a “relief.” I did yearn to see more of his talents in action; his header goal in that year’s Italy final feels cosmically liberating. But however conventional as a whole, the movie feels troubled by the traumas of Pelé’s heyday.PeléNot Rated. In Portuguese, with subtitles Running time: Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes. Watch on Netflix.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More