Out of print for more than 30 years, now available for the first time as
an eBook, this is the controversial story of John Wooden's first 25
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Notre Dame Coach Digger Phelps said, "I used this book as an inspiration
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winning streak in 1974."
Compiled with
more than 40 hours of interviews with Coach Wooden, learn about the man behind the coach.
Click the Book to read
the players telling their stories in their own words. This is the book
that UCLA Athletic Director J.D. Morgan tried to ban.
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Waitress (3/10)
by Tony Medley
Apparently if you want to
make it as a screenwriter in Hollywood these days, all you have to do is
write a feminist diatribe chick flick and you’re in. This is just
another in a growing list of recent films where all the women are
wonderful, understanding, and long-suffering while the men are louts.
Jenna (Keri Russell) is the
wonderful woman who works as a waitress in a diner in a small town.
She’s married to a control freak, unshaven oaf, Earl (Jeremy Sisto), who
basically keeps her his emotional prisoner, doing his bidding and not
allowed an opinion or thought of her own. I didn’t understand one thing,
however. She becomes pregnant and several times the characters comment
that it “must have been the night Earl got her drunk.” But if Earl is as
hot for her as he comes across in the movie and if she has to do what he
wants when he wants, why would he have to get her drunk to have sex?
She meets a newcomer in
town, her new doctor, Dr. Pomatter (Nathan Fillion), with whom she
begins an affair. Pomatter is married, but that doesn’t seem to matter
to him or Jenna. She has two friends, both fellow waitresses, Becky
(Cheryl Hines) and Dawn (writer-director Adrienne Shelly, who was
brutally murdered by a worker in her New York condo shortly after
wrapping this film). Becky is having an affair with their boss, Cal (Lew
Temple), who is also married and that doesn’t bother anybody. Apparently
to Shelly, marriage is just an inconvenience when it comes to romance.
Forget about loyalty and commitment.
The only man who might be a
nice guy is Old Joe (Andy Griffith), a cantankerous guy who apparently
owns the diner. That wasn’t made clear to me. But he’s always there and
he befriends Jenna.
Anyway, this is just a
down-the-line feminist theme story. The guys are mostly immoral, selfish
jerks, except for one, Ogie, (Eddie Jemison), Dawn’s boyfriend, who
personifies Caspar Milquetoast and is doomed to a life of henpecking,
constantly saying, "Yes dear; you're wonderful." Need I add that the
women are all saintly? This is no comedy, which is the way it is being
promoted. The life in which Jenna finds herself trapped is terribly
depressing.
The film ends making the
staunchly held feminist position that a father is meaningless in
bringing up a child. The best way I can describe this rubbish is, Ugh!
June 11, 2007 |