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 years and first 8 NCAA Championships as UCLA Head Basketball Coach. This is the only book that gives a true picture of the character of John Wooden and the influence of his assistant, Jerry Norman, whose contributions Wooden  ignored and tried to bury.

Compiled with more than 40 hours of interviews with Coach Wooden, learn about the man behind the coach. The players tell their their stories in their own words. This is the book that UCLA Athletic Director J.D. Morgan tried to ban.

Click the book to read the first chapter and for ordering information.

Little Fockers (1/10)

by Tony Medley

Run time 93 minutes.

Not for children.

Worse than awful, with a cast of near-septuagenarian actors, including Barbra Streisand, Robert DeNiro, Dustin Hoffman, Laura Dern, Harvey Keitel, and Blythe Danner, youngsters like Owen Wilson and Jessica Alba try to navigate a sophomoric script in this Ben Stiller attempt at a comedy about sex, although it’s ostensibly about Stiller’s relationship with his overbearing father-in-law, DeNiro.

Poor Owen Wilson, stuck in another dog. Either the guy has terminally poor judgment or little taste, because he is charming, good looking, and talented, but he keeps accepting roles in junk like this. Lots of his time onscreen is by an obvious double doing acrobatics. This is about the quality of something you might see in a 1920s silent two-reeler.

The die was cast when director Paul Weitz (replacing Jay Roach, who did the first two) inserted a vomit scene in the first 15 minutes. I knew it was all downhill from there. Hoffman is the only one who showed any taste as he didn’t want to appear after he found Roach wasn’t directing. He eventually relented and appeared in what is little more than a cameo. His scenes as a flamenco dancer are ridiculous.

Stiller loves painful penis jokes and he has one here, just as he has in previous editions of this tired series. In this one he thinks it’s funny for him to jab DeNiro’s penis with a hypodermic needle as his son watches. In one of the many vapid attempts at comedy, his son, who looks to be about 3, uses the word “vagina” in a complete sentence.

There are more idiotic scenes. Stiller falls into a 10-foot deep hole landing on his back with no resulting injuries. Then Alba jumps in on him, 10-feet down, and neither is the worse for wear. Here’s what happens in real life when someone falls like that, from LBN Breaking News: 

A stunt-double for Spiderman fell eight to 10 feet into a pit when a line holding him apparently snapped. The actor was carried out of the theater on a stretcher, wearing a neck brace. 

It’s irresponsible for filmmakers to show scenes like these with no physical consequences.

Streisand is apparently intended to be another Dr. Ruth, but her obsession with sex is just silly. Maybe Hoffman’s disinclination to participate had something to do with acting with Barbra. Stiller’s children are annoying brats, to say the least.

There are four writing credits, which is three too many, so clearly there was a lot of trouble getting this in the can. Weitz seems to be going out of his way to prove that his About A Boy, one of the best films of 2002, was a fluke.

The only good thing about this abomination is that it could spell finis to the Focker series.

December 15, 2010