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 stories in their own words.

Click the book to read the first chapter and for ordering information. Also available on Kindle.

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by Tony Medley

I.S.S. (8/10): 88 Minutes. R. The tension never lets up in the International Space Station between a 6-person crew of three Russians and three Americans when war breaks out on earth between the two countries, and each is privately instructed to take control of the I.S.S.

The special effects are amazing as the performers float through the I.S.S. throughout the film. Here’s how it was done per director Gabriela Cowperthwaite (from a script by Nick Shafir):

We put the actors in harnesses and used tethers to float them. Early on, we tried a system of see saws that was much more comfortable for the cast, but when I saw the tests, it didn’t appear real enough. The harnesses and tethers looked great, though. Unfortunately, they were
extremely uncomfortable to wear. It was hard on their bodies, they would sometimes go numb in their legs, and every time someone had to go to the bathroom, it took about 45 minutes to get them out of the harness and back into it again. And of course, it took us a year or more to digitally remove every tether from every single frame of every scene in post. Looking back on it now, I see why people don’t do zero-gravity in movies very often!

This is a throwback to the days when a movie presents a possible scenario, telling the story with no wasted motion in a crisp 88 minutes with no superheroes or car crashes. What violence occurs is necessary to the plot and believable.

It also exhibits the claustrophobia of being confined in such a small space. And the shots of the earth in what appears to be total conflagration appear outside their windows exacerbate the feeling of being trapped. Their habitat is totally realistic, not some futuristic scenario like the spaceships in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 (1968) and the more recent Passengers (2016), a movie I really liked, that created very comfortable abodes for space travel, this shows the space station to be crowded with tight spaces in which to maneuver.

This is, simply, a terrific movie with a good script and fine acting and a believable concept

The Engineer (5/10): 92 minutes. R. In the ‘90s Yahya Ayyash (Adam Haloon) was a “mastermind bombmaker” who was blowing up innocent Israelis. This purports to tell the tale of what is claimed to be “the biggest manhunt in the history of Israel” to find him and send him to his reward. Maybe it’s based on facts but there are too many serendipitous occurrences for it to establish credibility, and try as they might have, very little tension. Another Hollywood opportunity lost.

Mean Girls (2/10): 107 minutes. R. There have been very few remakes that were better, or even as good, as the original. All the “A Star is Born” films have been exceptionally good, telling the same story. “High Society” (1956) was better than its excellent predecessor, “The Philadelphia Story” (1940). Like “High Society,” this remake of the 2004 original is a musical (it played on Broadway 2018-20).

However, unlike ‘”Society,’ the music is not by a supreme talent like Cole Porter, and it shows. It is emblematic of what has happened to music in recent generations. As I have said before, lacking are melody and memorable lyrics. And what is music without them?

This is exactly the same story as 2004, although apparently intended to be updated to reflect the eidos of 2024. Unlike the original, Fey wrote this one by herself. Either she has lost it, or she misses co-writer Rosalind Wiseman because this script is unfunny and fatuous. The movie is so off-the-wall, it is an insult to the original. These raucous students make the students Glenn Ford had to face in “Blackboard Jungle” (1955) seem like gentlemen.

Even though it is apparently intended as a satire, there is a fine line between satire and ridiculous nonsense. The original did not cross that line. This one goes way over it. It is filled with woke casting and represents an extremely low moral tone. I would give this a zero, but my assistant, who also detested the film, prevailed upon me that it should be worth a 2. I agreed because the color is excellent, and Reneé Rapp gives a good performance as the arrogant trendsetter.

American Star (1/10): 110 minutes. R. Yet another film about an assassin with a heart. This one is the slowest, most boring, ever filmed. It was as though they had a bunch of feet of film and filled it with nonsense until the violent ending. The first 95 minutes consists of basically nothing but Ian McShane hanging out, talking with people to no avail. Then the violence, then “The End.” Shakespeare might call it “Little ado about nothing.”

Recommended Reading: The Paris Agent by Kelly Rimmer, a brilliant, harrowing novel based on fact about the women in Britain’s Special Operations Executive, who were spies in France during WWII.