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. Also available on Kindle.

Mozart's Sister (0/10)

by Tony Medley

Run time 120 minutes.

OK for children.

This speculates about Wolfgang Mozart's (David Moreau) sister, Nannerl (Marie Féret), who was apparently a highly talented violinist and harpsichordist, but who couldn't have a career due to her sex. So their father concentrated all his efforts on Wolfgang, sacrificing Nannerl.

While this might be a slightly interesting story if told by a filmmaker who had any money and the judgment to make it a relatively short film, this almost interminable effort by writer, director, producer René Féret was obviously made on a shoestring. There's nothing wrong with that; in fact, I admire filmmakers who devote everything they have to a project in which they believe. But here most of the actors are relatives. His daughter plays the title role. All told there are four Férets in the cast, including René. None of the actors show even an iota of emotion, save the non-Féret Clovis Foujin, who plays Le Dauphin, who loses his composure for about 17 seconds near the end of the film. Other than Clovis, these are people who seem to be just reading teleprompters.

Féret completely fails to capture the frustration Nannerl must have felt as she saw her talent going to waste and her father forgetting her and concentrating on her younger brother. That, after all, is the point of the film. But one never feels that Nannerl feels much of anything as she just goes about her life as if it had all been written.

Worse than how long this drags, this is a costume drama set in 18th Century France that should have been filled with beautiful vistas and colorful costumes, but Féret used film stock that looks like it was old Trucolor film discarded by Republic Pictures in the late '40s. It's so washed out there couldn't have been less color had he used black and white film. In French.