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.

Thumbnails Jun 23

by Tony Medley

SQUARING THE CIRCLE (The Story of Hipgnosis) (9/10): 96 minutes before credits. NR. Back in the day (‘60s and ‘70s), music was sold on vinyl records as albums. Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey “Po” Powell became the “go to” people to design the album covers. They named their company Hipgnosis, “Hip” to designate cool and groovy and “gnosis” to designate wise.

This is their story told with interviews, mostly by Po, but by others like Paul McCartney, David Gilmour of Pink Floyd, Roger Waters, Peter Gabriel, and others. It is a fascinating tale of little-known influencers.

Storm was, in the words of several people interviewed, rude and cantankerous. One says, “He wouldn’t take yes for an answer.” Paul McCartney says, “He could be really crappy.” But they also say, “highly intelligent,” “full of ideas,” and “one in a million.”

Po describes how many of the album covers were made and the immense work and planning involved. He says that the album cover for Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon “changed the course of history for us…suddenly we started to earn real money. Things were never the same again.”

Directed by famed photographer Anton Corbijn and written by Trish D Chetty, this is a captivating, behind-the-scenes, esoteric tale of rock music to which most people don’t give a second thought. It all disappeared when vinyl albums went kaput in the digital age. I was enthralled. Opens June 16 at Laemmle Royal in Los Angeles.

Master Gardener (9/10): 111 minutes. R. Five seconds after the first scenes flashed on the screen I said to my assistant, “I’m gonna really like this movie.” Sometimes you just know. Writer/director Paul Schrader bases his movies on “triads.” Here the triad is a character triad of Narvel Roth (Joel Edgerton), his employer, wealthy dowager Mrs. Haverhill (Sigourney Weaver), and her great-niece, emotionally scarred Maya (Quintessa Swindell). The film shows, however, that they are all emotionally scarred. Roth is a quiet outsider, who is horticulturist of Gracewood Gardens, Mrs. Haverhill’s historic estate. The movie slowly develops the characters, and their troubled pasts as mid-40s-year-old Roth finds himself caught in between the two women, dowager Haverhill and 20-something Maya. Exceptional acting and a good script make this a winner.

MH 370 The Plane that Disappeared (8/10): 3-part miniseries. Netflix. TV-14. The Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 disappeared in March 2014 during a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. The plane was never found; nobody knows what happened. This involving documentary follows various possible answers, examining leads, giving differing, competing POVs and includes interviews with the relatives of the passenger victims.

Love and Death (8/10): 7-episode mini-series. TV-MA. Max. This comes right out and says it’s a true story, although it is fictionalized for cinematic presentation. Candy Montgomery (Elizabeth Olsen) seduces Alan Gore (Jesse Plemons) the husband of her good friend Betty Gore (Lily Rabe) in a short-lived relationship which results in a bloody murder and trial. Well-paced and acted, this is a “can’t wait until the next episode” production.

Call me Kate (8/10): 86 minutes. NR. Netflix. An informative documentary with Katharine Hepburn telling her story herself with recently discovered footage and audio tapes and occasional narration by Kat Kramer. Kate solidifies her reputation as an iconic free speaker who stood alone for her individual independence at a time when most actors and actresses were slaves to major studio contracts.

The Night of the 12^th (7/10): 115 Minutes. NR. A police procedural, adapted from 30 pages of Pauline Guéna’s 500-page nonfiction book “18.3 - une année à la PJ” (18.3 - A Year With the Crime Squad), this is the examination of a case involving the cold-blooded murder of a beautiful young woman. It follows the police inspectors as they diligently try to track down the killer showing their anxiety and clashes as they go from clue to clue. It won seven 2023 César awards, including best film and best director Dominik Moll. In French. Laemmle Royal June 9

Hypnotic (3/10): 85 minutes. R. Last Year at Marienbad (1961) is the quintessential incomprehensible movie; this one isn’t even close enough to qualify as a pale imitation; it’s just silly. Danny Rourke (Ben Affleck) is a policeman looking for his daughter who was stolen from him on a playground. From that point on he encounters people who are apparently controlled by a master hypnotist, Dellrayne (William Fichtner), who appears and disappears magically. Written (with Max Borenstein) and directed by Robert Rodriguez, the movie makes no sense as it goes from one thing to another as Danny teams up with Diana Cruz (Alice Braga), who is also a mind-controlling hypnotist with the apparent power to control people’s actions at will, trying to find his daughter and keep away from Dellrayne and his hypnotized cohorts. It’s full of tension, and adds garish violence. Nothing is as it seems, which was also the case in ‘Marienbad. But ‘Marienbad became a classic. There is no worry about this achieving that status. My reaction when it ended was, “Why did you waste my time?”

Recommended Reading: “The Marriage Lie” by Kimberly Belle. I could not put it down.