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 May 23

by Tony Medley

Madoff: The Monster of Wall Street (9/10): 4 episodes. TV-MA. Netflix. What Bernie Madoff actually did is explained and the people who coordinated with him are exposed. I’ve seen all the Madoff treatments, and this is the best.

Agent Hamilton Season 2 (8/10): 8 episodes. MHz Choice. TV-14. Charismatic Jakob Ofterbro stars as Carl Hamilton, a former Swedish secret agent who is hired by the Swedish Security Service (SÄPO) to find out who is responsible for a series of cyberattacks and bombings. He must fight against the powers in his own agency as well Intelligence agents of Russia and the United States who seem to be conniving with international business interests (like the World Economic Forum?) encouraging a new cold war. Based upon the novels by Jan Guillou, but updated to include modern technology, various episodes have different directors, but all keep the same motif. Shot in Sweden, Lithuania, Morocco, and Zagreb, Croatia, this is the second season of a well-made thriller that keeps the viewer involved throughout. The first season may be viewed on Prime Video.

The Night Agent (8/10): 10 episodes. TV-MA. Netflix. Peter Sutherland (Gabriel Brasso) is a newbie FBI agent locked in an office in the lower echelons of The White House waiting for a phone that never rings to ring. When it does finally ring, he finds himself smack dab in the middle of a conspiracy that involves the Deep State threatening to take over the government as he is stuck with protecting a vital witness, Rose Larkin (Lucianne Buchanan), and, ultimately, saving the country. He is vilified and they are chased by everyone including his own FBI and he doesn’t know whom to trust.

Rabbit Hole (7/10): 8 episodes. TV-MA. Paramount+. While it’s got tension, it is diminished by the production, like the convoluted back-and-forth switches in time that can be annoyingly confusing. Then there is the whispered dialogue of star Kiefer Sutherland, the master of mutter, when everyone else is speaking normally. Subtitles, please! Even worse is the dark cinematography. Not only is it hard to hear, it’s hard to see.

In a nutshell, John Weir (Sutherland), some sort of corporate espionage expert, is framed for murder (in an only-in-Hollywood elaboration), so he spends the rest of the time trying to clear himself, stay alive, and figure out what’s going on in what appears to be a grandiloquent scheme to, what? Take over the world? The producers did not grant access to the last two episodes, so this is based on the first six. As a result, fortunately, I don’t have to sit through the last two unless I really want to, which I probably don’t.

To Catch a Killer (4/10): 119 Minutes. R. This is a strange story of the chase to find a serial killer. Eleanor (Shailene Woodley) is a fledgling police investigator who has a troubled past when she is drafted by the FBI’s chief investigator (Ben Mendelsohn) to help track the killer down. She is demeaned by others because of her youth, inexperience, and psychological problems, but Mendelsohn has faith in her mainly because he recognizes that her verstehen makes her the only person who could somehow intellectually identify with the killer and understand him.

It's a tenuous proposition and it leads to a denouement that challenges reason, given the sociopathy of the killer. Worse, it treats the vicious cold-blooded killer with surprising and blatantly unjustified sympathy and understanding.

Mafia Mamma (3/10): 101 Minutes. R.

Anything you can do, I can do better.

I can do anything better than you.

Irving Berlin; Annie Get Your Gun, 1946

Irving beat director Catherine Hardwicke to this story 77 years ago, and did it better. This movie epitomizes why everyone acknowledges that comedy is hard and requires unique talent for both director and actors. Toni Collette, a normal, if unconfident, American mother who works at an advertising agency where she is unappreciated due to her sex, goes to Italy to attend her grandfather’s funeral. But this is no ordinary grandfather. He was a Mafia Godfather, unbeknownst to her.

From a screenplay by Michael J. Feldman and Debbie Jhoon, what follows is a silly screwball comedy attempt with Collette giving an inept Lucille Ball imitation as she fumbles her way into reluctantly replacing her grandfather as the Godfather. It is so implausible with so many unlikely events that it’s more pitiful than humorous. I didn’t even smile once, much less laugh. Worse, it has a twist that strains credulity. The one thing that made this mildly watchable (ergo my 3/10 rating) was the location with beautiful shots of Rome and Italy. Even with talent, it would take a thaumaturge to make something of this bunkum.