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 Mar 24

by Tony Medley

Accidental Texan (8/10): 104 minutes. PG-13. Erwin (Rudy Pankow) is a fledgling actor who blows his first big part in Texas. Starting back home to Los Angeles his car breaks down where he gets some help From Merle (Thomas Haden Church) who is a third-generation oil driller about to go bankrupt and who is in competition for leases with some rich bad guys. Merle  sees Erwin’s acting ability as something that could help him. From there they team up in an old-fashioned Hollywood movie with terrific acting (I have never seen Church when he did not stand out) helped along by a good script (Julie B Denny and Cole Thompson) and good direction (Mark Lambert Bristol) that never lags. (March 8)

The Taste of Things (5/10):145 Minutes. NR. Some have compared this with My Dinner with Andre, Louis Malle’s brilliant 1981 film consisting entirely of a dinner conversation between André Gregory and Wally Shawn at the Café des Artistes in Manhattan. But there is no comparison. Malle’s film contained captivating conversation between the two that keeps the audience enthralled for just under two hours.

But this film, a prequel to the book by Marcel Rouff, is directed by Anh Hung Tran. Even so, the main person behind the film is Gastronomic Director Pierre Gagnaire because the guts of the film consists of the kitchen preparation of succulent feasts. That’s really it, although the relationship between Eugenie (Juliette Binoche), an esteemed cook, and Dodin (Benoit Maginel), the fine gourmet with whom she has been working for over the last 20 years, seems to be the raison d’étre for the film. Alas, neither is enough to justify a film of this length, unless you are a gourmet cook.

Binoche disclosed that the fact that she and Maginel had a prior relationship that produced a child made it easy to create the unusual relationship between the two characters they play in the film. In French.

Griselda (5/10): 6 episodes miniseries. TV-MA. Netflix. This is a shockingly sympathetic telling of the story of Griselda Blanco (Sofia Vergara), a brutal sociopathic drug dealer who was allegedly involved in 200 murders while racking up a net worth of more than $500 million. She frightened even the most brutal of the drug dealers from Latin America in Florida. But this soft-soaps this despicable thug, seemingly rationalizing most of her actions and showing her as a loving mother who was just trying to make some money while fighting other vicious drug lords. Griselda was unambiguously unattractive, but this miniseries casts a gorgeous, sexy movie star to play her. Her killer henchman and third husband, Dario (Alberto Guerro), is also shown with compassion as a guy who just dispassionately and reluctantly (yeah, sure) followed orders in his killings, including a two-year-old child in cold blood. While this is entertaining (made by the same people responsible for the excellent “Narcos” series), I can’t recommend something that takes a soft look at such despicable monsters. It’s akin to treating Ted Bundy with empathetic understanding. Shame on them.

Murder is Easy (5/10): 120 minutes. TV 2-episode miniseries. Britbox. To say this is “based on” a classic Agatha Christie mystery must be a stretch because the script is so flimsy with gaping plotholes that Agatha must have done a better job. The unique thing it has going for itself is one that Agatha never would have anticipated. Directed by Meenu Gaur and set in the 1950s, screenwriter Ejiwunmi-Le Berre, a black worman, took it upon herself to make the protagonist, Luke Fitzwilliam (David Jonsson), a black Nigerian who comes unknown to a small British hamlet and sets out to solve who is the serial murderer menacing the populace. Agatha had Luke as a white policeman. For some extraordinarily perverse reason, LeBerre makes him just an ordinary citizen, which makes all his sleuthing (and the casual villagers’ acceptance of this stranger acting like an investigator in their midst) inexplicable.

The solution is one nobody could have determined, which obviates the fun of trying to figure it out. The best things about this are the outstanding production values and beautiful color photography (David Mackie), including a wonderful vintage MG, which almost make watching worthwhile. Jonsson gives a fine performance, as do the others in the cast. Otherwise, the thin plot is more annoying than entertaining.

Argylle (4/10): 139 minutes. PG-13. In 2006, Will Ferrell gave a bravura performance (his best) in Stranger than Fiction) playing an unwitting, unwilling character in a novel being written by another person. Here, director Matthew Vaughn takes a then-unpublished manuscript by Elly Conway, apparently changes it substantially, turning it into a vague comedic imitation of Ferrell’s movie. Bryce Dallas Howard plays Conway, a publicity shy author of a series of successful espionage books who suddenly becomes involved in real life events mirroring her novels.

Howard is woefully miscast as a martial arts heroine as her zaftig physique (5-7, 139) make her fighting scenes unintentionally laughable. The supporting cast is impressive for such a disappointing movie, including Bryan Cranston, Catherine O’Hara, John Cena, and the always entertaining Samuel L. Jackson in a cameo.