Verlorene Sieger

In much the same way as "Our Town" or "Death of a Salesman" was for earlier ones, "That Championship Season" is becoming a classic of a later generation. By some scheduling fluke, I was able to watch "TCS" with my son before its scheduled release on ShowTime about a week early.

This latest incarnation will no doubt reach more viewers than have other productions and Paul Sorvino has done a great job with a cast of actors both recognized for their dramatic accomplishments and just breaking out of comic or character actor roles. Gary Sinise (Forest Gump, Truman-HBO) and Vincent D'Onofrio (Homocide, MIB) provide solid ground for Sorvino's anchor and define an orbit for Tony Shaloub (Wings, MIB) and Terry Kinney (OZ-HBO) to work freely within.

Watch this and rent the 1982 video.

Four former basketball teammates meet up at their coaches house after some time and remnisce (I bet that's spelled wrong) about the good old days. Eventually, it turns into a cynical, upsetting night with the only guy making sense being the alcoholic, Tom (Gary Sinise).

This was based on a stage play, so putting it into film was probably an odd experience. I never saw the original film version, so I can't compare the two. But in this film, most of what we see goes on in one location, so there's mostly dialogue. The dialogue is excellent because of the actors (Sinise, Shalhoub, D'Onofrio especially), so you'll like this if you like 'talking movies'. If you're into movies with more action, then this probably won't be for you.

Anyone who gave this a bad review totally missed the point of this movie (play). I see why this play won the Pulitzer prize for drama. It illustrates how we all look back at our youth, and possible triumphs, and paint it as much better and rosier than it was. Nothing was as perfect as it seemed, but for some, it's all they have to hold onto to give their life meaning & purpose. Also, it portrays the lengths some people will go to perpetuate a false image of happiness and perfection.

What a good movie filled with good performances. The actors alone is worth the watch. You have a story about a highschool coach and his former players coming together to reminisce about the glory days of winning the state title in basketball. While at the coaches house other drama comes to light and all hell breaks loose. I loved the drama and stories of what each was up to and how their lives have been since winning the title. My favorite character was played by Gary Sinise and he was funny. Although I think the movie was to long and could've been shortened by 15 minutes this is truly a heartbreaking and heartwarming tale about friendship.

Timothy Treakle.

...and not so great for film audiences... in my opinion. Here's why...

It's not that difficult to make a good film with the source material being a good play. The problem is that the filmmakers hesitate to stray too far from the original story.

A play is written with oftentimes very obvious "on the nose dialog," with lots of repetition. Live theater audiences rarely are close enough to see the actors clearly, and so they don't have the benefit of reading facial expressions or even, as odd as it sounds, seeing the actors' lips reciting the dialog. So theatrical dialog is obvious, repetitive and oratorical.

However, that's not an issue with film. As film audiences, we're usually right in the middle of things when dialog is being spoken. Movie watchers don't need overt and repetitive dialog. There can be a lot of nuance.

So the failure with most adaptations is that the filmmakers don't make the needed adjustments, and that's where this version (I haven't seen the other) of That Championship Season fails. We're watching a movie with dialog pulled from live theater.

I do have a quarrel with the original play. Without going into details - no spoilers here - I really have to wonder why none of the four guys left the coach's house as they fought amongst themselves. I certainly wouldn't have stuck around if things got as heated as they did in this story. Maybe I'm just not willing to put up with accusations, insults and worse.

Two last things about the movie, minor things only a film geek like me would have noticed.

First, in a few low-angle shots we could see glare from a few of the movie lights placed up above the camera's field of view. The overall color of "practical" (intended to be in the shot) light was the golden color of tungsten bulbs, but the glare was very white and came not from anyplace a practical ceiling lamp would have been placed.

The second thing was the wardrobe choice for the guy who'd set his life aside for others because he wouldn't stand up for himself. He had 1950s-style glasses, a short sleeved shirt with his suit, and white socks. That was a silly, lazy way to make him look like a second class citizen.