Cinematic miracle on ice

VAN NOVACK

It’s hard to develop a suspenseful plot for a film when a large

number of the target audience lived through the event portrayed.

However, Walt Disney Pictures successfully accomplishes this

difficult task in the new release “Miracle,” the story of the 1980

United States men’s Olympic hockey team.

The film opens with some of the most effective credits I have ever

seen. As the names of actors, producers, technicians, etc. roll on

the screen, a montage of news events from the late 1960s to 1980 is presented in both image and actual news commentary from the period.

News footage and broadcasts of the Kennedy and King assassinations,

the Vietnam War, Three Mile Island, Watergate, the fall of Saigon,

the Russian invasion of Afghanistan and the taking of American

hostages in Iran inform the uninitiated and remind those old enough

to remember the unprecedented nadir of the American spirit. It was a

time when Americans doubted our national will, and we seemingly could

do nothing right on the world stage.

No wonder then, the country rushed to embrace the United States

hockey team, a gathering of disparate college kids thought to have

little chance of winning any medal, much less the gold. At the time,

the Soviet Union hockey team had won every Olympic gold hockey medal

since 1960 and regularly annihilated all-star National Hockey League

teams as well. The Soviet team consisted of essentially professional

players, working together more than 15 years in some instances. The

mere thought of true amateurs defeating them seemed far-fetched

indeed.

“Miracle” focuses on coach Herb Brooks, played very effectively by

a perfectly cast Kurt Russell. Brooks bucked nearly every hockey

convention at the time, choosing his team for chemistry and

complementary skills, not simply recruiting the best individual

players. Brooks also stressed conditioning to the point of near

cruelty. Many of the film’s best scenes depict the many weeks and

months of grueling workouts normally not evident to anyone who has

not played the game.

The young actors portraying the players are appropriately young

and skate convincingly. The list of players’ names, like Mike

Eruzione and Jim Craig, rekindle distant memories.

Of course, the most protracted and pivotal scene is the semifinal

match with the Soviets, the “Miracle on Ice” referred to by the

title. Even though the outcome is known to most of the audience, the

game sequences are thrilling and suspenseful. An excellent device is

the use of Al Michaels’ original call of the game rather than a later

recreation.

A glimpse of the toll such single-minded drive has on personal

relationships is shown in a few effective scenes of Brooks’ home life

with his wife, Patty (Patricia Clarkson). The reason behind Brooks’

obsession with bringing home a gold medal is also revealed.

The end credits update the audience on what the players have

accomplished since achieving Olympic history. Pleasingly, they have

all gone on to successful adult lives either in business or coaching.

Unfortunately, Herb Brooks himself died before the film was released

and never saw the finished product.

As Disney showed previously with “The Rookie,” a straightforward

telling of a truly inspiring sports story still works. “Miracle” will

have you standing and cheering as you relive this great moment in

sports history or experience it for the first time.

* VAN NOVACK, 50, is the director of institutional research at Cal

State Long Beach and lives in Huntington Beach with his wife

Elizabeth.

No ‘Bounce’ in

this film’s step

Movies tell stories about likable people in difficult situations.

From James Bond ridding the world of evildoers to a mature woman

falling in love with a womanizer in “Something’s Gotta Give,” movies

put its main characters through a maze of obstacles before resolving

their difficulties and living happily ever after.

Film stories need two key ingredients to achieve the effect:

likable characters and interesting situations. “The Big Bounce” lacks

both ingredients. A story about a wallet-stealing thief involved in a

$200,000 heist takes a potentially likable character in an

interesting situation and drains the life out of it.

Owen Wilson has always played likable characters in his films

(“Shanghai Noon,” “Shanghai Knights”) that start out as thieves

before undergoing a transformation from being an outlaw to upholding

the law. The change makes for a great character contrast from the

time the story opens to its close and makes it interesting for the

audience.

Wilson’s character, Jack Ryan, a petty thief, remains the same

throughout the film, along with all the other characters. He doesn’t

learn, change or grow emotionally or mentally by the end of the film.

This wouldn’t be a problem except for the fact that he couldn’t

accomplish what he accomplished, being who he is, without some

personal change or insight.

Who the characters are at the start of the film is who they are at

the end. The result creates a stuck-in-the-mud feel to the story. The

characters always stay in one frame of mind, either a perpetual

ranting idiot or laid back thief. Morgan Freeman’s and Charlie

Sheen’s supporting characters are as one-dimensional as Owen

Wilson’s.

The choice of a using a non-actress as the female lead makes “The

Big Bounce” that much more difficult to watch. Sara Foster’s MTV

interpretation of her character, Nancy Hayes, as a cross between

tease and flirt (it wasn’t a stretch) fails to merit being called

one-dimensional acting.

Shot in Hawaii, “The Big Bounce” continues its ability to create a

black-hole effect with both its characters and location. The Hawaii

featured in the comedy caper is more of a tourist attraction in

purgatory. Construction sites, jail cells, small indoor cantinas

along with seaside bungalows with leaky showers and small television

sets show a different side to the islands visitors would rather

avoid.

When the scenes do move to a breathtaking view, the characters

stand there screaming and scheming, oblivious to the beauty and

serenity they are in the midst of. There are also short segments of

incredible beach and surfing scenes filled with strangers enjoying

themselves. Because the short scenes aren’t related to either the

characters or story line, their presence serves as a television

commercial meant to entice you to vacation in Hawaii.

If “The Big Bounce” were a student film, its characterizations and

story would be of acceptable quality. The director, George Armitage

(“Grosse Pointe Blank”), left film school a while back. Given that

there are so many problems with the film in so many different areas,

the failure of “The Big Bounce” should be generously spread around to

include the producer and financial backers. There are better ways to

throw your hard-earned money away than spending it on this film.

* PEGGY J. ROGERS, 40, produces commercial videos and

documentaries.

‘The Fog of War’ deserves attention

Robert S. McNamara had a profound effect on the history of the

20th century. He was an advisor to the Air Force during World War II,

president of Ford Motor Co. for one month in 1960 and secretary of

defense during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations.

Vietnam has been called “McNamara’s war.” Supporters call him a

genius who used business logic to improve the efficiency of the

military. Critics have called him a heartless murderer. “The Fog of

War” is a new documentary film about the life of McNamara, in which

he reflects on his successes and failures.

This movie provides a window into the mind of a controversial man,

his personality and his decision-making strategy. McNamara narrates

throughout the movie and sounds like a man who is afraid of what will

happen if he doesn’t tell us what he’s learned. He’s too arrogant to

apologize for his actions, but he also knows the potential

consequences of military mistakes.

Repeatedly, in what sounds like both a plea for forgiveness and a

staunch warning, McNamara tells us that generals make human mistakes

that cost lives; sometimes these mistakes cost thousands of lives. In

an age where many countries have nuclear weapons, a single mistake

could mean the destruction of an entire nation. There’s no learning

curve with nuclear weapons.

The discussion of the Cuban Missile Crisis, which happened under

McNamara’s watch, sheds more light on one of scariest moments in our

nation’s history. After meeting with Castro later in life, McNamara

learned that when the United States began the blockade of Cuba, Cuba

already had nuclear weapons. He emphasizes that pure luck is the only

thing that kept that situation from blowing up into a nuclear war.

His concern is how rational leaders came very close to the total

destruction of their societies, and how this danger still exists

today.

McNamara doesn’t apologize for the Vietnam War, but he does admit

that it was a mistake to treat Vietnam like an extension of the Cold

War instead of a civil war. He takes some of the responsibility for

the strategy to firebomb Japan during World War II and admits that he

and General Curtis Lemay might have been tried for war crimes if the

United States had lost the war. Most Japanese cities were wooden, and

the strategy to use incendiary bombs killed hundreds of thousands of

Japanese civilians. Lemay’s command also dropped the nuclear bomb on

the Japanese, a decision that McNamara questions from a strategic

point of view.

The movie provides a lesson in history to younger generations, but

it’s important to realize that this is history being filtered through

McNamara’s perspective. He’s telling his version of history. Director

Errol Morris, whose previous credits include “The Thin Blue Line,”

does an effective job of using visuals to put McNamara’s comments in

perspective, but the narration is all McNamara and, like all

politicians, he’s a skilled liar. Composer Philip Glass contributes a

beautiful soundtrack that feels haunting in context with McNamara’s

remarks and Morris’s visuals.

This film is nominated for the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature,

and has a very strong chance of winning. We’re very lucky to live in

an area of the country where we can see movies like “The Fog of War.”

History and government teachers need to take advantage of this

opportunity and take their students to see this film.

There’s a link for a lesson plan on the film’s website to help

facilitate this. Although production on this movie began back in the

1990s, its message seems especially poignant in light of the current

military situation in Iraq. This is a must-see for anyone who cares

about whether we should allow politicians and generals to repeat the

mistakes of our past.

* JIM ERWIN, 40, is a technical writer and computer trainer.