June 16, 2010 |
"June
17, 1994" is Brett Morgen's tone-poem documentary about a day in the
life of American sports and heroes of sport. It was the day that Arnold
Palmer played his final, fraught round at a U.S. Open, the day the World
Cup began in Chicago, that the New York Rangers got a ticker-tape
parade for winning the Stanley Cup, that the Knicks and the Rockets
played the fifth game of the NBA finals. Most famously, it was the day
that, with former teammate Al Cowlings at the wheel, O.J. Simpson,
charged with the murder of ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend
Ronald Goldman, took his slow ride around the freeways of Southern
California in a white Ford Bronco, holding a gun to his head.
Sports is more than the toy department of our culture, it's often the
source of excellent documentary work. Case in point: "More Than a Game,"
which is destined to be known as "the LeBron James movie" but in truth
is a whole lot more. It shows how the powerful bond that James formed
with his teammates in high school and earlier sustained him and
transformed everyone's lives. Also pay attention to a continuing series
of involving documentaries, "30 for 30," sponsored by ESPN Films for the
cable network and using big name directors.
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