damaddwebba
Lurker
Don't know if it's already been posted, but a fun read on one of my favorite movies.
I didn't know Wesly couldn't ball.
An oral history of Ron Shelton's basketball comedy 'White Men Can't Jump' - Grantland
White Men Can't Jump begins with a 19-minute sequence that features a version of "Just a Closer Walk With Thee" by the Venice Beach Boys, more rat-a-tat "yo momma" jokes than a season's worth of BET's ComicView and, of course, some pickup basketball. Director Ron Shelton (Bull Durham, Tin Cup) wanted to establish that his actors a ragtag cast that included a burgeoning movie star, a fifth-lead sitcom actor, former NBA players, Division-I washouts, weekend warriors, and Kadeem Hardison in a goofy hat really had game. So when the film's stars, Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson, step to the top of the key for a best-of-five shooting contest, Shelton doesn't cut away to the basket. No camera tricks, no editing, no ringers. There was just one problem: His actors couldn't stop chucking up bricks.
"We were looking at our watches like, 'When are these guys gonna make one?'" says actor Ernest Harden Jr., who looked on during the six-hour shoot. One day on set, Harden uttered what became the film's mantra: That word action is a motherfukker. "You could be prepared," Harden says. "And then you hear 'action' and everything goes wrong."
In that opening scene, Harrelson's Billy Hoyle wins the shooting contest and the accompanying $62 purse. Snipes's Sidney Deane and Hardison's Junior would not go to Sizzler that night. Instead, the sequence ends on a close-up of Snipes, a sly grin painted on his face though he lost a little cash to a goofy white guy, he gained a new running mate.
White Men Can't Jump is an unconventional sports movie vulgar, funny, a real shaggy-dog tale. There's a climactic big game at the end, but there are also unflinching takes on race, relationships, and surviving in America. Twenty years after its release, Grantland spoke to the cast and crew of the funniest basketball movie ever made.
I. "There is a democracy on the playground."
From college to summer leagues to the playground, Ron Shelton played basketball his entire life. In 1991, he was a regular at an outdoor court in Hollywood. One day, he arrived for a game to find the entrance chained shut.
Ron Shelton (writer, director): I asked someone, "What happened?" This guy goes, "Jesse went to his glove compartment." I didn't know that "Going to your glove compartment" meant going to get a gun to settle a dispute. There was an argument about whether something was a block or a charge and he went to his glove compartment and shot a guy dead. I then moved my game indoors to the Hollywood Y.
I didn't know Wesly couldn't ball.
An oral history of Ron Shelton's basketball comedy 'White Men Can't Jump' - Grantland
White Men Can't Jump begins with a 19-minute sequence that features a version of "Just a Closer Walk With Thee" by the Venice Beach Boys, more rat-a-tat "yo momma" jokes than a season's worth of BET's ComicView and, of course, some pickup basketball. Director Ron Shelton (Bull Durham, Tin Cup) wanted to establish that his actors a ragtag cast that included a burgeoning movie star, a fifth-lead sitcom actor, former NBA players, Division-I washouts, weekend warriors, and Kadeem Hardison in a goofy hat really had game. So when the film's stars, Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson, step to the top of the key for a best-of-five shooting contest, Shelton doesn't cut away to the basket. No camera tricks, no editing, no ringers. There was just one problem: His actors couldn't stop chucking up bricks.
"We were looking at our watches like, 'When are these guys gonna make one?'" says actor Ernest Harden Jr., who looked on during the six-hour shoot. One day on set, Harden uttered what became the film's mantra: That word action is a motherfukker. "You could be prepared," Harden says. "And then you hear 'action' and everything goes wrong."
In that opening scene, Harrelson's Billy Hoyle wins the shooting contest and the accompanying $62 purse. Snipes's Sidney Deane and Hardison's Junior would not go to Sizzler that night. Instead, the sequence ends on a close-up of Snipes, a sly grin painted on his face though he lost a little cash to a goofy white guy, he gained a new running mate.
White Men Can't Jump is an unconventional sports movie vulgar, funny, a real shaggy-dog tale. There's a climactic big game at the end, but there are also unflinching takes on race, relationships, and surviving in America. Twenty years after its release, Grantland spoke to the cast and crew of the funniest basketball movie ever made.
I. "There is a democracy on the playground."
From college to summer leagues to the playground, Ron Shelton played basketball his entire life. In 1991, he was a regular at an outdoor court in Hollywood. One day, he arrived for a game to find the entrance chained shut.
Ron Shelton (writer, director): I asked someone, "What happened?" This guy goes, "Jesse went to his glove compartment." I didn't know that "Going to your glove compartment" meant going to get a gun to settle a dispute. There was an argument about whether something was a block or a charge and he went to his glove compartment and shot a guy dead. I then moved my game indoors to the Hollywood Y.
and then then they just keep goin
at this part tho
