This is a series of short films by well-known film makers for ESPN, marking their 30th anniversary. It’s been a mixed bag so far, with some outstanding films mixed in with some real stinkers that could have been really good (One Night in Vegas, I’m looking at you.)
Tonight was one of the best. Once Brothers is the story of the breakup of the Yugoslavian championship basketball team due to the civil war between Serbia and Croatia, as told by Vlade Divac. Vlade leaves his family behind and goes on a road trip that follows his development as a basketball player and the development of a great Yugoslav national team. He describes how the civil war broke up great freindships with his former teammates, and ends with his walking through Zagreb, being cursed at by people who probably weren’t even alive when he was helping Yugoslavia win world championships.
Lots of commentary by Divac, Toni Kukoc, Dino Radja, and memories of Drazen Petrovic.
I’d put this episode at the very top along with The Two Escobars, a documentary about the 1994 Columbian national soccer team and specifically the influence of Pablo Escobar, a drug kingpin and funder of the national team, and Andres Escobar, team captain who was murdered after scoring an own goal in the aforementioned World Cup. It was reported that the own goal caused huge gambling losses for several Columbian drug lords.
See, I don’t get the praise for “The Two Escobars.” It wasn’t bad, certainly, but it just freaking dragged. At some point you just say to the screen, “Yes, I get it, he was a nice guy – now can we please advance the narrative?”
I think the best two are “Winning Time” (Reggie Miller vs. the Knicks) and the one about the day of the OJ chase. I actually had to cancel the recording of last night’s broadcast, so I’ll try to get it in reruns tonight.
Since I was a big Miami fan as a kid, I especially enjoyed “The U”. I haven’t seen “The 2 Escobars”, but remember the incident well. My girlfriend at the time was Colombian, and her family took it pretty hard since her dad played for Colombia once upon a time.
The ones I’ve seen that I really liked are “The U” (my favorite, but I’m a Canes fan), “Guru of Go” (Paul Westhead and Hank Gathers), and “Run Ricky Run” (Ricky Williams). It got pretty dusty in the living room while I watched “Guru of Go.” I’ve got the Terry Fox doc on the dvr, but haven’t had a chance to watch it yet. I’m thinking it may get dusty again. I’m still sitting on “The Two Escobars” and a few others, but I think they’ve probably peaked with those of interest to me.
The one about the American Little League team that beat Taiwan was pretty good. The one about George Steinbrenner wasn’t, IMHO. Just didn’t have any oomph, and made the youngish Steinbrenner who’s running the team now seem like a dweeb (which maybe he is).
I’ve got a backlog of about 6 episodes on my DVR to watch but thus far Winning Time was by far my favorite. That was compelling and just plain fun to watch. The 2 Escobars was decent but it felt a little too much like a PBS special and not giving a rats ass about soccer certainly didn’t help. Small Potatoes was a lot of fun for the nostalgia and the Trump stuff, people forget how weird it was to have 2 football leagues that were actually worth watching. The Terry Fox one, I forget the name, was pretty emotional but in the grand scheme of things I didn’t really care. I’m a bit surprised I didn’t remember anything about it considering how big it was for Canada but that just goes to show how little Americans cared about that. The OJ one, I’m too lazy to look up the date/title, was amazing simply because time has overshadowed how many sports events were happening in the midst of that. Before that doc all I remembered was the chase, I had no idea so much else was happened, including the World Cup in Chicago.
By the way, I strongly recommend people who enjoyed the shows check out the 30 for 30 podcasts. Some of the interviews with the principles of the shows are a riot and often give lots of context to the stuff. Listening to the directors of The 2 Escobars was especially cool to hear them tell stories about filming that stuff.
The Michael Jordan baseball one was pretty good. I was pretty young at the time and didn’t really know about the death of his father. I was also surprised at how much work he put in to it and how much he had to let his ego go and just play ball. I remember when the retirement happened and the feeling at the time was that it was just a joke. I guess it wasn’t a joke to Michael.
I liked The Two Escobars because I never knew the backstory of how influential Pablo Escobar was in building the Columbian soccer program. It was new information to me. Contrast that with the Terry Fox story - I knew a little about him, that he had tried to run across Canada, but partway through his cancer recurred and he had to stop then he died. The documentary was about how he tried to run across Canada, but partway through his cancer recurred, and he had to stop and then he died.
I also liked the OJ story, the Reggie Miller vs. the Knicks one, and Ricky Williams. The one with Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova was interesting because it really showed how attracted to the spotlight Chris Evert was. She did about 90% of the talking. I can see how her marriage to Greg Norman failed - He’s still considered and treated as a star, and she isn’t. Too bad, as she was one of my first “older women” crushes as a teenager.
Another one I like nobodies mentioned was the USFL movie. I knew Trump was the one who ruined it, but wasn’t familiar with the people who tried to push back.
Obviously a big fan here. Besides the two mentioned in that thread, Small Potatoes: Who Killed the USFL? and Muhammad and Larry I’ve managed to catch several others.
*The Legend of Jimmy The Greek, The U, Guru of Go, Run Ricky Run, Without Bias, One Night in Vegas. *
Usually they’re pretty well done and provide either information or an angle I’d not been privy to before. Favorite so far? Probably The U. I well remember the astonishing way Miami broke onto the scene and many of the participants but that really answered ‘the why.’
Last night, I watched “Once Brothers”. It was fascinating. I knew that Divacs and Petro had a falling out due to the wars in Yugoslavia. But I didn’t really know the whole story of the Yugoslavia team and its impact on Yugoslavia, and the war’s impact on the team. Talk about complicated situations. I really felt bad for Divacs. Some of the old footage including Magic, Drexler, etc. was also remarkable. I couldn’t believe that the footage was available. And I also learned that Toni Kukoc is quite the communicator. His take on the decisions and interactions of the various players was very rational.
I was also reminded of how Petro’s death set back the Nets so much. He was on the verge of becoming a truly great NBA player. I remember being devastated when I learned he died.
For those that know the full story and watched the episode, did they leave anything out? Was there even more to the story than what was shown?