And the men who hold high places

On to our regularly scheduled program. Here is a list of shite that's really good shite.

1) The Street Stops Here

If every once in awhile I flip, so be it. If I didn't, these kids would get swallowed up by the streets. 

This documentary is about High School basketball coach Bob Hurley who has been coaching at St Anthony's in New Jersey for a shit ton of years. St. Anthony's has one of the best HS basketball programs in the nation and Hurley is one of the greatest basketball coaches in the nation. He is demanding and tough but the kids who play for him respect him so much and know that by playing for him they're getting a shot at a better life -- I'm not talking about the NBA (which would be nice, sure), but a college education (hopefully, that does still mean something, eek). Admittedly, I shed a tear. Ok? These stories always get to me. Hurley's received many lucrative offers to get out of dodge and be a college coach or recruiter, but has always turned them down. He wants to teach 16-17 year olds of the inner city because he knows that at that age, he still has a chance to influence them in a positive way. Oh and St. Anthony is a poor school. I mean, they don't even have a gym-- They rent their basketball court. They have to make up a large part of their operational budget through fundraising. After watching this documentary, I felt compelled to donate. I think you will too. And you can do so at this here link. Or you can just, you know, google it yourself.

Oh, and I know coaches haven't been popular this past year. Leave Hurley out of it. He's a Mensch. He doesn't act all nice and silly with his kids or try to ingratiate himself with them. He means business, he shows up and gives a damn. And he can be a total asshole, but that's his way and everyone knows it. 

2) Anna Karenina - The Movie (2012)

Anna isn't a criminal, but she broke the rules.
Countess Nordsten, refusing to see Anna socially.

Tom Stoppard wrote the hell out of this script y'all. It got totally jipped in the Golden Globe nominations, which is an unfortunate predictor of Oscar Nominations. Ugh, I have a pop culture chip lodged in my frontal lobe. Why do I even care. I saw this in Aspen and really really enjoyed it. Maybe it's because I was on vacation and I love everything on vacation, or maybe it's because it wasn't as hyped up as, say, Sky Fall (Blasphemy! but 'Meh', 'cept for the Judi Dench scenes), but this film took me on a journey. Damn it was tough to be a scorned lady in imperial Russia. We've come a long way (thank you, women of England). And you should also know that I've never been a huge Keira Knightley fan, but she rocked this movie as did the other actors. 

3) Harvard Beats Yale 29 - 29
Good documentary about a legendary football match between Harvard and Yale in 1968 in which Yale was, how do I put this, the VERY obviously favored team. Yale was kicking Harvard's ass for the majority of the game until Harvard came back out of nowhere in the last two minutes of the game. I love me a comeback.







4) Killer Joe

Besides a scene that triggered my gag reflex (you'll know which one if you watch the director's cut), this movie is excellent. A bleak, white trashy world in which Mathew McConaughey masterfully depicts a sociopathic contract killer who also happens to be a cop. What better way to spend a Sunday afternoon?






5) The Hopeful

I don't need false excitement, but I need something! I need something! 
Coach Dan O'Day to his team in the middle of a dismal performance:

See, while I don't actually watch much sports during the year -- unless it's the Superbowl, the NCAA, the Grand Slams or the Olympics -- and get annoyed, possibly due to my ignorance, with all the Football postings on FB (Go Cowboys! Oh man! Fumble? Fumble this you mofo! Personal foul? That ref deserves jail time. Take him out of the game! Wtf are you doing, Tebow!), I am such a huge fan of sports documentaries and movies. I'm sure there's a deep psychological reason for that. Here's another sports doc about a young man, Cody Keith, whose dream it is to play Division I football. It was a pretty controversial story because his parents were rich enough to move across the country just so he could find a highschool that would give him more playing time. And he was certainly not a well known player to college recruiters. That said, he works his butt off and seems like a terrific kid, so all you can do is root for him the whole way through.

6) George Bellows at the Met

Highly recommend this exhibit at the Met highlighting the work of George Bellows.