⁠Love & Basketball (2000)⁠

Hey, it's your old pal Slim, and this is 70 millimeter of podcasts for film fans just like you. With me, as always, is my close friend and artist, Danny Haas. Hello. And our close friend and movie insider, Protolexus. Rest in peace. Dig if I tell. But every episode is connected to a theme of that month, and this time, it's femtember. We're only covering movies directed by women, and this week is a patron-suggested pick of Love and Basketball from the year 2000. And you can use your chapters, chat, you can use the chapters in your podcast app to skip to that discussion if you want. Let's spotlight a review real quick. From username Protolexus, Love and Basketball, and kissing, a lot of kissing with tongue. Deep tongue kissing, next on 70 mm. We'll get into it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Terrortober. Is that the name? Next week. Terrortober. I've settled on it. Or wait, no. What did I mean? Tormenttober. Still don't even know. Tormenttober. That's it. Yeah. Tormenttober. Tormenttober. Kicks off next week. And we got to get, we have a lot to get to this tonight. I mean, my notebook is full. I'm paging through. You can't hear it, but I'm paging through my notebook. Yeah. Back and forth. Terror-tormenttober. Next week, officially kicks off. We have the pick. I'm going to announce it right now, because we have a lot to get. We have the pick. You're saying it now. I'm saying it now, next week. All right. From the Master of Horror himself. Stephen King It. The OG. We're not doing the new one. We're going back to the TV movies. Yes. It. Yes. I believe it's streaming right now. So no excuse. Not to watch this. No excuse. No excuse. I'm frightened. Streaming on Tooby. For free. Fire this up in your browser, if you want. None of this new stuff. Chrome. Safari. But that's not it. We in the spirit of innovation. We're always having our team meetings or breakout rooms. And thinking how we can innovate further. Next week, we're going to announce all our picks. Yeah. To kick off the month during the it episode. It's a big month. So no more excuses. No excuses. No. No excuses month. So get ready. I have my pick locked. Are you? No. I am not locked. You're not locked. No. Not even close. Halloween ends. Readups. The end heads arise again. Kill me. Kill me. Yeah. Paul is pointing out the runtime of the original it. It was a two-night event. I think that will probably explain the runtime a little bit. So buckle up. Two nights. Part of are you locked for your pick for Tormenttober? Yeah. I was explaining this in DMs earlier. I had been locked for a month. No. I was so locked. No one's ever been as locked. But then I said, let me check. What's the streaming situation on my pick? Not only is it not streaming anywhere. You cannot watch it on demand anywhere either. And it's hard to get a hold of in a physical desk. So it just did not. It seems like the fate is telling me something. Do you want to tell us what it is? No. I do not. I want to do it. I want to do it maybe next year. So I'm back to the drawing board basically. Okay. Back to the board. Back to the old drawing board. All right. So we'll circle back to that topic later on. But next week is it. Stephen King, the master of horror himself. Tim Curry. He's never missed. Name ten movies Tim Curry has ever missed on. Thank you. I dare you. Pennywise is the character's name. Spoilers. It's not a spoiler. Real quick. I have to mention something that's pretty cool. I don't even think I've really talked to you about it both. But we're officially Patreon ambassadors. Excuse me. We've been invited to the ambassador program. What does that mean? It means it's for like successful creators who built little following for themselves. Oh. Get early access to features. Events. Events. Workshops. Let's get that on our business card. I'm putting it on my... I got... They sent me little social media things that said like I'm a Patreon ambassador. Hashtag Patreon Ambassador. Oh. Anywho. You do have some new patrons to say hello to Owen Graham, Sammy, Justin, Samantha, Daniel, Tom, Brad, and Gabby all joined the VHS Village Discord by joining our Patreon. I got discounts on prints. And they got access to the Treasure Planet episode. Hmm. Good time. You think fondly back to that episode we recorded Proto Treasure Planet? It was a great app. It really was. You know, I listened to a few minutes of it, and I was pleasantly surprised at our conversation. Do you ever go back to listen to the ones we do? What's your listening habits for our own show? I think the first year I used to listen to every episode, but yeah, I fell off. Yeah, I don't really listen too much anymore. I think I can tell when you listen because usually you send us a DM after... Or like you're laughing at some random thing that happened and say it was funny. Did you see how funny I was at this moment? Shit. See how my joke landed? What about you, Daddy? Do you ever go back and listen? No, never. I got tired of listening to my voice. Hmm. Especially when you're recording four different podcasts a week at this point now. I don't envy you what you do. Thank you. You do hard work. I'll tell you what, if I'm ever on two podcasts in one week and I have to edit both of them, you're if I really get sick of myself, like, bad. What are we going to talk about now? Just... We about to say something? I just wish it was the cage pitch. Oh, the cage? Yes. I'm excited. The cage. So we mentioned it last week, but the treasure planet was our last rolled pick from our interns. They're suggesting movies they want to be supported only ever said. So Proto has got the machine, the infernal machine that will roll three more movies for us to do for... Oh, my God. Patreon. It's right here, baby. Careful. Yeah, this is exciting. I was perusing the list earlier and there are some big movies on here. I mean, so big, we might have to veto them. We have veto power. Just remember, we have the veto power. We can veto at any moment if we need to. Also have the power of attorney. That's true as well. All right. So we're going to roll for three picks. God. Is anybody's ball game right now? Ew. Let me get some balls going. We have one ball. Deep two balls. We have three balls. All right. Oh, my God. See, my first ball. Oh, these are fading. These are not... This is not permanent ink on these balls. But I can make this out. This is an 11. Ooh. Let's see. Early after. What the... It's just got this long. He's a scraper. It is a scraper. You guys know that. Oh, this is exciting. I've wanted to see this movie. This... Our first winner is Robert Townsend. And his pick is from 2018. Hold war. What's that? Hold war. This is that. Hold war. This is that. Hold war. Hold war. This is that. I know it's a black and white movie. What? What's that called? Tommy Lee. Tommy Lee Jones? Tommy Lee Jones? Tommy Lee Jones? Yeah. Am I... No, I'm thinking of... I don't know what the hell movie is. What movie am I thinking of? I don't know. I think Ron Howard directed it. Didn't Ron Howard directed Tommy Lee Jones movie? Cold War? Cold War? I don't know. Somebody knows and is typing. I've never heard of this movie. What is this movie? It's on my watch. I know. I've heard this. A man and a woman meet in the ruins of post-war Poland with vastly different backgrounds and temperaments they're fatally mismatched and yet drawn to each other. It was on prime. Cold Mountain. That's what I was thinking of. Thank you, Kev. I'm glad we don't have to do that. I was like, what the hell kind of pick is that? Cold Mountain. This... This smells like subtitles. Oh, yeah, baby. Uh-huh. Look at all those... Dots over the letters. Polish. All right. The first... We got a... Ball is 28. Oh, lucky number 28. Big money. Big money. No worries. Shrek too. Oh. Vito. Okay. So this is interesting. This is the only movie on the list that was picked by two separate people. Oh. So the ball is from Ben Frederick. But it's really like a double win because our... Uh-huh. Joshua. Our friend. He also picked this movie and the movie is Sing Street. Sing Street. Oh, we just covered this on the letterbox, shall we believe they're not? Okay. Okay, John Carney. A boy growing up in Dublin during the 1980s escapes his strained family life by starting a band to impress the mysterious girl he likes. Is this about Bono? Stay tuned. Oh. His name's Bill Bono. Really? Will you Bono? Billy Bono. Billy Bono. Billy Bono actually sounds like an Irish name. Could you do it? No, I'm not. I know because you were expecting me to do it. I won't do it. Oh, boy. This is... Wow. This is another interesting ball to pull. Oh. What number? This is... This is 27. Okay. You did 28. You did 28. 28 and 27? Uh, yeah. Oh, yeah. That's right. Okay. Uh... This is the pick from Lena. Now, I actually just messaged them on Patreon because their original pick was Scott Pilgrim versus the world, of course, we just did that the other month. So they changed their pick and it's Blue Valentine. Blue? The Ryan Gosling John. Yeah. It's the Ryan Gosling movie and is it Michelle Williams in this? Yeah. Casey just said, oh, my. What does that mean? Can you decipher that? Are we in danger? Is there deep tonguing? All right. All right. The synopsis for Blue Valentine from 2010. Oh, yeah. She says... Dean and Cindy live a quiet life in a modest neighborhood. They appear to have the world at their feet at the outset of their relationship. However, his lack of ambition in her retreat into self-absorption caused potentially irreversible cracks in their marriage. I mean, the cover looks very sexual. Colin Chatt says, have fun getting emotionally wrecked. That doesn't look like Ryan Gosling on the cover, though. That looks like the sheriff from Stranger Things with that beard. What? Hopper? That looks like a hopper face. Get out of here. That doesn't look like a hopper face to people, I'm posting it in chat. All right. Let's look at this. Tell me that that doesn't look like Hopper. Oh, that is hot. That's not Hopper? Apparently, it's not Hopper. Wow. This is the nervous thing I've heard. What was the last time Ryan Gosling was on the show? Barbie. Barbie. Okay. And the notebook we also did. Hell yeah. We haven't done first man, but I feel like that's been talked about. Or drive. Drive. Boy, if I don't have to hear about drive for the rest of my life. Okay. You know. A imaginative drive had come out in like peak letterboxed. Would anyone survive? Server is melting. Let's move on. Okay. We have three movies. We did it. We have a lot of show to get to. Love and Basketball, just the bottom of the hour. Part of any movies you want to talk about that you watched? It's past week. Yeah. There's two movies. Yeah. I think two movies I want to talk about. One is just let everybody know back on the AFI train back on the journey. I watched Cabaret. Oh my. From my boy Bob Fossy, of course. This is from 1972. Yeah. I was excited to watch this. The synops of this is it's 1931 Berlin. So as the Nazi party was not yet fully in power, but it was around and causing problems in Germany. Sally Bowles is played by Liza Manelli. And she's she dances at a cabaret. And it's her with a a British man who is teaching in Berlin and they begin a relationship. It's interspersed with like their life together and getting to know each other, but then also scenes at the cabaret. I guess from the musical cabaret. I don't know anything about musicals. So don't at me. But of course those scenes are fantastic. Love those scenes. But the story doesn't really totally do it for me. I am not a Liza head. Sorry. Wow. I don't fully engage with the whole Liza Manelli thing for whatever reason. Interesting. I think she's great in it, but she's just not really my my vibe. But the movies, the movie was good. I gave it three stars. Three stars. Michael York also in this. Yes, he plays the guy. He plays the guy. Yeah, I couldn't really place him from anything. Even after I looked at his his his movies. He plays the basil exposition in awesome powers. Remember? Basil. If you say so. Remember when Austin drinks a cup of coffee, but it's actually human shit. No one's seen awesome power slim. He's like basil. These coffee tastes like shit. And basil likes. That's because it is shit Austin. Do you remember that one? Austin. I got the only person I've played it. It's seen Austin powers. Let's move on. All right. Other movie I watched. I watched the new Pixar movie Elemental. Oh. Someone had to do it on the movie. Someone on the back has had to watch it. I figured I would do it. So I sat down with my kids. And all I want to say is we've talked a lot about Pixar. What's going on with Pixar? And I felt like I found a good analogy for how I feel about Pixar. I feel like Pixar is like Nintendo if they only ever made Mario games. Oh. Okay. Like all they do is make Mario games. But what they really need to do is they need to branch out. They need to make their Zelda. You know, they need to make their Metroid game. Metroid. They got to go. They got to change the formula. They need to get, I don't know if it's fresh blood. What? Some new ideas. Somebody to get in there and shake it up. They make great movies. But at this point, we need to take a turn in some way. So Elemental, it's good. It's kind of more, you know, more of the same from Disney, from Pixar, of course. I was, you know, the waterworks were coming in the final scene. They got me again, God. I got you. You did it. But it's kind of like I like the angle. It's basically, you know, of like someone, you know, an immigrant coming into a foreign land. But they are an element. So it goes around kind of like a melting pot in New York City kind of deal. So it's a cute story with the fam. Yeah, I did. Yeah, my son, my, my eight year old, he loved it. He wanted to watch it immediately again. Wow. It's a good side praise. Yeah. Okay. Shush. Danny, what did you watch? Well, I've had a busy week. So my watching are baseball audience around the corner, right around the corner. Right around the corner. I have it rendering right now. Oh my God. It's rendering hours of rendering. So I've been able to watch some TV and four episodes into the fourth season of Expedition Bigfoot. And I love this show. Big, big foot guy. We're just around the corner from finding them. It's so close. We're real close. We're on the trail. We're in Alaska this season. And, you know, Ronnie, Mariah and Russell are hot on the trail. And we're close. We're real close. And I love this show. And I love the entertainment behind this show. And that's what I've been watching. It is a very entertaining show. Yeah. I yell at them a lot. I watch this show. Thank you. You're in the Alaska forest at night. Terrifying, actually. That's more scary than anything else. And it's this guy, this trail hunter. You know, he can hunt. He tracks people's like footprints. He's a tracker. He's a tracker. And they see something. They hear something in the Alaskan forest. Say it. What are the chances it's not a random animal? You're in a forest. Listen, Slim. You know when you hear an animal. You know animal noises. When you hear the noise that isn't... Hold on. Is anyone else shielded up right now? What's just happened? Bigfoot. He's like, just hit. As we're talking about Bigfoot. It's okay. Okay. You know when you hear Bigfoot. They know. They're experts. This is why I tune in. Listen. Next military. Folks might not know. But apparently it's common knowledge that Bigfoot is a shapeshifter. Okay. That is... You're getting into the... The QAnon Bigfooters. One of the hosts often talks about Bigfoot being a shapeshifter and also, quote, a tree manipulator. Well, the tree, the replanting of trees is fascinating. I do like that. The shapeshifting Bigfoot's... Listen. There's a little bit... There's a little bit outside of my beliefs. Quote. I experts say Bigfoot is known to be a shapeshifter. I think they run into more paranormal stuff than they admit that it's not Bigfoot related. I think it's more paranormal. That's probably true. I mean, there's one... The episode ends on a cliffhanger because there's one sag... Just a reminder. Love and basketball. Right around the corner. We're so close. Just as soon as we get through this Bigfoot talk. He finds a cave. The tracker finds a cave. Oh, baby. The cave. You know, that is like a my old mining cave in the Alaskan Mountains. You could... He gave me to go into that. He puts a halt to it with him and his camera because we got... I don't know if it's safe to breathe in there. Yeah. He calls his command center. He's like, listen, I found this cave. I think we might be close. You know what I mean? Close to Bigfoot. Yes. He's like, all right. I just talked to somebody. I just got my hands on this new technology. I think he might be perfect to help you. And I looked to him and I was like, oh, let me guess, a drone, a new drone that they're going to use. And it's the Google Cybernetic Dog Robot. Yeah. You remember this? You've seen the dog robot? Love the dog robot. He's been there doing his little robot walk and it senses if there's like harmful materials. Yeah. And it's safe to breathe. Testing the air. Tess the air. It was awesome. And the lidar on it, the scans. The lidar is cool. But again, at one point, there is some potential cloaking that Bigfoot might be doing in some of the video footage. No, they're running into dead miners. That's some paranormal stuff they're running into. Isn't the tragedy of book Bigfoot though, is that whoever finds him, it'll, no, it's going to be considered fake anyway. Yeah. I mean, we just, they just unveiled aliens and nobody cares about the aliens kind of Mexico. The past old news film proved Bigfoot 40 years ago, 60 years ago. We haven't even, I'll tell you what, for the folks, we got to move on from Bigfoot. But if you want to stick around for some aliens found in Mexico talk, we'll get into that in the uncut episode. We'll stick around. This is a movie podcast, folks. We have to give away our free year of letterbox patron every week. We give it out. It gets rid of ads, gets banner images on your profile, on your reviews as well. And tag your review 70 mm pod if you want to be considered for that. So Rob and left a review for Tom Boy last week. Five stars. As a kid, I was always play as the female characters in games. My friends would often make fun of me, but in my head it made a lot of sense. Hence I'm not playing as myself, but a fantasy or a play pretend version of who I wanted to be. That's probably why Selene Siamma's tomboy overwhelmed me with emotions. Even 12 years later, it still feels like there aren't many movies that explore gender and childhood in such a respectful and delicate way. Congratulations, Robin, for your year of letterbox patron. So we even have time to talk about what I watched. I want to talk about what I watched. We always have time for you, Slimey. We had to do one thing at least. I've been watching. I'm ready to reveal the TV show that I was watching. Finally, I refused to reveal last week. TV episode. I was watching a television show called From. Yeah. You ever heard about this show? Yes. Two seasons. Second season just ended, so I felt like it was time to dig in. I can't remember where I heard someone talk about it. Maybe it was from Baton Spider Discord. But it's SARS-Herald Perino from Lost. Not for him. He had his son, his son Walt, was kidnapped and he was like always. Walt. Walt. Walt. This is about a town in middle America. So it starts out with a really rundown town, Walt's dad, Harold, is the sheriff and he's ringing a bell. It's like sundown. I want to get inside. So everyone goes inside, locks their doors. Sun goes down and everyone's getting ready for bed and this little girl in her bedroom hears a knock at the window and she opens the drapes of this like grandmother, and she's like, oh honey, it's me. It's grandma, let me in. And the little girl's like, I don't know, and she's like, oh, come on, let me, it's let me in. It's grandma, honey. It's dark pale grandma face, a little girl opens up that window annihilated. Oh my God. Just enjoy it. I mean, you don't see it. You don't see it, but you find out, you know, was the intro plays and the mother had walked in, tried to stop it from happening. She also gets eviscerated like ribs, alps, stomach, mouth, torn open, it's a great start to the show. So I was pretty much hooked. And the gist is it's a lot like wayward pines, which was a book that I love that was eventually a TV show about, you know, people that were driving into a town and couldn't leave. Like they drive out of the town and they just end up back in the town. So that's what happens. Notice how this town gets new residents. People were like freaked out like, what the hell, I don't know where I am. We were on like a vacation. People don't know how to leave the town, but at night there's like these weird, slow-walking human beings that are some kind of like monster-ish thing that will kill you if they catch you. It reminds me a lot of lost and I think that's my main draw. It's like if lost was combined with wayward pines, it's two seasons. So it was like fun to binge it. James ended up coming into the room at one point and started seeing some stuff and he wanted to watch it with us. But I have no idea if there's going to be a third season, et cetera. So I don't. Check it out. MGM Plus. You can watch it on MGM Plus. MGM Plus. You know, we're staunch. You have a subscription. We're staunch support is MGM Plus on this show. We've always talked about how we love MGM. We were proponents of the MGM Amazon acquisition. So there you go. I'm sure it'll be on something more popular like Amazon Prime eventually. We got to get into our movie. Love and Basketball. This was suggested by at least Rachel in the Patreon post comments. I think several people tried to claim credit for it in Discord. There was a lot of main characters. What is love in basketball all about? Monica Wright is new in the neighborhood and shocks her and make a store neighbor Quincy when she can ball with the best of them. Quincy is the son of President David Palmer turned NBA star Zeke McCall and has aspirations to follow in his father's footsteps. In high school, love blooms between them and they both get accepted to USC to play basketball. A dream come true. But when tragedy strikes and the plans that they had made for themselves fall apart, they go their separate ways post college. But can their love stay aflame? Can the proximity of their childhood bedrooms reignite their passion? Can their passion for ball and make them lovers for life? Love and Basketball. Lovers for life. What? The end of the game. Your playing cycles. I don't know how they did it. Boy oh boy. What a pick. What a pick. Gina directing this movie, Prince by the Wood. Had you ever heard of this movie, Danny? Growing up. Growing up. No. I did hear about it like later on, but it wasn't a movie I was ever out to watch because I don't really enjoy, you know, I haven't enjoyed sports movies for a minute. But this one I think was brought up quite a bit when talking about a league of their own, kind of women's sports conversations. So that's the only reason I know about it. I never got around to it. I've seen the criterion disc often at Barnes & Noble, and that's about it. How many, I hope it's your average boards per game basketball, how many boards you put up? No, I've done, not done for me. Remember how great our ultimate Frisbee game was on the beach during one vacation trip? Yeah. Cheesh. I was just looking through those photos recently, actually. A bet you were. A bet you were. A bet you were. Boy. Proto? Any history with Love and Basketball or the director? I feel like I've known of this movie forever. I was actually surprised that it came out in 2000. I would have guessed this was like from 1992. Same. Completely the same. Oh wow. Yeah. So why did you say that? Well, I feel like I just feels like a movie that's always existed. Like I feel like I walk through blockbuster and saw the cover of this. Oh yeah, the cover is burned in my brain too. But also the way it's filmed. It's meant to look like that. Mosh points out that it is a period piece set during that time frame. So it's playing mind games on you. I got the genius. I think the first movie I'd seen of hers was probably the old guard. I had not. Well, actually, I'll correct myself. The old guard I watched when that came out in Netflix based in the comic. And I really wanted to see the woman king. But actually, as I was watching Love and Basketball, I started to like have memories of certain scenes, which we get into. So I think I have seen this when it came out. I don't know if I just like was vaguely watching maybe. Interesting. Okay. We'll go around the room in our studio here. Each host generally jots down three things. We'll go round table and then wrap up with our uncle mentions, our letterbox rating. I started off last week. So let's go with old pro. Okay. Deep throat kissing. The amount of deep kissing, the tongue action in this movie, it looked like at certain points, they were like unhinge their jaws to get in there. Mercy. A lot of, a lot of sexual energy in this. And if it's real, their chemistry is off the charts. Yeah. Sexual, you name it, whatever chemistry you could have with it. Are you a being? I can imagine Gina being like, whoa, guys, the camera stopped. Like guys, we're done with the scene. I mean, how did you kiss in high school? Or you weren't going deep tongue into any suitors? No. I mean, I didn't, I don't think I knew how to kiss in high school. Yeah. I was a late bloomer. Danny, should we ask Casey what your kissing style was like in high school? She's live in chat right now. We both had braces. So there's no deep kissing. No. Too dangerous. You might attach yourself. Attached. Cut. It was a war zone when we kissed. Yeah, I agree. Their chemistry in this movie was sort of the roof. I mean, I guess right off the bat, they're seeing that they do it. Oh, wow. We'll get right into that scene when they see after the dance, right? And they're on the, in between, they're both their houses. What a moment. What a scene. How about the, the, the, the, the, the taking the moment to, uh, to it, like, see him pull out the condom and put it on. I thought that was an interesting shot. I don't know, like I've never seen that before, like, is it, is, is that the details that we need in this? That's the realism. That is the high school realism that we all missed out on. Uh, Kurtz is in chat, old friend of mine, Kurtz, Kurtz said that we watched this at my house in a high school, so I think, so that is probably my memory of this movie. And that maybe leads into my number one, which is during, I think it was during that scene where the Maxwell song plays. This woman's work, that's, that's the intro to that song was like transporting me, like, oh my god, I've heard this song so many times before when I was growing up. So I guess it had to have been in high school and I don't know if that, I don't know what it is about that song. I love the intro. So I went on YouTube and I watched the unplugged version of my, his rendition of that song. I mean, it's beautiful. Spicy. Hopefully other people agree with me that we're watching this movie. I think it's a beautiful rendition, um, but it's a cover of a Kate Bush song, um, Kate Bush popularized during Stranger Things, so, like soundtrack, I thought was incredible. No starts to cry off the fire. I know you've gotten rid of life and you're dead. I know you've got a lot of strength left. I know you've got it. I mean, right when that Maxwell song kicks, we're all biting our lip. Oh, yeah. White lip and bunch of big time. We know what's happening. We know what's coming. It's happening. I mean, service phase. I don't even know what song you're talking about. When you listen to this episode six, eight months from now, you'll get it. Okay. Danny, what's the first point on your list? First point, is this the best basketball movie ever made? Oh. I, I, I, as someone who doesn't enjoy sports movies, just the reason I don't really like sports movies that I feel like they're easily emotionally manipulative for the audience. I just enjoyed, uh, I think I enjoyed, um, Suna's scenes the most. I think she was, uh, pretty great. I, I watched an interview and she had never touched a basketball in her life before this movie. And Gina was out to cast, um, someone who could ball first before acting. And I think they had, they had tried to get like Serena Williams and some other athletes before her. And she, she had like a, a basketball coach for like five weeks or five months, whatever the number was. And she learned to, uh, to, to play, which I thought was incredible. And I think she did a great job. I really enjoyed those scenes. Um, they were just enough to not make me hate the movie. And, um, yeah, I just, I don't know. I really enjoyed the sport aspect of this, the, not the most, but it was like well balanced enough between this and the love story that it was enjoyable for me. Pearl, can you confirm if this is the greatest basketball movie ever made? You're the movie insider, basketball insider. I mean, in my opinion, no, I mean, I do not agree. I thought the basketball stuff was not, there's like a crossover that she does at the end. She breaks his ankles. Can, can we get a, can we take, have another take? No, you're wrong. Can we have another take, please? Um, I don't know. I just didn't really love the basketball stuff, but I also don't really like basketball. Oh, jeez. So it's kind of like a hard sell for me off the bat. Like, there's the one where she finally, where she stands her ground and, and takes the offense of foul. Yeah. And it's like the refs like, no shot, offensive foul. And like, that's the way the, the game ends with her taking a charge out of my face. Well, just a pre-emptive apology to all our basketball fans out there. There were a few comments in chat about Hoosiers. There was a, I presume, a fake comment about space jam, um, snoozers, you want to talk about a soundtrack, snooze jam. Also, I guess air is air basketball movie, air bud, air bud, white men can't jump. A lot of memories. A lot of memories. There you go. It's interesting. You do the, you do the math. What about blue chips? Is that, is that a basketball cup with a shack? Fake. That is a fake statement. Uh, I liked the basketball in this. I would have thought that she was a basketball player growing up before she was cast in this movie. So, yeah, I, I dug that stuff for the movie. Pro? Next point? Man, halfway through this movie, Quincy really gets hard to like, um, that's seen with him. So there's, so the first there's a scene where they're on the bleachers and he's having a tough moment because he finds out that his dad was with another woman and they're talking it out. And then Monica's like, Hey, I got to go because I have curfew. And he's like, asking her to stay, but then he's like, all right, you can go. And then a few scenes later, he's with like this other girl and then they get into a fight. And he basically admits it's because of that whole, uh, that whole thing of her, like, not willing to stay out past curfew to kind of blow her chance on the team. I'm like, Quincy, come on, man, what, like, what are we doing here? What are we doing here? I thought that was, I thought that was pretty good at like, describing, uh, how silly people can be in relationships and like, shortsighted at the same time and just like how, like, it was like, okay, this is like a real flaw, like an obvious flaw in your relationship of, like, not seeing what's important to your partner. Um, so even though it, like, maybe not like the character, it felt like pretty realistic in terms of like, how relationships, relationships play out. So I really like that part of the story. Maybe especially even among young people at that time too. Yeah, I also like, one of my points is like, should they have even ended up together? No. Based on like how he reacted to some of this stuff. No, he's a bad boyfriend. I think it would have, I would have liked in the story more if he kind of like vocalized to her that he was struggling about whether or not to go pro, like he was so angry that like, I'm thinking to just leave him in school. I'm thinking about going pro, but I really want to talk to you about it because I think that would have carried more weight because his pro career, he like flounders when he goes pro too soon. I kind of would have liked to see him almost resent her for years about like that decision. Like if you, if you stayed there that night, maybe I would have stayed in school and you know, I got an education and maybe learned more about basketball before I went pro. So like that in my head makes more sense with then him just like freaking out because she wouldn't stay late to talk to like, console him because he Brex, I mean, that decision, it like Rex's life for several years. I feel like in terms of becoming a pro player, a good pro player. Didn't he cheat on Monica by taking a girl to Burger King? I don't even know what her response to that. I mean, they did take her to Burger King in front of her like a total A hole. Like that scene was so uncomfortable. It was a different time. Burger King was much. If I had the Star Wars class as he needed to call it, I mean, you're in college. Burger King is it. I mean, that's your, that is it. That's your less half your life. I, I, I don't think that she should have ended up with him. And I think she should have moved on because she was way better off without him easily. He was a bad boyfriend. Yeah. I, I kind of agree. Yeah. I don't, I don't know. I mean, they were, I mean, they shoes on the other foot. You're not, you're telling me that he's not, you're telling me. He's saying that if she had this come up and it was bothering her and he had curfew that he would have sat there and talked it out with her. No, right. He's following curfew. He's doing everything he can to say a number one on the team. But because he's all the way to the NBA, because his ass is kissed. He's better than her. Yeah, that wildly different upbringing. Really? That's who? It's for her. Yeah, I don't know. I didn't, I didn't buy. I don't know. Is it, I, I, I will say that I don't remember seeing a movie that had her love of him was so intrinsically tied to her love of basketball. Like I think that's the main like differentiator. Like they almost like need each other to complete like that love of themselves and each other and the sport. So, I guess I'm willing to give a little bit leeively way for, for stuff like that. But I wish that was stronger. Like I wish that was like more clearly represented that there was this tie between their like love of basketball. It's like shown at the beginning and of course they're playing. But it's kind of like they're both like passionate about the sport but like separately almost. Yeah. Like I, I think I would have liked if there was like another scene when either they were in high school or college and playing one-on-one together to kind of like further that connection of how important it is. My number two. The, the idea of playing overseas. Like she eventually, you know, goes overseas after college is making a living. She and Italy. Spain. Spain. But I like, I hear about that a lot in like hockey. Like some people who can't crack at the NHL. They'll just go overseas and kind of like live like kings. But she talks about how like there's no family there. You're alone. But at the same time you're playing the sport that you love. I don't know. Like would you do that? Like it's just such a bonkers situation to be. Like you could do play basketball for the rest of your life. You'll just live alone. For the most part be so separated from your family and like rarely see them. I don't know. What did you think about the overseas business for basketball? Well, I think as a young person out of college, I think you could relate it to not just like being an athlete and playing a sport. But I think you could do it like any career. I was like, well, if you got a job opportunity, you're out of college and you could go work in a different country. I think if I was like 22, 23 with, you know, if I was single and didn't have other responsibilities, I would have been like, yeah, yeah, I'd definitely do this. Like if I'm going to do it now is the time to do it. And then, you know, I have the rest of my life ahead of me. I could do this for five years then come back, you know, whatever. So I think I would have been like in that scenario. I think it's, I would be very open to that. I mean, I think a point that has to be made though is there's nowhere for her to go after college. He kept saying she's going to be the first woman in the NBA, but the W and Bay doesn't even exist at this point. So anything after college for her, she, I guess, all American, et cetera, is professional sports overseas. So I feel like that was her only next step because she's not going to play in the NBA. And then what it's just she have to get a desk job, which is what she ends up getting anyway or the bank job. But yeah, I mean, I, I don't know. I see the appeal of going overseas and playing sports for your treated like a king. One thing that I thought was funny about that scene though was that they're in like the championship game in Spain. And then her teammate from college is on the other team. But they had like no idea that they were playing each other in the championship game. Like really? Yeah. They do not play each other at all during the season. Right. Right. To get to the chips is a late edition. Who knows? Her ankle just healed. Danny, what's next on your list? I in one of the one of the things I enjoyed most about this outside of the love story and basketball was both both of cues and Monica's relationships with their parents and how it was fleshed out with him and his dad and her and her mom. I think the when she comes back from overseas and that conversation they have in the kitchen where she slaps her was quite powerful. I mean, I thought it was a really good moment for the two of them. I really loved the performances in that moment. And then I, I, I really like that stuff with cue. I mean, there's moments of cue. I really disliked most in this movie. Of him just kind of be a jerk. But when he's dealing with this stuff with his father, I thought that was really heavy and really well done. At least so show the trajectory of his kind of character and how he's why he's treating Monica the way he is and et cetera, et cetera. I mean, those were surprising surprising bits of story when I had no idea what that'd be in this movie. I thought it was really well done. For me, I'm just like, this is a basketball romcom. So I wasn't expecting like the conversations around, you know, women's sports, the mother, daughter aspect, another tomboy story that we weren't even that prepared, well, I'm not prepared for it, but that we thought we'd talk about and the father, son, relationship, but that was really well done. Yeah. How about when they show him playing for the Lakers and this commentators are like, oh, and here comes the subs. You love to see these subs get some plenty of time in the league. Isn't that great? The fans love it. So demeaning. It was. I love the mother relationship that she had to. And like, you only really see a little bit of it at the beginning. Remember when she's like, the mom's like, I'm so tired. I'm going to go rest and then her dad comes in with the two shirts. Like, can you hire these for me tonight? I got a big day tomorrow. And she's like, oh, of course. And that's like that small glimpse that I guess stuck with her as a kid. And I did like, when she, she told around that she wanted more from her all those years, like, how many games did you come to in my career or like, and through school and whatever, although unfortunately, I don't think I saw the mom at that last game that they showed in the movie, the W.O.V.A. game. No, mom. She takes some notes down when you're getting yelled at. Sure, Proto. Well, about that scene that with the mom, I felt like that was kind of tacked on. And maybe it was kind of long. It was like a five minute argument that they were having. And it felt like it was almost like the climax of the movie. But it was like, wait, isn't this movie about her and Quincy? Right. So I felt like it was a little out of place, although there was pretty much that thread through the whole movie of the relationship with their parents. So that made sense. This, this final game that they're having to determine if they're going to spend the rest of their lives together or not. Hell yeah. And Quincy is hobbling around. You know, he's got a, he's got a brace on. He's still recovering from his, his torn ACL that he got from dropping off of hanging on a hoop. Which would that even happen? Can you like tell? Yeah. Really? It has happened in the NBA. Yeah. Wow. Well, I just felt like that game of him hobbling around like that. First of all, he's like five three. You know, far of a drop that is from the, from the, he's like the shortest player in the entire league. That's like a story drop for him. Yeah. True. True. Sorry. Go ahead. I'm sorry. I just felt like it was a little anticlimactic that like here there, they're going to go off, but he hasn't healed yet. And he's like hobbling around. Like, I don't know. Why couldn't they just say like more time has passed and then they could really go at it in a fair game. I don't know. I, I think when I love, well, first of all, I love this scene and I, after she loses and he says, hey, double or nothing and she turns, I love that shot. I actually thought the movie was going to end there. I thought that was going to be like this kind of vague ending where you don't know what happens after that. Freeze frame on the ball. Yeah. Like the naked gun ending. Maxwell back again. Really to send me over the edge. I like that scene. I loved how it showed every point. I love them getting rough with each other. I thought we're going to get, you know, I mean, we didn't potentially get some more tongue action. I love that. I love that scene. Danny, what do you think? Listen, the rom com lover and me love that scene too. It's stupid. It's ridiculous. It's exactly what I wanted though in that ending. But also, how about him viciously dunking on her? Yeah, that was hard. Like sure. We know you're taking her back. Come on, man. Well, I was just a dunk on her face. I wasn't sure what she was what he was going to do. Because it's a bad boyfriend. He was acting like he wasn't going to take her back. I feel like because it sounded like he was still kind of pissed and resented her not like reaching out to him when he reached out to her, especially when like the didn't one of the like her favorite players died or some news about was at the magic news. Like when I heard the news about magic, I reached out to you and she didn't reach out back. So I wasn't sure which direction it was going to go. Magic did. Bye. I know. That's why I said I'd somebody died oh wait, no, but yeah, I like the scene. My final point. I have a lot of honorable mentions. Let me see if I just pick one out. Omar Epps has maybe the most insane amount of swagger out of any actor I've ever seen in a feature film this year. I mean, every scene he was walking like he knew he was king shit in down. The one other scene that I was cracking up at when she goes to the dance with that date that she was hooked up with. Yeah. And he takes off her coat. See him lick his lips and her up and down as he was taking her coat off. My goodness. Look at those lips. My God. It was unreal. It was unreal. So I'll say the rest of my honorable mentions for that segment. So Danny. Yeah. Final point. My final point was going to be that last game. So another moment I loved was when she was finally drafted to drafted as I was drafted to USC. And she's doing the the scrimmages with the other teams and the older girls. And she gets a fast breakaway, but then pulls up for three three leaves the hand hanging like. Steph Curry is so unoriginal now like he's took this from her like she invented this. Like I'd imagine doing that as a rookie or a freshman on the team. That whole scene. I was I knew she was in trouble big time. I coached with the shoulder pads and the pants. She was she meant business. I can use you meant business business. Part of our dimensions found writing love and basketball. Honorable mentions. Let's see. Take five tell on yes. PN brutal brutal scene robberts. The era is gone. I'm pretty yes. PN. Yeah. Remember that. The brand is finished. It's on gyms across America. Okay. Oh, her coach was so lame. I could I just could not buy this this this coach and the acting putting in wasn't buying it. Also so the dads are great. And I mentioned it in the the intro of course Dennis Hayesbert playing Quincy's dad president from 24. I'll stay commercials burned into my memory. And then also Monica's dad Harry Lennox was commander lock on the matrix and like much of other things. Love and basketball. You know, I heard some talk of like is this movie corny. I felt I felt it was kind of corny. I can be perfectly honest. It didn't really work for me. This felt kind of like a hallmark movie to me as I'm watching it. I just and I also don't really like basketball like I said earlier. It's not really my thing. So I wasn't really vibing on like the whole basketball port of it part of it. I didn't fully buy the um uh the story um and our dear friend Ketcher he has a review. He loved the movie. He gave it four stars. He left us an email too. Oh gosh. Yeah. And I kind of like when I read his review I kind of thought like huh I think the opposite of almost everything he said in this review unfortunately. So I'm at two stars. She was crystal. Proto's face when he said two stars. My bravery. If this is corny then corn be up. You know four stars for love and basketball. Had me at the end talked about the Maxwell song. Soundtracks great. I liked them. Remember he he goes he knocks on her window when their his parents are fighting. I thought that was a nice scene and it was like assume that this is a normal thing sleeps on the floor of a bedroom as their friends. I like how they represented her playing basketball and also being like a young woman who wants to express her emotions but it's like it's it's at odds like she wants to be herself but then like watch you plays it it works against her. She gets fouled out. She's having trouble trying to get recruited because of her emotion. Meanwhile Q is like a god you know on the on the court. He's five foot zero. The best player in the country. I like how he know he knew some of her stats from her games. Yeah. Four moons. She asked him. How about one of one of his college roommates knocks on his door he's like yeah we're about to order some wings. You want some? I was like God. Do I need to go back to college? To an education. Where's the D? It's right here. Bach naked. It's incredible. Amazing line. Unreal. Tough scene to watch. I mean they went at hard in that scene. Yeah more ways than one. And the paint. How come you couldn't be the man you tried to make me when he was trying to talk about that. One on one for your heart. Yeah and actually I think match made a comment in chat about how he didn't know that the the WNBA was not a thing during like the first three segments of the movie. So it wasn't like a viable option. And I wonder how if that's lost on anyone else watching the movie. Because like how many people have like instilled knowledge of like the WNBA wasn't created until you know this year. So it makes sense that it's now an option for her as she's older. So I had a great time rewatching this really. So four stars for me. I don't know. I mentioned stuff. Curriomage. Tyra banks jump scare. Tyra. Yeah. I forgot. She's a hoe because she's sending her kuchi through the mail. God would align. Have mercy. This four stars it works for me as well. I think the only thing I disliked as a whole was I think it's too long. I think it's just a little too long. Trim it down a bit and I probably have five. 60 minutes. You know and the paint. I like the four quarter aspect. I thought that was fun. I like the I mean I like the corn. I like the cheesiness. I like I like romcom aspect of it. And you throw a little bit of sports action. And I'm here. You loved it. It's all you need really. Let's listen to a catcher. I'll read catcher his email. We're not gonna listen to him. Thank you. And you can send us a letter as well at 70mm mpodagmail.com. Hi friends. I hope everyone is well. How could you not be after watching and talking about love and basketball? It's such a smart movie with strong imperfect characters. My favorite moment of this movie is a costume choice. Our leads are about to have sex and are sitting together on the bed. They're naked, fully revealing themselves to each other. The only clothes on their bodies are necklaces. Quincy has a chain with his father's jersey number. And Monica has the pearl necklace gifted to her by her mom. Both items representing the unique burden they carry with them. Quincy's burden to live up to his father's legacy. And Monica's burden to be the woman her mother wants her to be. Beautiful stuff. Lots of love. Catcher. Goodness. Take that Proto. It's a romcom catcher. Taken. I think we actually have some VMs as well. Let's play the first one. Hey, this is Azbiz at least for the time being. Azbiz. Calling to say, I am so glad you are covering love and basketball on this week's episode, assuming I made it on time. I recommended this movie to you all a while ago, but I am delighted that you're covering it this week. I wanted to leave a message on last week's episode, but discovered about half an hour into the movie I watched that I was watching the wrong movie. I was wondering why a Chris Barley film was being covered in the film these months. And I realized I was watching a calming boy. Oh my god. Classic. But ultimately watching Tom Boy, which was itself a great movie. Anyway, thanks for the great movies you all cover. Thanks for talking about love and basketball this week. I'm so excited to hear what you all have to say. Thanks so much. Azbiz, thank you. Should we do a Tommy boy app? No. David Spade month. What's in the VHS village top 100? Oh my god, I forgot about that. Cannot believe that movie made the VHS village top 100 list. Collusion. What's the one where maybe if Kurtz is in chat, what's the one where he fights like the bat and the fridge rolls on to Chris Barley? And he talks about like he thinks he has chocolate pudding in his pants, a black sheep. Okay. I just might I might need to watch black sheep this weekend. Those movies change my life. Change my life month. Oh, okay. Next VM. Hi, everyone. It's Tom. I'm in. I joined the village and I've had a lovely welcome from everyone and I'm really pleased that I made that decision. Well, I thought I was because I got to listen to all of those Kurt episodes. But I start listening to a Soca episode three. Here we go. And we've got Danny going completely off the rails, dropping F-bombs. Yeah. You're going mad. I did. What I should expect from the uncut episodes. Keen to know before I dip into any more. Maybe I have to start listening to these in a private room. Yeah. Let me know. You know, I didn't think of that. I don't even know if I can mark Patreon episodes as explicit. But yeah, I guess something I didn't even consider the amount of cursing potentially from uncut episodes. And he gets heated. What did I say? He was so heated. Episode three? Episode three. What even happened? I don't remember episode. No one does. That's the one where there's come in the shot for a reason, Tom. Uncut it on censored trainers. Unleashed. That's where she's in an astronaut suit out on this. Where she's wearing the Nike's or those Adidas. The Adidas. She didn't order the Adidas into the white suit. Okay. All right. Next week, if you're skipping right, you just skipped everything in this episode and you're waiting to see what the pick is. For next week, it's from Stephen King. Tim Curry. It. So long production. So long streaming on 2B. We're going back to the master himself, the one that started it all. Or timber. The movie that scared all kids. You know, that's all this movie. No way, Jose. Is there a drain in this? There actually is. You know, there's a drain in my area that says the quote on top of the drain from it. Danny just made a frown face. And that starts torment tober. Final name. That's it. They were not changing it. And that's that's the show. Part of any closing thoughts? Yeah. So I was thinking about basketball, mental. You know, I think basketball is a great pick up sport, but I think it's my it's my least favorite organized sport. And it's a very simple reason for that because it all culminates into like two minutes of game time. That's 30 minutes of men groping each other or women groping each other, who's ever playing to, you know, foul each other to stop the clock so that we can shoot a free throw. So, you know, spend another five minutes and then another time out. We got another 90 seconds and then we got to throw the ball in and then we get fouled again and this just goes on and on and on. This is all you got to do. Improve basketball 200 percent. All you got to do first to a hundred points. That's the game. You can still keep the clock. Either the time runs out or first to a hundred. It would improve the game immensely. David Stern, whoever is that runs NBA, you're welcome. Dick Vitale, if you're listening, Proto is available for business proposals. We'll see you over next week for Stephen King's It. Seventy millimeter is a tape deck production featuring original artwork provided by Danny Haas. Spiritual guidance and vizier, the robot who loves movies, provided by Proto-lexus, producer at large, Dale underscore a and music composed by Cinematic Prince and other merch are available on seventy mm pod dot com. This episode was mixed edited and produced by me slim. Support our Patreon for access to our VHS Village discord to talk movies with new friends, access to our exclusive episodes in the 70 millimeter vault discounts on merch, uncut episodes, and a physical membership card mailed to you to check out other tape deck podcasts, find the link in the episode notes. And if you'd like to support our friends at letterbox and upgrade to pro or patron status, you can do so with a 20 percent off discount using the links on seventy mm pod dot com. Go ahead. This is this is a tape deck podcast.