Lessons in Introspection: Run, Ricky, Run

Back in 1999, the New Orleans Saints made one of the most aggressive trades in the history of the NFL Draft for the purposes of acquiring running back Ricky Williams. Williams was leaving the University of Texas as the NCAA’s all-time leading rusher, and in him the Saints were getting an athlete who was determined, elusive and tough to tackle. In short, they were getting someone special, an athlete capable of doing the unusual routinely. The Saints drafted Williams to be their franchise player, but three years later Williams was no longer in a Saints uniform, and two years after that Williams wasn’t in any uniform at all. The blockbuster trade and, seemingly, Williams’ professional career had flopped. And yet the problem wasn’t that the Saints’ original scouting report was incorrect but that it was all too accurate. As it turned out, Williams really was determined, elusive and tough to tackle. He really was someone special, an athlete who did the unusual routinely. Trouble was, Williams met that description off the field as much as on it. Before too long it became clear that Williams was less interested in taking on uniformed opponents than in taking on himself.

Run, Ricky, Run is a documentary about this often inscrutable athlete who was first made famous by running within football and then made infamous by running away from it. The film is directed by Sean Pamphilon and Royce Toni, and it includes intimate, exclusive footage of Williams dating back to 2004, shortly after his (initial) departure from the NFL, the announcement of which came without warning just a few weeks before Williams was set to open training camp with the Miami Dolphins. Pamphilon’s rare access to Williams was thanks both to a friendship that was formed when Williams was still in college and to a request by Williams to seek the truth. (“Ninety-nine percent of the truth is a lie,” Williams had told Pamphilon.) And so Pamphilon started shooting, without any way of predicting all of what was to come. Like documentaries ranging from Woodstock (1970) to Capturing the Friedmans (2003), Run, Ricky, Run is defined in part by our awareness that the story had yet to be fully defined when shooting began. It’s organic. The historian’s retroactive approach is sometimes the only option available to a documentary filmmaker, but it’s inherently problematic – memories are flawed, and at some point legend tends to suffocate truth. Run, Ricky, Run is the all-too-rare documentary that unfolds mostly in the present tense, which is the only reasonable way to try to climb into the mind of a man who often seemed overcome by the moment.

The documentary has an effect similar to Michael Apted’s unparalleled Up series, albeit on a considerably smaller scale: Run, Ricky, Run charts Williams’ evolution through multiple present-tense examinations spaced out over time – a simple documentary formula in principle that is nonetheless exotic because of the breadth of footage that must be acquired to pull it off. Pamphilon didn’t start examining Williams’ life on camera until after Williams had fathered a third child by a third mother, until after he had admitted to suffering from social anxiety disorder, until after he failed a test for marijuana and fled the NFL to sleep in a tent during a soul-searching trek in Australia and until after sports media personalities lined up to psychoanalyze Williams in speculative 90-second rants. But the breadth of content is here just the same, thanks to interviews with Williams and those close to him that Pamphilon conducted from 2004-2009, during which time Williams spurned the NFL, returned to the NFL, violated the NFL’s substance abuse policy (again), enlisted in the Canadian Football League, schooled himself in holistic medicine, dedicated himself to yoga while accepting a spiritual leader, tested positive for marijuana (again) and revived his NFL career (again). It’s a narrative with more twists than a ratings-starved reality show, albeit without the bitter taste of shameful exploitation.

Throughout the film, Williams makes for a remarkably fascinating subject. He has an indescribable ability to be both forthright and elusive. He’s a deep thinker who sometimes seems to be without thought. He’s a man who comes off as alternately inspired and insane. Miami Herald columnist Dan LeBatard sums it up best when he reacts to Williams’ initial flight from football by saying, “I still don’t know as I sit here talking to you whether this is a product of him being bipolar or mentally ill, or it’s a product of him being the only sane person out there and the rest of us worshipping all the wrong things.” To watch Run, Ricky, Run is to get the sense that all the above might be true. Indeed, Williams might be suffering from one or a few medical disorders that by now might have woven together to the point of being indistinguishable from one another. Bipolar? Depression? Social anxiety? Addiction? Maybe. But you don’t need to make Williams into a sympathetic victim in order to recognize the viciousness of the societal monster around him. Through a montage of sports-media talking-heads performing various levels of character assassination on Williams, Pamphilon makes it crystal clear that the audience at the arena that Williams was so vilified for leaving didn’t give two shits about him. The money and fame that are so often considered the outlandish spoils of professional sports turn out also to be shackles meant to keep athletes in their place until we’re done watching them suffer for our own enjoyment. In this light, the moral outrage over Williams’ marijuana use was a sham. Underneath it all people weren’t outraged that Williams might prefer pot to professional football. People were outraged that anyone might prefer anything to wealth and stardom.

If you doubt that last analysis, pay attention to the segment of Williams’ 60 Minutes interview from 2004 that appears in this film. Sitting opposite Mike Wallace, Williams asks a very simple question: “When would it have been okay for me to stop playing football? When my knees went out? When my shoulders went out? When I had too many concussions? … I don’t understand. When is it okay to not play football anymore?” If the answer to that last question is anything other than, “It’s always okay to not play football anymore,” doesn’t that say something troubling about our society? And yet, if the answer is that simple, how do we explain the outrage heaped upon Ricky Williams – an outrage that might have remained to this day had he not “turned his life around,” as we like to say, by, in part, returning to the very place we always demanded that he exist: the football field? Run, Ricky, Run isn’t so didactic as to ask these questions, but it is dynamic enough to inspire them. It’s the most surprisingly thought-provoking entry in ESPN Film’s “30 for 30” series thus far.

Run, Ricky, Run premieres tonight on ESPN at 8 pm ET, and will rerun frequently thereafter. The Cooler will be reviewing each film in the “30 for 30” series upon its release.

Birth of a Notion: Silly Little Game

Fantasy sports have been around for so long, and are now so prevalent, that it’s hard to remember a time when they weren’t woven into the fabric of sports fandom. These days some 30 million people participate in at least one fantasy sport, bolstering an industry that’s estimated to be worth as much as $4 billion annually. In 2010, fantasy sports don’t just honor their real-life inspirations, they help to keep them afloat, creating crucial (read: financial) bonds between fans and these games in an era when the multitude of alternate programming (more leagues, more teams, more TV shows, more websites, more pastimes, etc.) and the transient effect of free agency make it harder than ever to form a lasting, obsessive relationship with a hometown team. But this is a relatively new phenomenon. Prior to 1980, fantasy sports didn’t exist. And if it’s hard to imagine a time when fantasy sports weren’t played, it’s harder still – almost impossible – to imagine a time when fantasy sports weren’t even conceived. Like the wheel, the drum or the corndog, the fantasy sports model is one of those things that, once born, seems entirely self-evident; like electricity it was always there to be found. And yet even against a landscape of stats-based board games, the fantasy sports model wasn’t evident, indeed wasn’t found, until Dan Okrent had his moment of divine and dorky inspiration some 30 years ago.

Silly Little Game, the 11th installment in ESPN Films’ “30 for 30” series, is about that moment of inspiration and the avalanche of pseudo-sporting it accidentally brought to life. Directed by Adam Kurland and Lucas Jansen, the documentary puts the majority of its focus on fantasy sports’ infancy, when prior to the 1980 baseball season Okrent and his friends created something called Rotisserie Baseball, so named because they hatched it over lunch in a New York restaurant named La Rotisserie Francaise. Okrent and his friends created the league not to be famous, and certainly not to make money, but because they loved baseball and wanted a way “to possess it, to control it,” Okrent says. And so on April 13, 1980, these men, and one woman, who would later be called the “Founding Fathers” of fantasy sports, gathered together to hold the first fantasy baseball auction, aware of how many dollars they had to spend to fill out their rosters but utterly clueless to a player’s actual worth within their system. Philadelphia Phillies third baseman Mike Schmidt went for $26, for example, and it wasn’t until after the season that everyone realized he had a $40 value. New York Mets reliever Neil Allen, meanwhile, went for a seems-about-right $2 to a team that didn’t know a thing about him, only to have Allen’s breakout 22-save season catapult his owners to the first Rotisserie title, thus creating an “Oops” blueprint for success that would be copied – entirely unintentionally – for decades to come by millions of fantasy owners.

From that inaugural Rotisserie season, a tradition was born. And an obsession. Says Glen Waggoner, one of the Founding Fathers, “I thought it was a diversion. I didn’t know it was going to take over my life.” But that’s what happened. The original Rotisserie players lost themselves to the very things that attract people to fantasy sports today – the challenge and thrill of competition, the temptation of outsmarting one’s friends and so on. Of course, as the creators of the game, the original Rotisserie players also lost themselves to a certain level of stardom. There were interviews to give and, all too late, there were attempts to profit from their invention – books, shirts and even conventions. But their modest fame outlasted the even more modest fortune. Quickly, copycat leagues were created under the generic heading of “fantasy sports,” dropping “Rotisserie,” and the Founding Fathers lost their piece of the action. The craze spread from baseball to football to basketball and to every other conceivable sport. Fantasy sports spread so far, so quickly that somewhere along the way the origins of the craze became largely irrelevant, particularly to the generations too young to know where the name “Rotisserie” comes from, even if they’re cultured enough to recognize the now archaic fantasy term.

On this note, Silly Little Game looks to settle the score, to give credit where credit is due, to unearth the roots of fantasy sports. It does just that, quite often with humor and verve, thanks to interviews with Okrent, Waggoner, Lee Eisenberg and the other Founding Fathers (including Founding Mother, Valerie Salembier). That’s what’s great about the documentary. What’s not so great about it, however, is most everything else. Silly Little Game is rife with reenactments that aren’t just painfully cheesy but, even worse, entirely unnecessary. All too often, the film cuts from the already evocative descriptions from its interviewees to goofy dramatizations of their memories – on-the-nose reenactments in which the Founding Fathers are dressed in period attire from 1776 (the Founding Fathers, get it!?) or the early 1980s (big cellphones, big glasses, big sweaters). The result is a film that often looks like the bastard child of The Breakfast Club and Drunk History, Vol. 1, and that’s when it’s mediocre. At worst, the film comes off like a cheap parody of a parody – one degree removed from actually being funny. In these instances, the reenactments are either frighteningly lame, such as the handful of scenes in which the 1980s versions of the Founding Fathers sit in office furniture in the middle of a baseball field (really?), or they’re entirely tasteless, such as the moment when the fictional Neil Harris is handed a beer to chug as a reward for helping his fantasy team win the first Rotisserie title. That latter scene might seem innocuous, until you consider that Harris had his career thrown off track by a battle with alcoholism. Then it's not so funny.

These juvenile and just plain corny detours are the difference between Silly Little Game being a tremendous documentary and an often tedious one. Indeed, all that would need to be done to improve the film by half would be to cut nearly every reenactment and replace it with some run-of-the-mill B-roll of Major League action. That’s it. The Founding Fathers interviews are outstanding – thoughtful, intelligent and self-deprecating – but they nearly get lost in the shuffle. Also missed is the insight of a baseball traditionalist, thoughts from someone like Bob Costas, George Will or Peter Gammons on the impact of fantasy sports. Near the end of the documentary we do get a few seconds with Meat Loaf, who admits to having more than 40 fantasy football teams and almost 20 fantasy baseball teams, despite not knowing the origins of fantasy sports, but, well, so what? Is Meat Loaf considered a fantasy sports extremist among celebrities? His appearance is never put into context. It’s just another empty gag.

For these reasons, watching Silly Little Game can be as frustrating as owning Adam Dunn and Aramis Ramirez in a competitive NL-only keeper league and wondering how many weeks will go by until either guy reaches the Mendoza Line. Hypothetically speaking, of course. It’s not as if I truly identify with these tales of fantasy sports obsession. It’s not as if I know what it is to pore over box scores each morning, or to experience the thrill of a league championship or the humiliation of an auction day gaffe. (I mean, it’s not as if, prior to the 2008 season, Derek Lowe was going for $38, and I contemplated putting in a bid at $40, and then told myself I wouldn’t pay more than $45, and then uttered a bid of $50, not realizing what I’d said until I was hit in the face by the chilling sound of stunned silence. Nah, that’s never happened.) OK, so maybe I am one of them. Maybe I do indentify with their sports love and loserness. Maybe that’s why Silly Little Game at times has the nostalgia of old home-movies. And maybe that’s why I hate it when its reenactments waste so much of my time. After all, I’ve got to figure out how to win with a lineup in which Bengie Molina appears to be my offensive star. These silly little games are serious business.

Silly Little Game premieres tonight on ESPN at 8 pm ET, and will rerun frequently thereafter. The Cooler will be reviewing each film in the “30 for 30” series upon its release.

Confronting Bubba Chuck: No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson

“The Answer” always seemed like the incorrect nickname for Allen Iverson. “The Enigma” is more like it. Here is a basketball player who stands 6 feet tall in his Reeboks who made his career driving the lane and hurtling his body at giants, seemingly oblivious to his size disadvantage. Here is a guy who plays as if winning were the only option, even as he ignores that one of the options of winning is passing the ball to get help from one’s teammates. Here is a guy who hoops with his heart on his trademark protective sleeve, who has earned himself fans and foes alike with his emotional outbursts. In many ways, Iverson is the basketball equivalent of Mike Tyson: short (relatively speaking), fast, fearless, self-destructive, elusive yet forthcoming, menacing yet tender and, all the while, undeniably fascinating, love him or hate him. A rousing feature-length documentary could easily be made chronicling Iverson’s tumultuous NBA career, but in No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson we get something altogether more captivating – a glimpse of man before he was “The Answer,” before he was “A.I.” and before his body was covered in literal and metaphorical tattoos.

No Crossover is about a kid called Bubba Chuck. That was Allen Iverson’s nickname growing up in Hampton, Virginia, the place where his athletic career began and, amazingly, almost ended. A two-sport star at Bethel High School, Iverson won acclaim both on the basketball court and the football field, but his hopes for professional success were nearly undone at the local bowling alley. On Valentine’s Day in 1993, Iverson was at the epicenter of a brawl that pitted him and some his black friends against some white students from the “redneck” part of town. Exactly how the fight began remains unclear, but the first blow might very well have been the word “nigger” being uttered in Iverson’s direction. After that, fists flew. So did chairs. A white woman uninvolved in the fight was struck by one of the chairs and claimed it was Iverson who hit her. Meanwhile, some African-American eyewitnesses insisted that Iverson was ushered out of the building before the brawl escalated into utter mayhem, some of it captured on shaky, handheld videotape. Whatever the truth, Iverson, only 17 years old, was tried as an adult and convicted, along with three of his black friends, of “maiming by mob.” No whites were so much as charged. Seventeen years later the specifics of that Valentine’s Day are up for debate in Hampton. But even more controversial than the subject of Iverson’s actions is the subject of Iverson’s subsequent treatment and its effect on the community at large.

Thus, No Crossover is both the story of Iverson and the story of Hampton, as perceived by the filmmaker: Steve James. James was raised in Hampton. His mother still lives in his childhood home. And though James was in Chicago shooting Hoop Dreams when Iverson was on trial, he kept aware of the proceedings through newspaper clippings mailed to him by his parents. Fittingly then, James approaches this subject like a man returning to his old hometown for a high school reunion – with a sense of intimate familiarity mixed with awkward foreignness. He recognizes the racial tension that he saw in his youth at the same time he shakes his head that so many Confederate flags still fly from Hampton porches. ESPN Films’ “30 for 30” series has had personal films like this before, most notably Barry Levinson’s The Band That Wouldn’t Die and Mike Tollin’s Small Potatoes: Who Killed the USFL?, but this is the first “30 for 30” film that’s as autobiographical as it is biographical. James wrestles with his own childhood memories of whites and blacks sitting on opposite sides of the school gymnasium by choice, of whites saying “nigger” while he sat silently and of black teammates that he never took the time to know. He does this not out of any stereotypical “white guilt,” it seems to me, but out of inward curiosity. In No Crossover, James is trying to understand his connection, if any, to the trial of Allen Iverson.

As a result of this approach, James is a key figure in this 80-minute film, but he never hogs the spotlight. The vast majority of the film is spent on Iverson – on his fatherless youth that had him buying drugs for his mother; on his early athletic career in which he was no easier to coach than he would be as a pro; on the trial and conviction in which Iverson first suffered because of his public identity and then was saved by it, earning release from a 15-year sentence after just a few months in prison. James juggles his material effortlessly, blending talking-head interviews with archival footage, calmly stating the known facts of the case and then treating us to a montage of wild conspiracy theories related to Iverson’s arrest. Iverson refused to be interviewed for this picture, but amazingly enough his presence isn’t missed at all. This movie is about Bubba Chuck, after all, and James finds plenty of old interviews of Iverson that accurately reflect both the man and the time. The film’s most stunning footage might be an old home movie of Iverson’s one-man high school graduation – a ceremony that happened only because of a white woman’s determination to tutor Iverson to his degree after his conviction. Begrudgingly wearing a cap and gown in front of family and a few friends, Iverson grins ear to ear, clearly relieved and proud of himself and basking in the love of those around him – an environment that one senses he didn’t get to experience much growing up. It’s a touching scene.

James’ ability to humanize not just Iverson but the controversy around his trial is what makes No Crossover effective. So many years, all-star seasons, media controversies and, yes, arrests later, it’s easy to forget the Iverson of this film – the Iverson before The Answer, before the tattoos, before the cornrows – but Hampton clearly hasn’t forgotten Bubba Chuck. In Iverson’s old hometown his old nickname lives on, as does the hurt caused by his trial. Time and again in No Crossover, James looks to uncover these not-so-long-buried emotions only to encounter hard ground and stone walls. For each interviewee who opens up to James there is another potential subject who holds back, hesitant to say too much, wary of bringing the issue back to life. This will undoubtedly frustrate viewers looking for No Crossover to “crack the case,” or some such thing. But the silence is remarkably telling. And, besides, it’s fitting, too. Allen Iverson has always inspired more questions than answers.

No Crossover premieres tonight on ESPN at 8 pm ET, and will rerun frequently thereafter. The Cooler will be reviewing each film in the “30 for 30” series upon its release.

Missing Hank: Guru of Go

As a standout basketball player for Loyola Marymount University, Hank Gathers was all the things that sports fans love to celebrate. He was talented, for starters, but perhaps more importantly he was tough, relentless, charismatic, passionate and inexhaustible. He was the type of athlete that fans and coaches like to say played with a big heart. And yet when it comes to Gathers we don’t dare utter those words because, sadly, they’re all too true. Gathers really did have a big heart, and, in a depressing irony, it was that physical abnormality that helped to trigger his sudden and sickening on-court death just over 20 years ago. One moment Gathers was slamming home the business end of an alley-oop. The next moment he was flat on his back. A few moments later, he was being lifted onto a stretcher in front of a horrified crowd that was as silent as Gathers’ body was lifeless. Hank Gathers, once the nation’s leading scorer and rebounder, was dead at the age of 23. Sport went from ecstasy to catastrophe, just like that.

If you’re a fan of college basketball, you surely remember Gathers, or, perhaps more accurately, you can’t manage to forget him. Gathers’ death and the inspired performance by his teammates that followed it respectively rank among the most tragic and then uplifting sports stories of the past three decades. That’s why it’s entirely appropriate that these events should be remembered in ESPN Films’ “30 for 30” documentary series, and that’s why it’s altogether puzzling that they aren’t the explicit and exclusive focus of Bill Couturie’s film, Guru of Go. No, as you might be able to tell from the title, the film isn’t the Hank Gathers story or even the Loyola Marymount story. It is instead a profile of Gathers’ head coach, Paul Westhead, the mastermind of the fast-breaking, hard-pressing, never-resting offense that Westhead called “The System.” Couturie’s film is the documentary that should have been made had Gathers lived and led Loyola to a national title, dominating all-comers with an offense of organized chaos. Trouble is, that’s not what happened.

That’s why framing the Gathers story, or the Loyola story, as the Westhead story comes off as disingenuous or foolish, or maybe both. Couturie might have been trying to keep his documentary from feeling like a snuff film, something callously exploitive or unbearably grotesque, but to embed the Gathers tragedy within the tale of a vagabond coach who is steadfastly devoted to his unorthodox “System” is to either bury the lead or to entirely miss the point. When sports fans think of that Loyola team, they almost certainly remember Gathers first, teammate Bo Kimble second and the pedal-to-the-metal offense third. The guy who orchestrated the offense would rank fourth, if he’s thought of at all. Westhead might have been the figurehead going into that 1989-90 season, but he’s a supporting player in its history. The cold hard truth is that without Gathers’ death, Westhead isn’t worthy of “30 for 30” treatment. Couturie is wise to give the events of that season some context, but a deeper, more detailed understanding of Gathers’ upbringing would have served this film better than an account of Westhead’s tenure with the Los Angeles Lakers, the Denver Nuggets or the Phoenix Mercury – coaching campaigns that most sports fans will file under the “Who cares?” category.

Even more troublesome, this misguided infatuation with Westhead also leads to the film’s clumsiest gimmick: In a nod to the former English professor’s fondness for dropping lines by the Bard, Guru of Go is separated into mini-chapters that are framed by famous Shakespeare quotes. It’s bad enough that the quotes pop up on the screen like slides from a PowerPoint presentation at a lame motivational seminar for white collar professionals. What’s worse is that they thwart the film’s ability to generate narrative momentum. By pounding us with these Shakespeare titlecards that in many places are only a few minutes apart, Guru of Go doesn’t develop thematic cohesion so much as it illustrates the shallowness of its snatch-and-grab approach. It’s as if Couturie is trying to will his film into being about something more than Gathers’ death, and yet somehow he overlooks that the best way to do that would be to dedicate more time to Gathers’ life. A profile of Westhead should be a lengthy chapter in the story of Gathers or his Loyola team, no question. What Westhead shouldn’t be is this story’s cover and spine.

In the film’s uninspired moments, and there are a handful of them, Guru of Go is the most pedestrian documentary of the “30 for 30” series through nine episodes. But what’s amazing is how little its flaws matter in the end. Despite the film’s wanderings, despite all that it might have been, when Guru of Go gets to Loyola’s 1989-90 season, the documentary is overpowering. No matter how many times you’ve seen the footage, watching the vital, exuberant Gathers tumble to the ground is shocking. Seeing Gathers’ family huddled around his inert body is gut-wrenching. Watching Gathers’ former teammates struggling to remember that day two decades later is heartbreaking. As Gathers’ teammates struggle for words in thoughtful talking-head interviews, you might find yourself struggling to breathe. And not for the last time. The beauty of sports is that it can heal as swiftly as it hurts. And so, to his credit, Couturie spends just as much time chronicling Loyola’s NCAA tournament run as he does on Gathers’ death before it. The team’s victories over New Mexico, Michigan and Alabama, to reach the Elite Eight, are uplifting even in brief. But nothing is more moving, or more memorable, than Kimble’s in-game tribute to his fallen friend: a left-handed free throw in the midst of March Madness that finds nothing but the bottom of the net.

To watch Couturie’s documentary isn’t to just see these moments again. It’s to feel them, too. It’s a film that most certainly could have been better, particularly if in content and title it had been Hank the Bank, instead of Guru of Go. But if providing 30 filmmakers with complete artistic control means suffering a few letdowns along the way, it’s a small price to pay for the “30 for 30” series’ exciting diversity. Guru of Go doesn’t sing like the operatic Winning Time. It doesn’t tuck us under its arm and rush us forward like The U. But what it does do is put the usual concerns of sports into perspective, reminding us that winning isn’t everything. What it does do is reveal that an awkward, weak-handed free throw can be as poignant and poetic as anything William Shakespeare ever wrote.

Guru of Go premieres tonight on ABC at 4 pm ET, and will rerun frequently thereafter. The Cooler will be reviewing each film in the “30 for 30” series upon its release.

The Conversations: Easter Double Feature

I'm pumped to report that there's a new edition of The Conversations at The House Next Door. In this edition, Ed Howard and I discuss Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ and Mel Gibon’s The Passion of the Christ, two movies that are similar in subject only – and even then only slightly. Ed and I debate the messages of the films, both in terms of perceived intent and ultimate effect, but we also discuss the filmmaking in general. This is our second Conversations piece to appear at the recently redesigned The House Next Door, and I’ve noticed that comments at the site have reduced since it became partnered with Slant Magazine. I can only assume that’s because commenters must create new accounts to comment. Well, those accounts are free and easy to set up, so what are you waiting for? Ed and I love to see our discussions and debates extended in the comments section, and that can’t happen without your help. Please head over to The House and join the conversation!

Previous Editions of The Conversations:

David Fincher (January 2009)
Mulholland Dr. (February 2009)
Overlooked - Part I: Undertow (March 2009)
Overlooked - Part II: Solaris (March 2009)
Star Trek (May 2009)
Werner Herzog (May 2009)
Errol Morris (July 2009)
Michael Mann (August 2009)
Quentin Tarantino - Part I (August 2009)
Quentin Tarantino - Part II (September 2009)
Pixar (WALL-E) (October 2009)
Trouble Every Day (October 2009)
Lawrence of Arabia (December 2009)
Crash (1996) (January 2010)
Nashville (1975) (February 2010)