Tuesday, August 31, 2010

The Best of Times

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The Best of Times Sale


Buy The Best of Times. A small-town loser determines to have one more shot at the big time by winning a football game.

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This shaggy-dog fable barely drew fleas when it arrived in the winter of 1986. Now critics refer to it as a winning, offbeat classic. What took 'em so long? Probably the fact that director Roger Spottiswoode (Tomorrow Never Dies) and screenwriter Ron Shelton (Bull Durham) were chasing something very elusive: a cockeyed, scatological look at delayed glory. Robin Williams plays Jack Dundee, a meek bank VP in Taft, California, who daily relives the humiliation of a bobbled pass in the game against Bakersfield. Not content to live out his days as "Butterfingers" Dundee, Jack hits on a plan to "rewrite history" by restaging the Big Game. Taft's now-over-the-hill quarterback, Reno Hightower (Kurt Russell), reluctantly goes along with the harebrained scheme to redeem his buddy. The guys' wives (Holly Palance and Pamela Reed) shake their heads and play along. At once zany, sweet, and nostalgic, this small-town chronicle strives for, and achieves, folk-legend status. "Casey at the Bat" in shoulder pads, anyone? --Glenn Lovell


The Best of Times Review


"Best of Times" is really less about football, and more about the theme of redemption. Robin Williams plays a manic bank manager traumatized by a dropped pass 13 years previous. He is haunted by this failure, and is made to feel defined by it through himself, his father-in-law, and even the small-town populace who still remark on the 13 year-old loss. After having one of his panic attacks related to "the Game" (as he terms it), a helpful prostitute (yes, that's right) suggested he replay the game. An epiphany, Williams' character, Jack Dundee, sets about a quest; but not to merely replay the game. Rather, his goal is purely to redeem himself as a failure. Unfortunately for Dundee, the high school quarterback phenomenon from that team, Reno Hightower (Russell) is less enthusiastic about replaying the game. Unlike Jack, Reno absolves his dead-end "van specialist" job with the ever-escalating stories about his greatness: "Hell, I'm afraid to throw a beer can in a trash can, because someone will say "hey, Reno, losin' your touch?'" As much as Jack is haunted by this past, Reno subsists on it. In both cases, of course, neither is being served by it. For entirely opposite reasons, both characters must somehow get the game behind them before they can move on. Fortunately, the film subtly exposes the fact that it is only Dundee who is openly aware of it. Jack eventually blackmails Reno into throwing in his support, and convinces both towns to replay the 13 year old game. But, it isn't only Reno who doesn't want the game replayed. Hightower's wife is frustrated by her own efforts to reclaim her youthful greatness in high school and transfer it to a contemporary performance stage, and Jack's wife was mortified at the prospect of having to pick up the pieces from her already tortured husband's psyche if he drops the ball again. A little more examination of both these women's characters would have been interesting - but with four major protagonists and an inherent screen time limit, some trimming was inevitable. Still, the script, directing and acting effectively conveyed these women's internal conflicts. An important subplot involved another Taft, California athletic failure who Jack nor anyone else in the town seems to know about. I won't spoil this small but important plot element, but suffice it to say that you should really pay attention to the seemingly non-sequitor introduction prefatory and the subtle focus given to an old man at the end of the film. This film is extraordinary in its examination of redemption. Each character was in need of making up for something - however, it was only the neurotic Jack Dundee who seemed to be self-conscious about it. Reno Hightower needed to break away from his dramatic, but long-passed legendary gridiron exploits in order to grow as a person in real life. The same could be said for his wife, albeit in a different venue. Even Jack Dundee's wife needed to let go of her husband's self-flagellating retrospective behavior - something she could not do without Jack proving to himself he could accomplish it. Even the town of Taft, California reinvigorated itself from the quiet desperation of a remote industrial town. The setting is sports, but the theme is entirely centered on the human condition of redemption. This is a comedy, and an effective one at that. But, it is really its message that is more memorable. I was inspired by the movie's climatic football game. But, it wasn't the operation of the football spectacle that I found moving. Rather, it was the way the scene nicely tied up a clever commentary on perceived flaws versus the actual state of the human condition. You can buy Cheap The Best of Times online fast and easy, Shop Today!.




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