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Dreaming of 1992: An Olympic basketball movie trilogy
In 1992, the landscape of international basketball was changed forever. While most recall the dominance of the USA’s Dream Team – quite probably, BuckBokai asserts, the greatest squad ever assembled in any sport – the hoops in that famed Olympiad of 20 years ago were packed with dozens of compelling backstories, the least two of which were certainly not the silver- and bronze-medal winning Croatia and Lithuania teams.
On the eve of the opening of the XXX Olympiad and with that 20th anniversary observation firmly in mind, BuckBokai recommends a loosely connected trio of films that’ll make for fantastic viewing for the sports history nut. In the virtual screening room, we’ll run this trilogy in order of subject’s finish in the Olympic games.
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Short fiction: Crow’s Feet
“That was the best game we’ve ever had.”
“If you say so,” I gasp staccato between hard-fought breaths. I idly wonder if I’ll ever be able to pick myself up from the sun-baked asphalt feeling cool against my overheated body. Damn, I’m getting old.
And meanwhile Marcel shoots, swishes, grabs the ball, dribbles past an imaginary defender, shoots, misses, snags it before it bounces again, shoots and again the snap of the net cuts through the dry summer air.
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Justice Leaguer meets Dream Teamers
In case you missed it, a serious meeting of Dream Teamers took place during the 2012 NBA Finals a couple of weeks ago. BuckBokai isn’t referring here to the Miami Heat and Oklahoma City Thunder, although note that five players from these squads – Kevin Durant, James Harden, Serge Ibaka, Lebron James, Russell Westbrook – will be playing in the London Games and another two – Chris Bosh, Dwyane Wade – could well be.
Instead, check out the below YouTube to see Wonder Woman (Lynda Carter version) of the Justice League meet ever brilliant Charles Barkley of The Dream Team and Shaquille O’Neal of Dream Teams II and III after Game 3 of that series. Ms. Carter’s smile remains as appealing beautiful at 60 as in her heyday, though she’s clearly the victim of an overzealous maker-up.
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The top 10 science-fiction sports of all-time
All right, so BuckBokai tries to come off the disabled list today – yes, it seemed like a career-ending injury for a while there, thanks to Father Time (who, as Charles Barkley once so philosophically stated, is undefeated). But fingers crossed that this time BuckBokai once again plays at his steady level.
So to (re)start things off, let’s get back to the basics with a look at the Top 10 Science-Fiction Sports ever devised.
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Ultimate championship: Dream Team vs. Redeem Team
As you may have heard, the 1992 version of Team USA was inducted into the Pro Basketball Hall of Fame last Friday.
Over at BuckBokai’s sister site BallinEurope.com, this writer enthused that “the only two teams … who *might* possibly give the Dream Team a series [were] Dream Team III, with much of Dream Team I plus Hakeem Olajuwon and Shaquille O’Neal, who probably should have been on the roster in lieu of the more politically-correctly chosen Christian Laettner in ‘92; and the Redeem Team of 2008, Generation Y’s own Dream Team.”
Which got BuckBokai to thinking later … Why not face ‘em off through the miracle of the virtual sports time-travel website What If Sports?
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“It was real”: The Space Jam trailer recut
From the Shameless Cross-Promotion Department comes an excellent YouTube clip BuckBokai stumbled across for his other website, BallinEurope.com.
To quote myself (o how gauche), “one of the greatest phenomena on YouTube is the recut movie preview. BuckBokai believes that this recut Space Jam trailer is the best in the genre since the immortal Shining.” You gotta love the way Charles Barkley is given the lion’s share of trailer time, too.
(Incidentally, YouTube user Royalplinko proclaims the ‘Jam to be “the greatest film of the 90s”: a sentiment which with BuckBokai is hardly prepared to disagree.)
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The brilliant, albeit brief, science-fiction career of Sir Charles Barkley
Charles Barkley is a two-time NBA MVP (well, they *did* rook him out of it that one year), a Hall of Famer, an Emmy winner, a future governor of Alabama and/or general manager of the Atlanta Hawks, and the greatest interview subject of all-time – but Buck Bokai loves his acting the best of all.
A brief look at the short-yet-inspiring science-fiction career of the coolest man in existence, Charles Barkley.
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