For What It's Worth

Go Ducks! (and I mean the Oregon Ducks!!)

I'm not the world's biggest football fan, I don't really know or understand all the rules, I have only a basic clue about who's on most teams, but I do know an exciting team to watch and this year that's been the University of Oregon Ducks.

They got past the adversity of losing their first game in an ending spasm of unsportsmanlike conduct, re-grouped, shaped up, and kept at it. They blew out the supposedly invincible USC team, then squeaked by Arizona 44-41 in double-overtime and Oregon State 37-33 for their last two games. Now they stand ready to win the Rose Bowl on Friday against Ohio State.

As a native Oregonian (born in Lincoln City, raised in Hillsboro) and a University of Oregon graduate (schooled in Eugene), I can barely find the words to describe how it feels. All I can really do is show you...

  Watch the 2009 Rose Bowl! Go Ducks!  

Go Ducks!

I'm not the world's biggest football fan, I don't really know or understand all the rules, I have only a basic clue about who's on most teams, but I do know an exciting game when I see one and 37-33 qualifies.

As a native Oregonian (born in Lincoln City, raised in Hillsboro) and a University of Oregon graduate (schooled in Eugene), I can barely find the words to describe how it felt last night when the Oregon Ducks defeated the Oregon State Beavers in the "Civil War" to earn a ticket to this year's Rose Bowl against Ohio State. All I can really do is show you...

  See you at the Rose Bowl! Go Ducks!  

"Chasing a Dream" on Hallmark Channel

You know hard it must be to run a four-minute mile?  Now imagine doing it when you're still in high school, nobody supports you doing it and track isn't your sport in the first place.

That's the scenario we've set up for Cam Stiles in our Hallmark Channel film, "Chasing a Dream" which airs this Saturday at 9pm (8pm in Central time).  It's about a high school senior who runs a "sub-four" when nobody thinks he can or should, but he does it anyway.  It stars Treat Williams as the reluctant father/coach and Andrew Lawrence as the obsessed athlete/son.

 

Jackie and I wrote it originally as a project I would direct as an indie film but the WGA strike intervened and we sold it instead.  So, with the caveat that we wrote it, but did not direct, cast or produce it, we still think it came out as a very decent piece of family entertainment.

Here's a great article from Runner's World, written by long-time editor (and Boston Marathon winner) Amby Burfoot.  It includes the text of an interview he conducted this month with both Jackie and me and shows incredible respect for writers.  Go, Amby!

Here's another bit of coverage from Track and Field News.  This has a good bit of background on the mile race, and the four-minute-mile record.

Here's the Hallmark URL with a newly cut trailer.

Here's a look at the promotional video from the film.

Sub-fours in high school actually happened a few times in the 60s, then not again until Alan Webb did it in 2001, and not since then.  Over many years and incarnations, "Chasing a Dream" evolved from "Sub-Four" to "Finish Line" to "Miles from Nowhere" to its final Hallmark title.  One thing that always stayed the same was that the original runner was named John Van Horn in tribute to Bryce's close high school friend who died at the age of 18 in a car crash but is still remembered and missed.

Finally, because things always change (sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse) from "the page to the stage," here's a draft of our original screenplay, when it was known by its original title, "MILES FROM NOWHERE."

Download MILES-Zabel

For fun, if any of your runners would like to vote in our Movie Smackdown! poll pitting "Prefontaine" against "Without Limits," then CLICK HERE.

Tyranny of the (No) Fangirls

I'm not talking about fangirls as in, say, teenage passionistas for Hannah Montana. I'm talking about women in my health club, the ones who show up for spin class (group stationary biking with loud music) oh-so-serious about it all. Usually they pile three towels on their bikes (do they even know the energy cost of washing a single towel?) and do the entire stretch set after class. 

Why fangirls, you may ask?

You see, most bike spin classes let the instructor control the lights, the music and the fans.

The fans are designed to circulate the air in the room which can get pretty damn muggy, especially when the class is packed. The women are almost universally in favor of a "no-fan" policy. They come to class in their sleeveless tops and they simply hate the idea that the fan could chill them by blowing air across them.  So when the instructor asks, "Fans?", they shout in union not to turn them on. This is not the exception, this is the rule.

There is another side. Guys runs hotter, a lot of us are packing on extra pounds. We need the fans to keep from passing out. We are almost never heard in this debate. If we dare to ask for the fans, we are shouted down as if we are suggesting some violation of civil rights. From my observations, this is an argument that women almost always win. 

Last week a miracle occurred. One of the regular instructors called in sick and a guest instructor (a woman) took the class. She put the fans on. The women began protesting loudly. "No fans! Turn them off!"  It was getting ugly.

Movie Smackdown Comix presents... WITHOUT LIMITS

"Without Limits" was released ten years ago, on September 11, 1998, the second film about Steve Prefontaine's life in as many years.

To read the full review, go to Without Limits (1998) -vs- Prefontaine (1997).  A reader's poll now has over 100 votes and has been tied many times, although currently "Without Limits" has a slight lead.  Express your own opinion.

MOVIE SMACKDOWN! - Two Reviews... One Film... No Holds Barred!

Review and Comix by Bryce Zabel.

Speed Kills: The Role of a (Short) Lifetime

Without Limits (1998) -vs- Prefontaine (1997)

The Smackdown. With the U.S. Olympic Team Trials in Track & Field coming up in Eugene, more than a few people will be thinking about the runner who pretty much owned Hayward Field back in the day, Steve Prefontaine.  It's been a decade since Hollywood made two films back-to-back about the legendary distance runner, and you may be tempted to go rent one of them to see for yourself what the fuss was all about.

Track's been on my mind for other reasons, too.  My wife and I have a film that just finished filming in Los Angeles last Friday, "Miles from Nowhere," about a high-school athlete who decides to go for a sub-four minute mile.  During the time we were polishing up our screenplay's last draft before production, we looked for a little inspiration and watched both "Prefontaine" and "Without Limits" within a couple of days of each other. It was like a film school assignment to see what different production teams and actors could do with essentially the same source material. But there was another element here, for me, that put even this challenge through a separate creative filter.

Steve Prefontaine wasn't actually a legend to me, you see, because I was there when he was breaking all these incredible records.

As a native Oregonian I had seen him win the state high school two-mile in a barn-burning race when I was just a kid, then I had gone to the University of Oregon at the same time he attended and ran, and was working at a local TV station as an intern at the time of his death. Later, I used to log a lot of miles running on the wood-chip trail dedicated to him, "Pre's Trail." I can't claim that I knew him, but I saw him on campus (vividly remember watching him chug some beer at Duffy's Tavern) and when he ran at Hayward field during my freshman year, my dorm (Douglass-Walton) faced the track and we literally watched and cheered from our room window.

I don't imagine too many people are ever going to watch both of these films so our Smackdown answers a practical question: if you want to see one single film that captures the essence of Steve Prefontaine, which one should you see?

Without Limits (1998) -vs- Prefontaine (1997)

Two Films -- One Review -- No Holds Barred.
For more film-on-film reviews, visit MOVIE SMACKDOWN!

The Smackdown. It's been a decade since Hollywood made two films back-to-back about the legendary distance runner Steve Prefontaine. Recently, my wife and I completed a film script that caused us to want to see these films again, for various reasons, and we watched both "Prefontaine" and "Without Limits" within a couple of days of each other. It was like a film school assignment to see what different production teams and actors could do with essentially the same source material. But there was another element here, for me, that put even this challenge through a separate creative filter. Steve Prefontaine wasn't actually a legend to me, you see, because I was there when he was breaking all these incredible records.

The role of a (short) lifetime

As a native Oregonian I had seen him win the state high school two-mile in a barn-burning race when I was just a kid, then I had gone to the University of Oregon at the same time he attended and ran, and was working at a local TV station as an intern at the time of his death. Later, I used to log a lot of miles running on the wood-chip trail dedicated to him, "Pre's Trail." I can't claim that I knew him, but I saw him on campus (vividly remember watching him down a pitcher of beer at Duffy's Tavern) and when he ran at Hayward field during my freshman year, my dorm (Douglass-Walton) faced the track and we literally watched from our room window.

I don't imagine too many people are ever going to watch both of these films so our Smackdown answers a practical question: if you want to see one single film that captures the essence of Steve Prefontaine, which one should you see?

The First Film.  When it came out in 1997, "Prefontaine" was  seen as a pretty straightforward biopic effort. Jared Leto got the starring role and former Marine drill sergeant F. Lee Ermy got the plum role of his track coach Bill Bowerman. It focuses a lot of its late firepower on Prefontaine's stubborn (and correct) battle with the Amateur Athletic Union that dictated the terms under which Americans could or could not run. This first film came from writer-director Steve James ("Hoop Dreams") and employs the device of the faux-documentary (actors aged up, talking about their relationships with Pre in the past tense) as its framework. It is, frankly, a little worshipful of its subject matter but you could argue if its subject matter wasn't worth worshipping in some way, nobody would want to make one movie about it, let alone two. In any case, what you get with "Prefontaine" is a good sense of what made him tick as an icon and a leader of other athletes. As far as the requisite love-life sub-plots go, this film goes for seeing Pre ditch his high school girlfriend who came to college with him in favor of a woman who also ran track. The production was centered up at the University of Puget Sound campus in Tacoma, standing in for the University of Oregon in Eugene.   

The Hollywood Grand-Pre

The Second Film. People in Eugene, Oregon, where Pre ran, probably favor "Without Limits" which came out in 1998, mostly because the film was shot on location in Eugene. This film came from a team that included Tom Cruise as an executive producer and writer-director Robert Towne ("Chinatown"), plus a great performance as Pre by Billy Crudup and a nuanced one from Donald Sutherland playing Bill Bowerman, Pre's college track coach. This is the movie that wants to get in the head of Pre, analyze what made him a brilliant runner, and it wants to elevate Bowerman to a Zen-leader in the Phil Jackson mode, and focus on the sometimes rocky relationship between the two. As far as romance goes, this film gives the true love role to Monica Potter who looks so much like a blonde Julia Roberts that you would swear they are related. The mission of "Without Limits" is not merely biographical, though. It believes that Steve Prefontaine singlehandedly juiced up the sport of track, and that he did it by being one of our modern athletes, a little bit arrogant and opinionated, and that these qualities made him great.

The Scorecard. Billy Crudup had me from "Go" because his Prefontaine seemed to have the masculinity and toughness that seemed right. In contrast, it took me a very long time to warm up to Jared Leto in this role, especially the early scenes where he seemed to be just too damn pretty and metro-sexual to match the Pre of my own memories. However, as "Prefontaine" marched through its story, I found myself more-and-more accepting of Leto's performance and now, on balance, both Leto and Crudup seem to have nailed certain specific qualities. This started out as a win for Crudup, but settles finally into a tie.

As for track coach Bill Bowerman, Donald Sutherland in "Without Limits" was mentioned for an Oscar nomination and actually made off with a Golden Globe nomination. His is a wonderful performance but throughout he is always movie star Donald Sutherland in the role. This is not the case with R. Lee Ermey of "Prefontaine" who manages to feel real, authentic and more like what you expect from the real Bowerman. I would have been thrilled to hear some of the words from the Robert Towne "Without Limits" coming from his mouth instead of Sutherland's.

Check out the poster campaigns above. After "Prefontaine" bombed at the box office in 1997 with a poster that emphasized running, it looks like 21 months later the film producers of "Without Limits" decided to go with romance. Which is crazy because that's hardly what their film is about. So much for truth-in-packaging.

The girls of the dualing Prefontaine films are so incredibly different that you have to wonder how that happened. Neither one is fully accurate. One of the best analyses of what's true and what's not (girlfriends and other issues) is in the Sports Hollywood web-site. Here's how they put it:

There are distinct differences in the films, because each story's point of view comes from a different track coach and a different girlfriend, all of whom claim to be the biggest influence on Pre's life. Prefontaine was inspired from recollections of Oregon track coach Bill Dellinger and Pre's last girlfriend, Nancy Alleman. Without Limits, on the other hand, used as its consultants Oregon's other track coach, Bill Bowerman (who went on to create Nike shoes), and second-to-last girlfriend Mary Marckx.

There's reality and film reality, of course. Monica Potter, Pre's gal-pal in "Without Limits," looks like a movie star playing a role, and together with Crudup's Pre they don't really seem to generate any real connection at all to each other. On the other hand, Amy Locane as love-interest Nancy Alleman really made sense to me as the kind of woman he'd probably be most attracted to. And, given that she was his last girlfriend, represents the best look at the direction he was headed.

Something that is inexplicable in "Without Limits" is the way it treats Pre's parents. Basically, in this film, he has no father, only a mother. Was this a rights issue, and did "Prefontaine" wrap up the dad's story, leaving "Without Limits" to feel they'd get sued if they used him? Who knows? All I can tell you is that he's got both mom and dad in "Prefontaine" which is the way it was.

What a lot of this comparison comes down to, though, is tone. "Without Limits" feels a little more important than "Prefontaine" despite the earlier film's pseudo-documentary look because, I assume, Robert Towne has a slightly steadier hand than Steve James when it comes to helming a production. But "Prefontaine" manages to feel a lot less choppy and when it goes to the 1972 Olympics (where the Israeli athletes were murdered by Palestinian terrorists), it feels like a completely told story, as does its attempt to explain the battle with the AAU. In a nutshell, "Prefontaine" builds to a political crusade about the rights of athletes while "Without Limits" builds to a grudging understanding between coach and star athlete.

Of course, both films end with Prefontaine's death, driving a sports car, under the influence, in 1975. His car overturned and his chest was literally crushed, extinguishing his incredible lung-power forever. In "Without Limits," you understand this happened after taking his friend Frank Shorter home. In "Prefontaine," you understand this happened at the celebration of the track meet he staged in Eugene between Finnish and American athletes to tweak the AAU. One is incidental, the other is important.

The thing that probably held both films back from box office success, though, is that dramatically they are pre-destined to literally run into that brick wall. There is no victory waiting for Pre, only death, and since he never got to go to the 1976 Olympics to avenge his 1972 loss to Lasse Vieren, there is not even that dramatic accomplishment. It's a true story but, in the end, like "La Bamba" or "The Buddy Holly Story," you know it's not going to end well.

Read on to see which film wins our photo-finish race Smackdown:

Ouch! We're #1!

As an Oregon Duck alum, the last few seasons have been an interesting ride in the college football scheme of things.

The University of Oregon football team has made a few good runs for the conference title, stumbled a few times, but basically been seen as a national contender. Last year, if I'm not mistaken, we got to a #7 ranking.

Now comes the news that the Ducks are finally #1.

According to Sports Illustrated, we are the #1 team in the entire United State of America when it comes to "Ugly Uniforms."

This, of course, hurts. What makes it worse, however, is that Nike is an Oregon company and Nike's leader Phil Knight is an Oregon Duck like me. But, somehow, Nike has created the worst uniform out there for the home team. I'm not entirely sure how something like this happens.

On the other hand, maybe my style sense is lacking because I actually don't hate these uniforms. Maybe the fact that I'm used to yellow and green makes it hard for me to comprehend the "you suck" factor here but I kinda think they're okay. The helmets, for example, are the best I've ever seen at the UO.

I'm sure next year's uniforms will be different.

The Duck(s) That Roared: University of Oregon Basketball '07

I am, admittedly, pretty ignorant about college basketball most of the time. But as a graduate of the University of Oregon, I know this. The Ducks are on fire at the NCAA tournament, having won three games straight.

I won't pretend to speculate then about all this except to say that one of Oregon's leading players is named Bryce Taylor, who helped them in the last seconds clinch the game against UNLV, and that feels good. But they have another player, somebody named Tajuan Porter, who is 5-feet-six-inches tall, and he's kicking ass, especially on those three-pointers. He's even got the attention of the New York Times which has featured him in a recent article. {Photo: Jonathan Ferry, Getty Images}

“I always knew what I was capable of; I wanted to prove everyone wrong. Growing up, a lot of people talked about my height. They always told me I wouldn’t be able to do something. I used that as motivation. You can’t really listen to people who try to discourage you.”

For all the people out there who think they're not good enough, or they don't have the perfect situation, there is Tajuan Porter to serve as an inspiration. It's all about your other qualities, according to UO men's basketball coach Ernie Kent:

“I’m a guy that believes size doesn’t have anything to do with it; it’s your heart and courage. He was 5-6, but he played like 6-5.”

Coach Kent, by the way, played for the Ducks back when I went to school there. Plus, a couple of years ago, when I produced "Lights, Camera, Oregon!" (a three-hour music/comedy/variety fundraiser launch for the school), Kent supplied the voice and presence for the most electrifying, motivating video of the evening.

Plus, I seem to remember that back when I was going to the UO, we also had a guy the size of Porter who played like him. Maybe another alum can post here and remind me who that was.

In any case, the UO Ducks play Florida on Sunday at 11:40am PST. Here's what the bracket looks like so far. Go Ducks!

Up Close with Tiger and the Gang

Just got back from watching the Tiger Woods Target World Challenge, played out at the Sherwood Country Club. It was a beautiful warm day (close to 80 degrees) and my biggest concern currently is my sunburn. I know, boo-hoo...

I'm not much of a golfer, although I play every five years whether I need to or not. But my friend, Don Most, who invited me to this, is a very fine golfer himself and showed me how to get the hang of hanging with the gallery. Yes, Tiger was available to be seen, but the crowd shadowing him was, well, competitive. So instead we followed Adam Scott (#4 PGA) and Geoff Ogilvy (U.S. Open Champion) from Australia for most of the morning, but also Padraig Harrington (European #1) of Ireland and Michael Campbell of New Zealand. I guess there are 16 golfers at this event (ALL of them top-rated this year) and these four were outstanding. From the score board so far, I'd say Ogilvy was smokin' while we watched; and Tiger Woods was having a great day himself.

Watching these guys hit close up was a revelation. I thought a couple of the drives were going to cause sonic booms they rocketed out with such authority. It also impressed me how few practice swings people took. Most often, they pretty much just walked up to the ball and hit it.

A couple of things struck me as funny, too. First off, here it is a national event, covered by USA Network and also ABC, and they still had to put up with the distraction of gardeners working at houses off the fairway doing their "mow and blow." Then there were the barking dogs that could not be silenced.

I just hope I don't peel...