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Whoopi Goldberg plays a loudmouthed, obsessive fan of the New York Knicks who wins a contest to coach the team. She soon finds that handling players is tough, fans are tough, owners are tough, and so on, but she's big enough to conquer them all with determination, smarts, and personality. The first half of the film is pretty cute as Goldberg's character makes the jump from opinionated spectator to the gal in the hot seat. But everything derails in the second half, which is mostly an op-ed piece about keeping pro-ball teams from moving out of their cities. --Tom Keogh ... Read more

Reviews (5)

WHEN YOU WISH UPON A STAR...
This is a very enjoyable comedy, starring the irrepressible Whoopi Goldberg in the role of Edwina "Eddie" Franklin, the widow of a New York City police officer. Following in her late husband's footsteps, she coaches basketball for inner city kids. She is also the number one fan for the New York Knicks, a team that, despite the talent on it, can't seem to win a game. Eddie loves the team, no matter what, and can be seen high up in the rafters of every Knicks game, rabidly and raucously cheering them on.

When "Eddie" wins the honorary coach for the day contest at one of the Knicks' games, she manages to get thrown off the court by the head coach (Dennis Farina), when she protests a ref's call. This causes the fans to go wild, chanting her name as she leaves the court. When the head coach for the Knicks gets fired by the team's owner, Wild Bill Burgess (Frank Langella in a ten gallon hat), he hires "Eddie" as an interim head coach, as it seems that fans of the Knicks love "Eddie" and respond to her very positively. After all, she was one of them. Burgess, however, has no expectations of "Eddie's" ability to coach the team. "Eddie", however, aims to do everything she can to bring the Knicks out of their slump. For her, this is a dream come true.

This is a feel good sort of movie. Whoopi is very funny , as she goes about setting right what has gone wrong with the team. Frank Langella is terrific as the deal making team owner whose folksy manner belies the fact that he has his eye on the bottom line. Dennis Farina is credible as the head coach with a mouth as big as his monumental ego. While the film is fairly predictable, it is quite enjoyable. The viewer is also treated to a few fun cameos by Donald Trump, sports announcer Marv Alpert, and former NBA star, Walt Frazier. If you are not a big fan of basketball, however, deduct one star from my rating.

Good, But Could Have Been Better
The Story: Whoopi Goldberg plays a fan of the NY Knicks who wins a chance to coach for a day. It works so well that she gets hired.

The story is interesting and the movie starts out with lots of heart and humor. Then, two things happen to spoil it.

First, a scene is inserted (and it really feels like it was inserted, almost as an afterthought) wherein Whoopi Goldberg has a heated argument with the team owner, with profanity inserted in what seems a forced and contrived way. I've seen this in other movies (e.g., "Magic" starring Anthony Hopkins), and it looks like the profanity is inserted just to change the rating to grab the attention of teens, who go to the movies a lot.

Second, the film loses it's way and gets boring throughout much of the second half.

Ms. Goldberg, I hope you redo this movie and carry the heart and humor of the first half through the entire movie. It could be a 4-star or even a 5-star family movie.

Stop Before It Hurts!
[Add a star if you love Whoopi Goldberg.]

OK, class. Once again. It's important to realize what our perceptions are going in to a movie like this before one starts judging it. My perception going in was that we have yet another sports fantasy from the Disney sports fantasy factory. These are the same people who didn't know to stop with The Bad News Bears. So, they gave us The Mighty Ducks, Little GIANTS, and Angels In The Outfield.

This time out of the box it's "the Bad News Bears play NBA Basketball". Subbing for the Bears are the New York Knicks. Believe me, it's definitely bad news to see Mark Jackson back in a Knick uniform. Anyway, these Knicks are hopelessly bad. They're in last place and they have no signs of getting better. However, every sports team, no matter how bad, has its loyal fans.

Meet Eddie Franklin (Whoopi Goldberg). Eddie is fanatical about the Knicks. She loves them. She loves them so much that she, a limo dispatcher, does play-by-play and commentary over the limo service's airwaves. Where Eddie's friend goes to Knick games to meet men, Eddie goes to see the game.

Well, the Knicks are so bad that they've been sold to a new owner, one Wild Bill Burgess (Frank Langella). Will Bill is one of those stereotypical Texan billionaires who does everything large. Langella plays him well, but I could have seen Dennis Weaver in this role. Anyway, Burgess takes a ride in from the airport in Eddie's limo, who is inexplicably driving that day. Eddie's been listening to the FAN (WFAN Sports Radio 66, NYC) and ESPN Sports Radio. Eddie hates the Knicks' coach, played by Dennis Farina; so much so that she calls up Burgess, who doing a radio call-in, without realizing that he's in the back seat behind the glass. Burgess spies Eddie at the game later and decides to fix the halftime "Honorary Coach" contest so that he can throw Eddie and Bailey (Farina) together.

Eddie sinks the requisite free-throw and we're off. Franklin and Bailey don't like each other. (Bailey doesn't like anybody.) When Eddie steps on the court to protest a call, the referee assesses the Knicks a technical foul and Bailey has Eddie thrown out of the Garden to howls of protest from the fans. Seeing this, owner Burgess conspires to get rid of Bailey and hire a new coach. Meanwhile, he can hire Eddie as a one-shot interim coach until the dirty deed is done.

Of course, the plot is convoluted and full of holes, but the movie could still be entertaining if there were any energy on the screen. For the most part, there is none. The only chemistry I enjoyed was that between Franklin and veteran player Nate Wilson (John Salley).

As a native New Yorker, I especially thought it irritating that the movie's producers split up the announcing team of Marv Albert and Walt Frazier. Although both men play themselves, Frazier plays a sports-talk host rather than his usual (and colorful) role as Knick radio analyst. Anyone who has heard Albert and Frazier work together knows what I mean.

As in all these Disney sports fantasies, the Knicks start playing better under Franklin's coaching, but there's further trouble ahead. Actually, there's so much plot in this movie, they could have loaned some to Twister.

In conclusion, I'd wait for this movie to come to cable unless you just like Whoopi Goldberg films.

[Originally written 3 June 1996]

Good Family Fun
This film shows Whoopi Goldberg at her big mouth wise cracking best. The film is about a rich chairman who buys the New York Nicks and try's to turn a losing team into a freak show to make money. So he hires a big mouth fan as the head coach who he beleives can't coach. The first half of the film is funniest as Whoopi Goldberg tells the Nicks coaches what she really thinks of them. Some of the misfit players are quite good to. There is a Russian who can't speak any English, a great player except he won't pass the ball and a player who is more interested in his failing marriage. All in all, kids will love this one and adults should enjoy some of the humour.

Eddie was good.
Whoopi is one of my favorite actresses, so that might be why my review of this film is biased. Although rabid movie critics may disagree with me, I found the film to be rather enjoyable. It was fun watching Whoopi arise to the level of coach and turn around the fledgling Knicks. It's a light-hearted comedy with laughs and fun. Recommended. ... Read more

Reviews (167)

Wild and Hilarious
It took them 8 years, but Will Smith and Martin Lawrence are back for Bad Boys II taking on the evil Cuban Ecstasy cartel and BOY does 8 years make a difference.

THE STORY

Miami P.D. cops Marcus Burnett (Lawrence) and Mike Lowrey (Smith) return to the big screen to take down a Cuban Ecstasy distribution ring. In between raising havoc on the streets of Miami and dealing with some personal issues (Mike's too much of a loose cannon and Mark's getting too old for this stuff) the boys, like in the first movie, wind up in some pretty hilarious situations.

THE COOL STUFF

The action is awesome and the comedy is still as sophomoric and hilarious as ever (that's a GOOD thing). Eight years makes a BIG difference in the terms of special effects and Bad Boys II has taken some pages out of the Matrix, CSI and Fast and Furious in terms of FX and action. The result as the Boys would say is some real COOL [stuff].

Best Scenes

1. The Freeway CHASES

2. Rat Hunting (Hilarious!!!)

3. The Video Store Scene (HILARIOUS!!!!)

4. The Morgue scene (gross, but funny)

THE CRITIQUE

The one MINOR critique with the film is its length!!! At a whopping 2 and half hours this thing is long but thankfully doesn't drag. The action is so intense it's a literal whirlwind ride. The movie DOES take a page from Pearl Harbor though in that JUST when you think the movie is about to end a new plot development opens up and continues for another half hour. The movie may very well have been better to have cut just a half hour earlier but the action in the last half hour, while feeling tacked on, was just as solid as anything else.

THE DVD EXTRAS

Well, not only do you get a stacked movie, but you also get a STACKED set of extras. So much, in fact, that they needed to put it on a whole extra disk.

Among the goodies we get are:

1. 8 theatrical trailers

2. Seven deleted scenes

3. Six sequence breakdowns

4. 19 production diary featurettes

5. A Jay-Z video

Waaay too much to get into but if you're an extras fiend you've got a whole extra disk of it to go through.

THE VERDICT

This is your prototype modern day action flick: pounding soundtrack, TONS of guns, TONS of cars and some pretty wicked street humor to go along with it. Whether you buy it or rent, it's a solid film to watch and a solid addition to your collection if you're into it.

GRADES

The Movie: 5 stars
The Extras: 5 stars
Overall: 5 stars

Highly Recommended

The Quality of DVD Authoring = Bad
Bad Boys II was a great movie to watch, full of action humor. Some of the camera work for this movie was truly amazing, and a lot of original ideas were explored. but the intent of this short review unfortunately isn't all praise.

While I liked the movie, the DVD itself was disappointing. The Second disc is loaded with cool extra features that didn't disappoint. However, the main feature was flawed. Chapters 10 through 14 (From Phat's Electronics until the chapter when Smith and Lawrence pick up the KKK guy from jail and put him in the trunk) are interlaced, which is really odd. It's hard encoded 3-2 interlacing, 3 progressive frames followed by 2 interlaced ones. Watching on a normal TV, you wouldn't notice at all, as they display interlaced images. However, on any HIgh definition system (Including a computer), these 4 chapters will look like utter crap. On my home theater system which includes a High-Def Projector with a built in Ti deinterlacer, these 4 chapters still looked bad. So, in short,

IF YOU HAVE A HIGH DEFINITION SYSTEM, DO NOT BUY THIS DVD!

I think this was simply an authoring mistake, but it is one which really annoys me. I haven't seen this information posted anywhere, so I felt the need for a review. Hope this was helpful for some.

mindless
Modern movie action, not much of a story. All special effects and crazy car chases.

cvsnxdf
a very good action movie. a lot of great car chases and shootouts. also a funny movie. the exta features are not very good.

Long Film But Funny Nonetheless
I actually liked this one better than the first! Could've done without all the language though. Even the Lethal Weapon films didn't have all that cursing but other than that.

Don't get me wrong, I ain't bashing that part of it. It has it place but a lot of times they were just cursing just to be doing it it seemed. Still a great film overall and a nice touch adding the incredible Gabrielle Union to the mix! ... Read more

Reviews (167)

Wild and Hilarious
It took them 8 years, but Will Smith and Martin Lawrence are back for Bad Boys II taking on the evil Cuban Ecstasy cartel and BOY does 8 years make a difference.

THE STORY

Miami P.D. cops Marcus Burnett (Lawrence) and Mike Lowrey (Smith) return to the big screen to take down a Cuban Ecstasy distribution ring. In between raising havoc on the streets of Miami and dealing with some personal issues (Mike's too much of a loose cannon and Mark's getting too old for this stuff) the boys, like in the first movie, wind up in some pretty hilarious situations.

THE COOL STUFF

The action is awesome and the comedy is still as sophomoric and hilarious as ever (that's a GOOD thing). Eight years makes a BIG difference in the terms of special effects and Bad Boys II has taken some pages out of the Matrix, CSI and Fast and Furious in terms of FX and action. The result as the Boys would say is some real COOL [stuff].

Best Scenes

1. The Freeway CHASES

2. Rat Hunting (Hilarious!!!)

3. The Video Store Scene (HILARIOUS!!!!)

4. The Morgue scene (gross, but funny)

THE CRITIQUE

The one MINOR critique with the film is its length!!! At a whopping 2 and half hours this thing is long but thankfully doesn't drag. The action is so intense it's a literal whirlwind ride. The movie DOES take a page from Pearl Harbor though in that JUST when you think the movie is about to end a new plot development opens up and continues for another half hour. The movie may very well have been better to have cut just a half hour earlier but the action in the last half hour, while feeling tacked on, was just as solid as anything else.

THE DVD EXTRAS

Well, not only do you get a stacked movie, but you also get a STACKED set of extras. So much, in fact, that they needed to put it on a whole extra disk.

Among the goodies we get are:

1. 8 theatrical trailers

2. Seven deleted scenes

3. Six sequence breakdowns

4. 19 production diary featurettes

5. A Jay-Z video

Waaay too much to get into but if you're an extras fiend you've got a whole extra disk of it to go through.

THE VERDICT

This is your prototype modern day action flick: pounding soundtrack, TONS of guns, TONS of cars and some pretty wicked street humor to go along with it. Whether you buy it or rent, it's a solid film to watch and a solid addition to your collection if you're into it.

GRADES

The Movie: 5 stars
The Extras: 5 stars
Overall: 5 stars

Highly Recommended

The Quality of DVD Authoring = Bad
Bad Boys II was a great movie to watch, full of action humor. Some of the camera work for this movie was truly amazing, and a lot of original ideas were explored. but the intent of this short review unfortunately isn't all praise.

While I liked the movie, the DVD itself was disappointing. The Second disc is loaded with cool extra features that didn't disappoint. However, the main feature was flawed. Chapters 10 through 14 (From Phat's Electronics until the chapter when Smith and Lawrence pick up the KKK guy from jail and put him in the trunk) are interlaced, which is really odd. It's hard encoded 3-2 interlacing, 3 progressive frames followed by 2 interlaced ones. Watching on a normal TV, you wouldn't notice at all, as they display interlaced images. However, on any HIgh definition system (Including a computer), these 4 chapters will look like utter crap. On my home theater system which includes a High-Def Projector with a built in Ti deinterlacer, these 4 chapters still looked bad. So, in short,

IF YOU HAVE A HIGH DEFINITION SYSTEM, DO NOT BUY THIS DVD!

I think this was simply an authoring mistake, but it is one which really annoys me. I haven't seen this information posted anywhere, so I felt the need for a review. Hope this was helpful for some.

mindless
Modern movie action, not much of a story. All special effects and crazy car chases.

cvsnxdf
a very good action movie. a lot of great car chases and shootouts. also a funny movie. the exta features are not very good.

Long Film But Funny Nonetheless
I actually liked this one better than the first! Could've done without all the language though. Even the Lethal Weapon films didn't have all that cursing but other than that.

Don't get me wrong, I ain't bashing that part of it. It has it place but a lot of times they were just cursing just to be doing it it seemed. Still a great film overall and a nice touch adding the incredible Gabrielle Union to the mix! ... Read more

Description

With equal parts humor and vitriol, Academy Award®-winner Richard Dreyfuss and Emmy Award®-winner Judy Davis portray Barnaby and Maxine Pierce, a middle-aged couple exploring the ups and downs of a marriage that has spun out of control.They embark on a cross country road trip from Connecticut to Los Angeles to attend the wedding of their son and give him their vintage Thunderbird as a wedding gift.By reflecting on the life they’ve shared together, the couple begins to re-evaluate their marriage and discover the possibility of rekindling their relationship. ... Read more