Buck and Basketball

Last night and this morning I watched Buck (2011) and 30 for 30: This Magic Moment (2016).

Buck

I liked this movie more than I expected. I was worried it was going to be a very heavy movie about horses saving broken people or people saving broken horses, and there is a little about that but it is so engaging it avoids being shlocky.

Two months ago my wife and I were able to go horseback riding on our honeymoon. I hadn't been on a horse since I was in elementary school and we both had a great time. I think it's something we want to do much more often in the future. This documentary about a horse trainer showed us what is possible or training a horse given the right approach of creating a bond with the horse and convincing the horse to trust the rider.

It's a good movie with a few genuinely intense sequences but a beautiful background everywhere Buck holds his training clinics.

This Magic Moment

This documentary about the Orlando Magic in the 1990's focusing on Penny and Shaq played almost like a feel-good tragedy. It was much like the articles on the 1993 Phoenix Suns from just a couple of years ago that chronicled the hopes dashed in the NBA finals and the problems that kept both teams from ever getting back to those heights.

That Magic team was a bit more animated than those Suns because the two stars were in a movie together with Nick Nolte (Blue Chips) that was shot just before Penny was drafted. I have a good memory of renting Blue Chips at my grandparents' summer place with my friend Matt who was much more of basketball fan than me but his enthusiasm was infectious.

The '90's truly were a golden age in the NBA when it was easy to turn on a game and be wowed and almost every team had a superstar. The Celtics were the team a lot of my friends in middle school liked and they might have been one of the few teams to not have a star and Dee Brown was a dunk competition champion.

This was a fun step back in time, my only gripe with 30 for 30 is that they don't do enough baseball documentaries compared to the number of basketball and football documentaries they put out.