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Show Monday. Aus. 27, 2007 StafesmanSpecial Features Page 27 'Champ' delivers hard-hitting performances HOLLYWOOD-- The drama "Resurrecting the Champ" opens with an analogy between writing and boxing. Both activities require you to put your talent forward and stand alone. It's good connective tissue for a movie about an old forgotten boxer and a struggling young sportswriter who develop a strangely symbiotic relationship. Directed by Rod struggling to maintain a relationship with his 6-year-old son, Teddy (Dakota Goyo). His exacting, old-school editor, Metz (Alan Alda), is unimpressed with Erik's reporting, which he describes as "a lot of typing, not much writing," routinely buries his stories and isn't about to let him off the boxing beat any time soon to cover the more glamorous pro football Broncos or pro basketball Nuggets. Kevin Crust Just as Erik seems out of LA Times gambits, he stumbles across a homeless man in an alley being beaten by some young jerks. Erik chases the kids off and learns that the man calls himself" Champ" and claims to be a former boxer named Battlin' Bob Grade B+ Satterfield, who came with"Ressurrecting the Champ" in a fight or two of the world championship in the 1950s. As the pugilist, Samuel L. Lurie ("The Contender"), Jackson does his usual fine "Resurrecting" delivers a heckwork, chiseling an impressively uva story marred by some creddetailed performance from a ibility problems, but lands the character that might have easily majority, of its punches via subfallen into caricature. Jackson tly powerful performances and instills the grizzled ex-fighter a moving under card of paternal with a grace and pride that tranconnection. scend the rags he wears and the Josh Hartnett stars as the grocery cart in which he hauls reporter, a Denver Post scribe his possessions. Charming and named Erik Kernan Jr. whose heart-rending, Champ drinks father was a legendary boxing and suffers from a career of announcer on the radio. Though blows to the head but is surprisstill in his 20s, he's reached criti- ingly lucid, able to recall his cal points in both his personal bouts with startling precision and professional lives and is and clarity. beginning to give off a whiff of Erik smells not just a story, but desperation. a career-maker. He steps up and He's separated from his wife, applies himself to the material Joyce (Kathryn Morris), a more with previously unseen zeal and successful journalist who also in the process develops a comworks at the newspaper, and is plex relationship with Champ Reel Reviews that knocks loose some of his own baggage. Screenwriters Michael Bortman and Allison Burnett were inspired by a similar 1997 article by former Los Angeles Times reporter J.R. Moehringer. Bortman and Burnett deploy a fairly significant whatif scenario in dramatizing the nonfiction article and amp up the parallels between the reporter and the pugilist mostly for the good, but some of their choices hinder the movie. There's too much reliance on coincidence as a means of speeding up the story and the depiction of Erik's journalism skills leaves a lot to be desired. The manner in which his story comes together is not altogether believable and the eventual moral struggle is stretched to the brink . What's more interesting is the way the filmmakers reveal Erik's personal flaws, his motivation to pursue a career in the shadow of a daunting, unknowable father. Erik has the habit of telling those around him, including his son, what he thinks they want to hear, which when combined with some other irritating traits makes him initially hard to root for. Fortunately, Hartnett is an extremely likable actor and he more than holds his own with Jackson. As the film progresses, Hartnett helps the character evolve even when the script dangles him excessively over an emotional edge. Lurie also gets strong supporting performances from Alda, David Paymer (as another editor) and an unrecognizable Peter Coyote as a boxing old-timer. Boxing scenes, shown in flashback, are used sparingly but efficiently, evoking the Champ's era when he fought the likes of Ezzard Charles and sparred with Rocky Marciano. The film sacrifices some of Moehringer's aesthetic appreciation for the sport, but sticks to the main themes. Most affecting is the strong hold fathers and sons have over one another even from the grave. The intertwined search for one's male identity as both a father and a son gets its hooks into us in ways we overlook or would like to ignore. What's particularly fascinating is how the mutual yearning for approval stretches in both directions. "Resurrecting the Champ," despite its shortcomings, evocatively projects these feelings. Reel Reviews and there are no issues of courage, stamina, speed and pain thresholds. You think in the first seconds: If he doesn't see through that self-dramatizing bombast, how can he ever hope to write well? Wilbon, sit on this guy, will you? Anyway, Erik is the No. 3 sportswriter at the Times and can't seem to get any higher. But that changes when he sees some kids hassling a homeless guy, who turns out to be, though much the worse for wear, Bob Satterfield, a ranked heavyweight in the '50s who was once a fight away from a championship bout _ but he lost it. Now he's a peeping-voiced, shuffling Denver homeless guy. Erik sees gold: He sees one of those great, tragic sports pieces on the pain of a fallen hero. The movie pretends this ancient trope has never been done before, and it pretends a cover story in the Sunday magazine of a Denver newspaper could turn a journeyman into a star in about three days. It also pretends a professional newspaper copy desk could make an error so gigantic that it makes "Dewey Wins" seem like the horoscope. Reel Reviews Costs as little as $75 - $175 / MONTH Pays out as much as $5000 - $7000 Musi be in effect 10 months BEFORE you deliver Works great with other health insurance policies Great prices on all Life, Health, Auto & Renters Cache Valley Insurance, Inc. 94 South Main, Logan (435) 7524560 Ask for Curtis Craig. who will be Dr. Bla^feettis a Utah the outdoors and is exc ; Utah to start her medical%;act?ice. Anrtj *"her Jttusband Cody," and jfeir daught Claudia ari*ex€itcdi^pBeGOJue a part conrpanic ELECTMED. East S u i t e 102 753-9999 CACHET OT.VALLEY, Women's Ceib : Kirkman, M.D BLarry A. Nooirdfa, M*,D. Gary K. F&wers, M.D. Anne S. Blackett. D.O. An appoiriiraent. Hardly anything feels real, but what feels even more unreal is Hartnett with a cloying, sentimental, self-pitying performance. The liveliest thing in the film is the great Jackson, slumming again in a role miles beneath him. "Resurrecting the Champ" PG-B, UX minutes Contains violence and brief language. 'Nanny Diaries' only generic HOLLYWOOD — There's a throwaway gag near the end of "The Nanny Diaries" that hints at some of what's so perplexing and off-the-mark about this plodding and generic adaptation, which by rights should have been pure eat-the-rich summer fun: Relaxing on the beach in Nantucket, a Park Avenue dowager shoos away her 6-year-old grandson when his nanny dashes off to use the bathroom. See, Grandma doesn't want to be disturbed — she's on ^^_^^mmmmmm^^tmmmm^m^^ the last chapter of Carino Chocano "The Devil LA Times Wears Prada." It's not particularly funny as moments go, but it Grade C is particularly tell"Nanny Diaries' ing. Like its boring heroine, "The Nanny Diaries" ambivalently mocks what it aspires to, or aspires to what it mocks... one or the other, it's hard to tell. Based on the 2002 novel "The Nanny Diaries," written by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus, the movie provides a more-or-less faithful enactment of the major plot points, taking care to omit most of what made the book enjoyable. Surprisingly well-executed and well-received for a co-written hatchet job, the novel paved the way for an avalanche of revenge-of-t heunderling tales of which the far more tantrum-y and mean-spirited "Prada" was a major part. As it happened, the devil not only beat the nanny to the screen, but it pulled off the rare feat of improving significantly on its source material. So it seems MATERNITY INSURANCE Cache Valley Wo is pleased 'Champ' is downfor the count "Resurrecting the Champ" is the story of a sportswriter who discovers his ticket to the big leagues in the form of a big, fat story. Then a trick of fate intervenes, and his ride to the top may turn out to be a one-way to the bottom unless he learns to fake contrition and humility fast. The .movie, Stephen Hunter which • WashingtonPost stars Josh • Hartnett • as the sportswriter and Samuel L. Jackson Grade Cas the "Ressurrecting the Champ" story, has the disadvantage of being set in newspaper culture, on a big daily called "The Times" in Denver. To anyone who has hung out in a newsroom, it gets so many nuances wrong that you can hardly watch it. It begins with Hartnett, as Erik Kernan, setting what he thinks is a manly tone in the voice-over. "Writing," he (more or less) says, "is just like boxing. In both of them, you're in the ring alone. You're naked." Er, yeah, just like boxing, except of course nobody's trying to beat your head to pulp, We Fit Your Needs especially self-defeating for a character in "The Nanny Diaries" to be so caught up in "The Devil Wears Prada." It's especially surprising given the pedigree of its writer-directors, former documentarians Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini, who cowrote the excellent Harvey Pekar biopic "American Splendor." Nothing that was quirky or inventive about that film is in evidence here. The story has been reduced to so much condescending chickflickery, adding a twist at the end that pulls what remain of the movie's teeth and turns it into straight-ahead ego-porn for DIY mommies. The book was based on the experiences of its authors, child-psychology majors who put themselves through college working as nannies for the super-rich of New York's Upper East Side, logging 30 such jobs between them. The characters of Nanny, Mr. And Mrs. X and 4-year-old Grayer may have been composites, but they were so deadon they launched a thousand paranoid trips along Park Avenue. The million little details that brought to life the rarefied world of financiers, trophy wives, their neglected offspring and the put-upon servant classes that cater to them have been distilled here into a cute (but suspiciously familiar) device hinging on the main character's new back story. Scarlett Johansson plays Annie, known throughout most of the film as "Nanny," a recent college graduate who bungles her interview at an investment bank and accidentally lands a gig as caretaker when she saves Grayer (Nicholas Reese Art) from being hit by a scooter in Central Park. Unlike the Nanny of the novel, an NYU child-development [ISee NANNY, page 28 PICK FOR JUST |