Hustle Review

By Paul Anthony

I have to admit that I don’t watch many sports drama films and I have to admit at times I try to avoid anything with Adam Sandler in it. Because at times it seems like he keeps hanging on his style of comedy that people just grow up from, but he doesn’t grow from. But the trailers caught my attention for some odd reason, and I had to watch it. The film has a mix of real actors and NBA stars either playing themselves or playing characters. Besides starring Adam Sandler and Queen Latifah, the film also stars Ben Foster, Robert Duvall and Jaleel White. Now with the NBA players in this film you have Juancho Hernangomez as the lead Bo Cruz, Anthony Edwards as Kermit Wilts. The film was released on June 8th and was 117 minutes long and it was released on Netflix.

The plot of the film shows Sandler as Stanley Sugerman a scout for the 76ers who travels the road to scout out fresh talent for the 76ers but the road life takes a toll not only on him but his family as well, until finally he is promoted to assistant coach which will have him home more with his family, but owner dies, and the team is taken over his son who puts Stanley back on the road as a scout. There he sent back on the road to search for talent and when that fails another door opens and he meets Bo Cruz a young man who is a construction worker but hustles on the basketball court for extra money to help his mom and daughter live. Vincent denies Bo basically so it up to Stanely to get this kid over to America and Play ball. This dispute ends up costing Stanley his job, but he made a promise to Bo’s family, and he is determined to keep that promise though it takes a toll on him financially. Though he doesn’t tell Bo that. But Bo has competition in the draft and that comes from Kermit Wilts who is determined to prove he’s the number one overall pick and he wins the battles by getting under Bo’s skin after a number of public games it’s a private game that he gets the Upper hand and proves his skills. Its then reveals that Vincent is fire and his sister is taken over who Stanley has a great relationship with, and she rehires him as a coach and it’s revealed that Bo did make a team and that Team is Boston though Bo and Stanley remained close friends.

Wow let me start off by saying the story alone was a powering one which involves redemption and the power to thrive and overcome anything and everything that you face. This film did delver a good message and Adam Sandler now this is the Adam Sandler that I want to see more often in movies because he did in fact put on a great performance that will be remembered for years to come. I don’t know where in this this film ranks among the best sports films but I will say this and that is this film was a pretty damn good film. In the end I am saying this film was a good A or 90 percent for me and I will say that this was a must watch film.

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Saturday Sequel presents Like Mike 2: Streetball

By Paul Anthony

Back in 2002 we were in the height of the Bow Wow Era and also Jonathon Lipnicki as well, one was a cute little young rapper and the other was cute little kid that was pretty much in the prime of his acting career. So why not get these two kids together and make a film about orphans finding a pair of Michael Jorden’s shoes that some how actually fit and gave him powers to be the G.O.A.T the movie had all the magic and was a good little hit. The film had the budget of just 30 million and mad just around 62 million. so you know what that means, yes a sequel was coming. Sadly Lil Bow Wow grew up and so did Lipnicki which meant that they weren’t going to be in a sequel and worse of all the film would be direct to video which in 2006 these films were still a knock off basically unlike today. the biggest stars of this film was basically Kel Mitchell and Mark Cuban. the film stars Jascha Washington in the lead role where the kid finds the shoes. Now the biggest question of the day would be did this film live up to the first film? I best answer would be no of course but let’s take a look at why it didn’t.

In this film we meet a young boy named Jerome Jenkins Jr, one day playing basketball with his friends, they learn that a streetball team is coming to town and is looking for talent. Needless to say Jerome and his friends aren’t very good even though street ball is in Jerome’s family, his dad is often referred top as a good player though chokes during the big games. One day Jerome finds a pair of shows hanging on a street light, what catches the his eyes the most is the fact that the shoes says MJ on it. And that night the shoes are struck by lightening which Jerome learns has given him more abilities to play basketball but only when he wears them. Soon he starts to gain attention from other people and even joins a streetball team and leads them to the championship game however life isn’t perfect off the court. He stops making time for his friends, he becomes a ball hog which begins to turn his teammates against him as well. Meanwhile Ray who is like his mom’s distant relative friend becomes his agent to get him sponsors but in the long run he was only using him for the money and not looking out for his well being. Finally everything catches up to Jerome and he realizes all the wrong he is doing. In the end he makes it up to everyone he has hurt and screwed Ray with making money.

Okay so we know it didn’t live up to the first film, the film did have some over the top scenes that just didn’t seem like it fit in with the rest of the movie, which made these scenes even more over the top and just hurt the film. The film also tried to recreate the magic from the first film with a new cast which just didn’t happen. The Character of Ray was a joke he was called cousin Ray living with them and really wasn’t family at all. That made no sense. In the end I am giving this film a C for being average at best!

The Pay Issues

By Paul Anthony

We are in the era of full women rights and rightful so, god made us all equals therefore we should get paid equal. If you are good at what you do you should be paid well regardless if you are an man or woman now it is something different if you just suck at what you do. But we know or some of us know that a company’s revenue is very important because that revenue helps pay for people’s income. Now this is very true for sports leagues. Revenue from fans showing up and buying clothes and jerseys helps keep a sports league in great shape for years to come. Now the part that is fun for Athletes in these leagues is the money they can get with little to no education, sounds like i am being harsh but I am not. Just think you are in debt from college making maybe 50 to 70k starting out. Some of these people make 300K with no debts from college, so when I say I am not trying mean I am really not. that high number Just mention is for men not women sadly, their case is much different, but as they fight for equal pay the truth is they may never get it but who is to blame for that? Well if you are sports fan then look no further then at yourself.

Leagues live on their revenue that is no secret and it comes from the fans, just look at the NFL which makes billions upon billions which they can give their plays millions per year and not think twice about it. I know you heard the saying called the big four leagues which are the biggest leagues in North America in terms of revenue, they are NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL. Then you have two more leagues behind them which are MLS and the CFL. All are of course Men leagues. So how do these leagues make then? NFL makes about 13 billion, MLB makes about 9.5 billion, NBA makes about 5.2 billion, MLS makes .9 billion and CFL makes about .2 billion. Some high numbers right.

Now you may be wondering where do the women leagues stack up against these numbers? truth is they don’t at all. Let’s look at the biggest Woman’s league and that is the WNBA, but they wouldn’t have stuck around had it not been for the NBA giving them money, about 11 million dollars per year for most of its time here just so they can remain a float, now just for a few years only half of the league’s teams reported a profit and that comes with not enough people watching them shine.

This topic become a hot topic thanks to the US Women National team winning the World Cup for the second time and four of the 8 world cups and while the men failed to qualify for the world cup. Now people only seemed to be interested in these world games for National pride rather then being a hardcore fan of the sports because those hardcore fans are far in between Just ask yourself which game would you attend a NBA game or WNBA game and then you’ll understand why they don’t get paid that much.

I would like to say one day this could change but it won’t change until the right action is taken and what is the right action? Well one solution is the men Leagues buy the Women’s leagues and fund them that which could clearly boost the pay for the women but that could also mean less profits for the big four leagues are they willing to accept 12 billion instead of 13 billion, I would say no because they would have already done this. I wish the women Athletes the best of luck and keep fighting for higher pay!

The Winners are!

By Paul Anthony

This week we got to crown two team champions from two different leagues and they are both first time champions! That is right the NHL season is over and so is the NBA season. Your champions are the ST. Louis Blues and the Toronto Raptors both are first time champions in franchise history. First before we get started lets say congrats to both teams for winning. The Blues needed 7 games to win and the Raptors needed six games and few injuries to do it but nonetheless became the world champs.

First let’s start with the Blues, very rare you go from being the worse team in a certain month of the season then by the end of season winning it all however they had some good motivation in doing so. The Blues caught the news that they had a young super fan named Laila Anderson who is only 11 years old but sadly is battling a life threatening autoimmune disease, its a disease that only a hand full of children get and it was her wish to see the Blues win the cup and sure enough they fought for her to the end and then the best part was, she was there at game 7 and even went on the ice to touch the cup, so good for her, it is one of those feel good moments that you just don’t get often. Now Boston took the loss and trust me they might be crying but the Boston area sport fans have been spoiled with championships.

With Championships Golden State Warriors have been reigning kings in the NBA, this year has been no different except they had to finish second instead of first. The biggest story to come out of this year finals was the Toronto Raptors fans. the team right now is celebrating the first championship in franchise history with bunch of throw away players but the fans stole the show but not in  a good way.

There has been an unwritten rule in sports that you just don’t do and that is cheer at someone who just got injured, now I get you sometimes you can get caught up in the moment after all this was the championship but when Kevin Durant went down you knew something wasn’t right. There was no denying the cheers from crowds were loud when Toronto scored but then there was a pause and when the crowd saw Kevin down they got even louder then when their own team scored. At that moment we didn’t know what injury he had, considering he just came back from a calf injury, many thought he was rushed back but even Kevin said he made the choice to come back, we now know that he actually ruptured his Achilles which for what he does, this alter his career.

In the end this just didn’t look good for anyone and you know it is bad when the players on your team tells you to calm it down, even if they try to deny that, it was clear they were unhappy by there fans. At the end as well this is just a game and we have to understand that and the people that we root for and boo are people as well and Basketball like many other sports are just games. I am sure this black eye on the fan base will be a learning experience in which we will have to wait and see next season!