The word “showtime” evokes
two images: first, a rising
curtain, and second, a 12-year
era (1979-1991) of entertaining
Los Angeles Lakers basketball.
“Winning Time: The Rise of the
Lakers Dynasty” is a gritty HBO
sports drama with Hollywood
appeal beyond the Lakers fan
base. Based on Jeff Pearlman’s
nonfiction book, “Showtime:
Magic, Kareem, Riley, and the
Los Angeles Lakers Dynasty
of the 1980s,” “Winning Time”
is a fictionalization of sports’
biggest stars with a cast of
excellent pros and rookies. Just
remember — it’s all for show.
Andrew
D.
Bernstein,
the
showtime-era
team
photographer, said in a phone
interview with The Michigan
Daily that the Forum arena
spotlight lighting and stunning
Lakers play made games feel
“kind of like a stage show.” “I
really felt my job was to kind of
show people what was going on
behind the curtain,” Bernstein
said. “Winning Time” captures
the audience just as Bernstein
did: by providing a look behind
the glittery curtain (in color
film).
Unlike
Bernstein’s
photographs,
however,
the
show’s “inside look” is fictional.
In the late 1970s, the Lakers
had an aversion to playoff
basketball, and the NBA was
one of the least popular leagues
in America. The team needed
the shakeup of new ownership
from late sports and real estate
magnate, Jerry Buss. John
C. Reilly (“Step Brothers”)
portrays
the
playboy
with
nearly frightening sleaziness,
making him equally loveable
and hateable. The actor hits
every emotion as he battles his
never-ending money- and sex-
hungry
dissatisfaction.
The
real Buss was a different man,
a more soft-spoken womanizer
with a passionate love for
basketball.
When
Buss
drafts
the
scrappy young Earvin (Magic)
Johnson, played by Muskegon
Michigan’s Quincy Isaiah, the
team climbs to the top. Isaiah,
much like Magic himself, is a
breakout star from Michigan
and is guaranteed a bright
future in Hollywood. Magic has
not watched Isaiah’s portrayal
but said that “nothing can
duplicate” showtime basketball.
“Winning
Time”
producers
prove that Magic’s words are
true, for better or worse — the
show is not a duplication, but a
Hollywood drama.
Though
the
players
are
fictionalized, their on-screen
chemistry or friction is palpable
and true-to-life. Kareem Abdul
Jabar (debut star Solomon
Hughes) is a quiet team leader.
He clashes with the smiling,
irresistible Magic. They contrast
the fearless Spencer Haywood
(Wood Harris, “Remember the
Titans”) who struggles with
ongoing addiction. And much
drama surrounds Norm Nixon
(DeVaughn
Nixon,
Norm’s
real son), the first challenge to
Magic’s (and Isaiah’s) charisma.
The show has no stunt doubles,
and each actor trained to
achieve
their
character’s
signature style of play.
Wednesday, June 29, 2022 — 3
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Climate change needs poetry, not
apathy — so read ‘Habitat Threshold’
In his 2020 poetry collection “Habitat
Threshold,” Craig Santos Perez wields his
poetry as a way to critique climate change and
the societal ills — racism, bigotry, capitalism
and corporate greed, among others — that
contribute to it. He doesn’t shy away from
describing scenes that result from climate
change, like refugees, rising sea levels and
pollution. He confronts his struggles with
raising his daughter in an environmentally
fraught world and with his own complicity
in the systems that contribute to climate
change. This book is not for the faint of
heart — but neither is contemplating the
existential threat of climate change. And
just like awareness of the climate crisis is
necessary, so too is reading this collection.
Poetry won’t remove microplastics from the
ocean or reverse the melting of glaciers, but
Perez demonstrates that it can make you feel
something genuine in a seemingly doomed
world.
Perez experiments with form through
necropastorals, haikus, sonnets and prose
poetry. Perhaps most notably, he employs
“mimic poetry” (also known as “after
poems”), which use the form of a pre-existing
poem to create a new work that comments
on new topics. Perez draws on well-known
authors and their famous works, including
Allen Ginsberg’s “America” and Maggie
Smith’s “Good Bones,” and alters them to
speak to ecological themes. In a wink and nod
to the overtly ecopoetic slant of his poetry,
instead of writing “after Wallace Stevens,”
for example, under his new poem’s title in
reference to the original “Thirteen Ways,” he
writes “recycling Wallace Stevens.”
By retaining original, often familiar
poetry formatting (he also “recycles” Irving
Berlin’s “White Christmas” and Dr. Seuss’s
“One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish”)
and juxtaposing it with jarring images of
climate disaster, Perez forces the reader out
of complicity and into a contemplation of the
way our environment affects every aspect
of our lives — even those aspects that feel so
routine. William Carlos Williams’s original
“This Is Just To Say” is a sweet, intimate and
often-parodied poem reminiscent of a note
left on a kitchen table in which the speaker is
apologizing to an unknown other for eating
their plums.
Drake leaves his comfort zone on ‘Honestly, Nevermind,’ but maybe he
shouldn’t have
For over half a decade, Drake has
been the poster child for commercial
rap success at any cost, particularly
creativity. There’s no denying his ear
for beats, steady flow or high-end
production, but over the years, he’s
seemingly refused to take risks to
expand his musical ability, all while his
lyrical ability has taken a steep nosedive
into unbearable corniness. To his credit,
he’s still been able to consistently put out
mostly decent rap music, which isn’t a
trivial accomplishment, but it feels like
Drake has been long overdue for a real
statement record that can breathe life
back into his career.
Honestly, Nevermind is as bold of a
statement as anybody could have hoped
for from Drake, as he mostly forgoes
his typical hip-hop beats in favor of a
new house music style. In theory, house
music should be a great fit for Drake,
given his shortcomings as a lyricist.
Drake even has past success in this
genre: His 2017 song “Passionfruit” is a
great, danceable hip-hop song that shows
the full potential of dance/rap genre
fusion. However, Honestly, Nevermind
shows that Drake lacks a fundamental
understanding of the house music genre
deep enough to justify an entire album of
it and isn’t willing to commit and take the
necessary step of fully overhauling his
musical style.
One of the key techniques used by
great house musicians, like Daft Punk,
DJ Falcon and Armand Van Helden, to
turn basic, repetitive ideas into lengthy
yet compelling songs is full usage of the
sound frequency spectrum: As soon
as an idea gets stale, they can filter out
the low or high sounds to give the song
a fresh, new feel. On “Passionfruit,”
Drake did an exceptional job at creating
a rich, sonic texture that was engaging
while supporting his tastefully low-
key lyrics and vocal delivery. But on
Honestly, Nevermind, nearly all of the
instrumentals are heavily washed-out,
occupying the low end of the frequency
spectrum to accommodate Drake’s
higher-pitched, autotuned vocals. On
the song “Massive,” the producers
attempt a standard drop-out about
four minutes in, but the instrumental is
already so washed-out that the effect of
filtering out the high-pitched sound is
lost. Frustratingly, the song also briefly
features a vibrant and energetic piano
part that teases the potential of this
album if it had a more consistently full
sound.
Because Drake underutilizes common
house production techniques, he instead
has to rely on his lyrical ability to keep his
songs interesting for the listener, which
generally does not go over well. On
nearly every song on the album, Drake’s
autotuned voice awkwardly rambles
vague and uninteresting lyrics over his
simple dance beats. Lyrically, Drake is
at his best when he’s doing the least: On
songs like “Overnight” and “A Keeper,”
Drake’s repetition of short phrases fits
the simplistic house instrumentals well.
But on songs like “Texts Go Green” and
“Massive,” the more complicated lyrics
are incongruous with the simple beats
that accompany them. “Falling Back” is
a good example of both types of Drake’s
lyricism: In the opening verse, it feels
like Drake is just sayingw words without
intent (“How do I, how do I feel? How do I
feel?”), whereas Drake’s repetition of just
one phrase in the chorus (“Falling back
on me”) communicates Drake’s message
better and fits with the instrumental.
Throughout the album, it’s often unclear
if the listener is actually supposed to
listen carefully to Drake’s narrative or
just groove to the beat.
JACK MOESER
Daily Arts Writer
‘Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers
Dynasty’ is Hollywood entertainment at its
finest — just don’t call it a true story
KAYA GINSKY
Daily Arts Writer
EMILIA FERRANTE
Senior Arts Editor
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