PAGE 6
MONDAY, MARCH 25, 2013
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
FILM
New reasons to love an old favorite
IMDB.COM
ALEX LAMB alamb@kansan.com
Before spring break, we had a vote in one of my classes on the best basketball film. It was no contest – "Space Jam" won by a landslide.
Do we really think this gooey kids' movie is the defining basketball flick? Deep down, if we're being honest with ourselves, the answer is no. But it's such a childhood favorite that it commands fierce loyalty from our generation, so it feels wrong to say otherwise.
And more than any other film, it got young kids interested and involved in the game of basketball. It inspired dreams in the sportiest to the least athletic of children, wanting to become a hero to the basketball world (and the cartoon world) like Michael Jordan.
When I started playing basketball in fourth grade, "Space jam" was the most experience I'd had with the sport. All of my friends were on GABL teams so that's mainly why I joined, but it was the "Space Jam" theme song that played in my head during games. I always related the clash against the Monsters with the struggle against the opposing team.
But my love for that movie never translated into watching collegiate and professional basketball, and those still don't interest me today. Besides cheering on the lajawhys in the big games, I don't care about March Madness at all. However, my heart always grows with fondness this time of year for the film that serves as my foundation in the sports world.
Hell, it even represented at the 2012 San Diego Comic-Con. In the "nerd battle tournament," where the most powerful superheros and supervillains squared off in debate, the character of Michael Jordan from "Space Jam" took the title of champion, as decided by the audience. In the geekiest gathering on Earth, legendary basketball skills were deemed greater than every superpower. Now that's a legacy.
So, in case you haven't watched it recently, there's no better time than now Take a break from obsessing about the tournament and bust out the chronicle of the best matchup in
the history of basketball – the Tune Squad and M1 vs. the Monstars.
You'll be happy to know that 17 years after its release, "Space Jam" is still awesome, with many new reasons to love it at this age. As the still active, never updated official site for the movie says, it's "one of the most high-tech, high-concept, high-flying films ever made."
There's a drinking game with lots of fun rules to go with it for one thing, but on its own this movie is still lovably silly in a way that's hard to find anymore. Sure, it doesn't get super exciting until the second half, when the game starts, but the whole soundtrack rocks and there's so much nostalgia for the classic cartoon days of yore to keep you elated until then. And you might not have noticed as a kid, but Lola Bunny is the sexiest cartoon character ever.
The performances are hilarious, as Newman from "Seinfeld" (Wayne Knight) runs around like a sweaty madman, Danny DeVito zealously voices bad guy Swackhammer and Bill Murray shows up occasionally to simply be a boss. The slapstick oafishness of the real NBA '90s stars who lose their talents remains funny in part because of the stiff acting, and then of course there's Jordan. The majority of his ridiculous performance soars to new comedic heights when you think about him acting on a green-screened stage, having to imagine the cartoons in front of him.
Once it's game on, well, let's just say real basketball only wishes it could be that entertaining.
— Edited by Brian Sisk
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Thomas Seldorff, left, and Austrian art historian, Sophie Lillie pose for the media during a ceremony at the Culture Ministry in Paris, France, March 19 to return seven paintings taken from their Jewish owners during World War II. The ceremony was part of ongoing efforts to give back hundreds of looted artworks that still hang in the Louvre and other French museums.
Artwork, stolen during WWII, returned to correct families
ASSOCIATED PRESS
PARIS — Tom Selldorff was 6 years old when he saw his grandfather's prized art collection for the last time in 1930s Vienna, before it fell into Nazi hands.
Now, he's 84, and in a ceremony in Paris on Tuesday, the American was finally given back a piece of his late grandfather's memory; France has returned six of his stolen family masterpieces.
The restitution of the works — including paintings by Alessandro Longhi and Sebastiano Ricci — is part of France's ongoing effort to return hundreds of looted artworks that Jewish owners lost during the war that still hang in the Louvre and other museums. The move ends years of struggle for Selldorff, whose claims were validated by the French government last year after years of researching the fates of the works.
"I'm extremely grateful and very
moved," said Selldorff, who flew in from Boston for the event at France's Culture Ministry, where the oil paintings were on temporary display. "These paintings were in this fog of war. The restitution was not easy. It took a long time."
The artworks were stolen or sold under duress some seven decades ago as Jewish industrialist and art collector Richard Neumann — Selldorf's grandfather — and his family fled Nazi-occupied Europe. The collection — whose original size is unknown — was his ticket out, though he sold it for a fraction of its value. The route the artworks took to show up in French museums is unclear, making their way to places like the Museum of Modern Art of Saint-Etienne, the Agen Fine Arts Museum, the Tours Fine Art Museum, and the Louvre.
"After losing most of his family assets and a good part of his collection to the Nazis in Austria in 1938, he came to Paris for several
years and then had to flee again,
this time with my grandmother at
one point on foot over the Pyrenees,
to Spain, and then eventually
to Cuba," Seldorff said.
The paintings stayed behind all six destined for display in the art gallery Adolf Hitler wanted to build in his hometown of Linz Austria, according to a catalog for the planned museum.
"I only wish my grandfather was here to be able to be a part of all this, but I am sure he is watching from somewhere upstairs, so that's fine." Seldorff said.
At the war's end, artworks were left "unclaimed," and many thousands that were thought to have been French-owned found their ways into the country's top museums. Many of the 100,000 possessions looted, stolen or appropriated between 1940 and 1944 in France have been returned to lewish families, but some 2,000 art works remain in state institutions.
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