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LeBron James, Lowell Ganz And Babaloo Mandel: Together At Last!
Beaks here...
Dr. J had THE FISH THAT SAVED PITTSBURGH, Michael Jordan had SPACE JAM, and Shaquille O'Neal had BLUE CHIPS... then KAZAAM... then STEEL... then the Congressional Medal of Honor.
And now LeBron James, the Hitchcock of the Hardwood, will have FANTASY BASKETBALL CAMP, a Brian Grazer-produced comedy to be scripted by the hip-and-now Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel. According to Variety, the film will center on the antics of "five guys from different backgrounds" who head out to Las Vegas to attend the LeBron James Fantasy Basketball Camp. Once there, they inexplicably get comfortable enough with the once and future MVP to start bothering him with their serious/silly personal travails. In other words, it's CITY SLICKERS for hoops fans with LeBron playing the Jack Palance role. I hate myself for not thinking of this first.
In case you were born in the '80s (like LeBron), you might not know that Ganz and Mandel were once the hottest comedy writing duo in Hollywood. They were Ron Howard's go-to collaborators (penning NIGHT SHIFT, SPLASH, GUNG HO and PARENTHOOD), and peaked commercially in the early '90s with CITY SLICKERS and A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN. And while they haven't knocked out anything up to the level of those fine films in eighteen years or so, they also haven't been writing for LeBron James. And if LeBron can get Drew Gooden to the NBA Finals, he can damn well get Ganz and Mandel back to the top of the box office.
No director has been announced yet (presumably because they're still hammering out Michael Haneke's deal), but they've got plenty of time to figure that out as the film isn't expected to go before cameras until summer 2010. James will executive produce along with his business partner Maverick Carter.
In other James movie news, he'll be appearing as himself in the Kris Belman-directed documentary MORE THAN A GAME, which opens theatrically in New York, LA, Akron and Cleveland on October 2nd.
(For the record, the most memorable appearance by a professional basketball player in a Hollywood film is easily Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in AIRPLANE!. Second place: Meadowlark Lemon in Albert Brooks's MODERN ROMANCE.)
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B-Ball camp? one cool kid who won`t play, a nerd, a fat kid ect life lesson learned at the end and all that shit. Last 35min of the film it stops being funny (if it ever starts that is?)
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... that was actually good? I'm not trying to be a smartass, I'm really asking. Blue Chips, maybe? I hesitate to count Dumb & Dumber (kick his ass, Seabass!) because Clemens was playing a character, and not himself or an athlete like himself. Any ideas?
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or Waterboy. Honestly though I thought he did a great job playing himself in Sunday. I know he didn't really play himself. Fred Dryer in Hunter. NOt a movie but he carried the series. Anything with Brian Bozworth.
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That will go well.
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AMERICAN ANTHEM? THE GREATEST? Seriously, Ray Allen was decent in HE'S GOT GAME.
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Wilt Chamberlain in Conan The Destroyer owns.
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Sep 17, 2009 2:08:20 AM CDT
Yo lebron I know you wanna be the next jordan
by supercowbell5thecowbellhasspoken
And I'ma let you finish but Kobe is the best player in the NBA!!!!!!!!!!!
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Nice call, Milla... if only it was really you...! Thanks for the recommendation, Beaks! Michael Irvin was pretty frightening in The Longest Yard remake, but I didn't think the movie itself was all that great. There is, of course, Kurt Thomas' stunning performance in GYMKATA!!
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Sep 17, 2009 3:30:22 AM CDT
Lebron should focus on winning instead of amking movies that wil
by spectrebeeyatch
Just make Space Jam 2... Just do it.
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I know people will say "MJ can do whatever he wants" but he came off like an angry, bitter grudge-holding sad man. Dude, you're the greatest player of all-time! Let Jeff Van Gundy go!
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I can still drop 50 on all yu fools!
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tired.
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LeBron gets dunked on by a fantasy camper and it's caught on video. LeBron then spends the next 90 minutes tracking it down to destroy the evidence.
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Blah blah blah and "Steve, don't come!"
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I live in Elmhurst, IL which is a suburb of Chicago. In this town we have Elmhurst College. From 1992-1997 I lived in an apartment right next door to the college gym.
Nike held their basketball camps at this school. Jordan held camps there every year. Pippen, Kendall Gill and BJ Armstrong had camps there. So I would go in and watch the camps.
One night every camp they would have a game night, where Jordan would play on a team of 5, the other 4 would usually be college players from across the country (one year MJ brought Stacy King (really bad) and another Juwann Howard (really good)). They would then play multiple teams made up of college kids who were camp counsellors.
Anyway... LeBron has these same kinds of camps and just recently, as many of you know, he was playing in a game where a college kid dunked over him. This was caught on video tape. He and Nike went after the camerman and confiscated the tape.
I was courtside for many of MJ's pick-up games at his camps. They were always filmed by multiple people there. Well one game MJ got dunked on by a college kid. Jordan called for the inbounds pass and then went the whole distance of the court and jammed over that kid that dunked on him. All with a big smile on his face. Did he or Nike try to get that tape back... no.
MJ knew it's just a part of the game. -
" Dont shake your hands if you make me look bad or beat me on the playoffs with stupid before the game fake film camera bullshit and pissed off my moms named me after a car but she fucked up on the spelling " James. Kobe still ownes motherfucker!!!
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... Tarzan flicks.
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... in Blazing Saddles?
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... in the Naked Gun Films was good.
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Fucking gold.
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..in which the photographer (Fugly ass Fran Lebowitz) told him to pose as King Kong while holding this Giselle whatsherfuckingname?It invoked perceptions of Racism to quite a few who saw these photos.I think it was for vanity affair magazine if I remember correctly.
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... but this still has the taint of unfunny all over it. LOVE Pet Sematery remake with Vick, though! (I dohwanna be beerried... in Pet Semateerrry!)
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Sea Bass was Cam Neely, not "Clemens", Mr. Butthole
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GREEDY (a Ganz-Mandel script from '94) has been on a lot lately. Not a classic, but pretty funny.
"One more word out of you, I'll kick your ass so high up, you'll have to take off your shirt to shit!" still makes me laugh after all these years. -
seriously, this is comedy genius...
http://tinyurl.com/n46vg9
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From a site like this I think you would have a more rounded taste in movies so would know of Kareem's role in Game of Death... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Rj7qiNFxd4
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...that were shot before Lee's death are fantastic. The rest of it (John Barry score notwithstanding) is shit and should not be included.
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This is basically a knockoff of a very similar line from the Clint Eastwood movie The Dead Pool. "Fuck with ME, boy, and I'll kick your ass so high you'll have to unbuckle your collar to shit".
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Sep 19, 2009 5:21:33 PM CDT
If LeBron doesn't win the Oscar, he'll just up and leave like a
by mrmysteryguest
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