ESPN's "30 For 30" Discussion

[WyldeMan45]

I love this ESPN sports film series. Has anybody else been watching? The first episode I actually saw was awhile back, and focused on Allen Iverson and the bowling alley incident in '92.

This past weeks episode was directed by Ice Cube and titled "Straight Outta LA" in which he focused on his belief of how gangsta rap helped form the Raider Nation during the 80's.

'Straight Outta L.A.' - Players with attitude

A quick review of Ice Cube's contribution to the "30 for 30" series coming up just as soon as I undergo intensive therapy to wipe my memory of the image of Al Davis in HD...

I saw "Straight Outta LA" a few weeks ago at the Tribeca Film Festival, which had its pluses and minuses. On the plus side: I got to hear all the NWA lyrics, and all of the discussion of their lyrics and the group's name, without any bleeping. I have no idea how much of the episode had to be bleeped or otherwise altered for broadcast, but I imagine it was a fair amount. On the negative side: Al was even scarier on a big screen than I'm sure he was on your TV.

Getting Davis to talk was a coup for Cube, and helped separate "Straight Outta LA" from other attempts to tell the story of the LA Raiders. (NFL Films' "America's Game" on the '83 Super Bowl team - with Marcus Allen, Howie Long and Todd Christensen as its three talking heads - was near-identical in spots to what Cube did.) Terrifying and self-contradicting though he may be, it's hard to tell the story of the Raiders - or of pro football over the last 40 years - without Al Davis.

The attempt to spin the film around the ties between the Raiders and gangsta rap was interesting but not always successful. The film is structured in a way that suggests that groups like NWA rose during the glory years of the LA Raiders, when in fact the group was hitting it big at the exact moment things were going south for the football team during the Mike Shanahan era. The group's love of the team (and their imposing yet gang-neutral colors) was obvious, but I actually think the whole hip-hop/football link might have been even more compelling had Cube and the others talked about how team and group were on divergent paths - and how NWA was celebrating a mighty, intimidating team that didn't really exist anymore.

In a similar vein, Cube keeps insisting that LA will always be the Raiders home. And while I'm sure that's true to him and a generation of LA kids like him, the team's been in Oakland more than three times as long as it was in LA, won 2 of its 3 Super Bowls and 3 of its 4 championships in Oakland, were coached by John Madden there, featured more of the franchise's Hall of Famers there, etc. The LA Raiders loom large in Cube's childhood, and his rise to stardom, but the LA period (particularly the segment of that period where the team was still dominant) was a blip on the franchise's radar.

The "30 for 30" films are designed to be subjective, so of course a film made by Ice Cube would view the team in this way. I just think if he had had the ability to take a step back from himself and view that time period without his own preconceptions, the film might have been even stronger as it dealt with how a forward-looking genre like '80s gangsta rap wound up embracing nostalgia almost from the outset.

Still, fun film, particularly Snoop Dogg getting philosophical and the animated segments on Cube's childhood and the origins of NWA.

[Alexias_dad]

I wish they talked more about the raiders and not so much on n.w.a. i mean it was suppose to be about sports and not gangster rap. oh and snoop needs to stop faking it , damn steeler fan.

[supersix4]

Originally Posted by Alexias_dad

I wish they talked more about the raiders and not so much on n.w.a. i mean it was suppose to be about sports and not gangster rap. oh and snoop needs to stop faking it , damn steeler fan.

lol really even though it was interesting I wish it had been more on the raiders.

But all the 30 for 30's I've seen I've loved which says allot about the product.

[WyldeMan45]

Originally Posted by Alexias_dad

I wish they talked more about the raiders and not so much on n.w.a. i mean it was suppose to be about sports and not gangster rap. oh and snoop needs to stop faking it , damn steeler fan.

Yeah the part with Snoop made me laugh too cause he is a very open Steelers fan, so to be claiming to be a lifelong die hard Raiders fan just proves what a fraud he is. I really liked seeing the old footage of the Raiders when they didn't completely suck, but yeah Ice Cube pretty much makes it sound like him and N.W.A. are the reason Raider nation was so huge during the 80s. It didn't have anything to do with their near perfect record seasons, lol. What a big head on that guy.

Originally Posted by supersix4

But all the 30 for 30's I've seen I've loved which says allot about the product.

I've seen about 5 of these now, and I think Run Ricky Run has been my favorite episode yet.

[supersix4]

Originally Posted by WyldeMan45

I've seen about 5 of these now, and I think Run Ricky Run has been my favorite episode yet.

That was really good, I thought he just loved pot and didn't give a crap(which I could careless about), but it shows he's really got some issues going on that hopefully he's gotten straightened out.

[WyldeMan45]

Originally Posted by supersix4

That was really good, I thought he just loved pot and didn't give a crap(which I could careless about), but it shows he's really got some issues going on that hopefully he's gotten straightened out.

His dad was such a piece of shit. But yeah there was so much I didn't know about Ricky that was just never ever discussed publicly, that made me see the guy in a new light.

[STARSCREAM]

Love this series too. The first one was about the Miami Hurricanes. Since then I've seen bits and pieces of a few of them. I need to catch up on all of them.

[bootsy]

Originally Posted by Alexias_dad

I wish they talked more about the raiders and not so much on n.w.a. i mean it was suppose to be about sports and not gangster rap. oh and snoop needs to stop faking it , damn steeler fan.

That was the purpose of the episode was to intertwine gangsta rap and the Raiders. What were you expecting.

Anyway I agree with you on Snoop who is with the team that is hot especially when it comes to football.

[bootsy]

The best 30 for 30 episodes were Winning Time: Reggie Miller vs. The New York Knicks, Without Bias, Muhammad and Larry, The Legend of Jimmy The Greek, Guru of Go, and The U. The Iverson one was not very good mainly because all the main people involved wouldn't talk so I didn't get anything out of it that I already had going in.

[WyldeMan45]

Originally Posted by bootsy

The best 30 for 30 episodes were Winning Time: Reggie Miller vs. The New York Knicks, Without Bias, Muhammad and Larry, The Legend of Jimmy The Greek, Guru of Go, and The U. The Iverson one was not very good mainly because all the main people involved wouldn't talk so I didn't get anything out of it that I already had going in.

Yeah I found that Iverson one to be informative but at the same time disappointing. What is the point of trying to paint a picture of a misunderstood player who doesn't even give a damn about telling his side of the story. He had no interest in events that happened 18 years ago, so I didn't really understand why they chose to make that. Nobody really seemed to want to be open and honest which was the polar opposite of Run Ricky Run which I thought was excellent.

[bootsy]

Originally Posted by WyldeMan45

Yeah I found that Iverson one to be informative but at the same time disappointing. What is the point of trying to paint a picture of a misunderstood player who doesn't even give a damn about telling his side of the story. He had no interest in events that happened 18 years ago, so I didn't really understand why they chose to make that. Nobody really seemed to want to be open and honest which was the polar opposite of Run Ricky Run which I thought was excellent.

I just took it as the key people afraid to talk. Most of them probably still live in that area, have jobs in that area and don't want to jeopardize discussing a highly volatile case. It would be nice if they could get some of the key components to actually discuss it but I don't see it happening which is a shame. The Ricky Williams one was a lot better because everyone opened about Ricky and Ricky also was a willing participant.

[whotony]

Good so far, but there's no 30 for 30 title banner except for during the coming in the next episode promo.

Oops never mind it's in a little circle that pops up at out of the commercial break.

[Rodney-2187]

OJ Simpson: Made in America is an amazing documentary worthy of it's own thread on this forum. No matter what your feelings regarding the trial, I am sure you will find it extremely informative. I learned about a lot I was not aware of. I expect this to win many awards. I can't imagine any source on the matter being more definitive than this.

[fatediesel]

One thing that's interesting is ESPN released OJ: Made in America in theaters in New York and LA last month to make it eligible for the Academy Awards. I'm curious how the Oscar voters will judge this, as it's hard to imagine a better documentary, but at the same time it's clearly a TV documentary so the voters could hold that against it.

[blurayfriend]

Anybody watching this? What do you all think? Just finished it, really really good stuff. Is it bad I feel sorry for The Juice even though I am now totally convinced he did it?

Slight spoilers for part 5: The story his business manager said he told him/confessed was so utterly plausible- that he was stalking Nicole and her lover Goldman but wasn't planning on murdering them, and she came out with the knife and that's why he lost it. I think they even said (might not have been in this show) that he threw the knife away down a storm drain on the drive home and that's why they never found it. It made so much sense, whereas I always kind of doubted his guilt before because I couldn't see the pieces coming together.

[bootsy]

Yes I've watched all 5 episodes and it is great. Some of the stuff I knew from watching the TV series on FX and just knew from over time from the trial. What makes this interesting to me is they go thru OJ's early career and tie in the racial component in LA and with the police as a parallel to what was going on in OJ's life and then go thru the trial and verdict. Then go into the civil trial and then after that when he lost all of his friends, sponsors, moved to Miami and then the Vegas incident. Very interesting to see the rise and downfall of his entire career and life covered like this.

[Ray Jackson]

Originally Posted by blurayfriend

Anybody watching this? What do you all think? Just finished it, really really good stuff. Is it bad I feel sorry for The Juice even though I am now totally convinced he did it?

Slight spoilers for part 5: The story his business manager said he told him/confessed was so utterly plausible- that he was stalking Nicole and her lover Goldman but wasn't planning on murdering them, and she came out with the knife and that's why he lost it. I think they even said (might not have been in this show) that he threw the knife away down a storm drain on the drive home and that's why they never found it. It made so much sense, whereas I always kind of doubted his guilt before because I couldn't see the pieces coming together.

While I understand where you're coming from, because I myself was somewhat in denial about OJ being a bad guy when the trial first happened...I've been able to use the benefit of 20+ years of hindsight to realize that the guy truly is a piece of crap.

He has no redeeming personal attributes as far as I'm concerned.

And this is coming from someone who was and is very sympathetic to the reality of racism in the American criminal justice system.

It's just a shame that OJ Simpson, of all people, was the beneficiary of it.

...but he was a vessel for a much larger cause and I understand and respect that.

[Ray Jackson]

Man the last episode was utterly and completely depressing.

Maybe I do feel a little bad for him...despicable as he may be.

When someone falls from grace like that, right into the muck of human degradation...you see the parasites start to pop up like ants crawling around a discarded Popsicle.

I'm talking the absolute scum of the earth.

That memorabilia guy who basically set him up in Vegas and then sold the audio tape and ratted everyone out to get himself off....my god.

It doesn't get much more pathetic than that guy.

[Impossible]

Originally Posted by Ray Jackson

It doesn't get much more pathetic than that guy.

Really? Not even murdering your wife and a complete stranger in cold blood while your children are in bed upstairs?

Really?

[Ray Jackson]

Originally Posted by Impossible

Really? Not even murdering your wife and a complete stranger in cold blood while your children are in bed upstairs?

Really?

OJ is what he is and he did what he did.

And he's currently paying the price for that.

What I find most pathetic are the human parasites who leeched onto to him in a vile attempt to profit from the tragedy in anyway they could.