Movie Review: Leatherheads

As the timing goes, so goes the comedy. Timing is, of course, important for any sort of film, but in comedies it assumes a role of such prominence that the success of the entire piece is dependent upon it. An unlikely character is pardonable; poor action choreography is of no moment; we can even forgive a distracted and unfocused plot, but if the comedic pace is off the comedy simply cannot be successful. In Leatherheads, George Clooney’s third directorial effort, there are sporadic moments where the project works, but these are islands in an ocean, and they grow sparser as the movie progresses.

It takes place in 1925, at a time when the popularity of football was centered around the college game. Jimmy ‘Dodge’ Connelly (George Clooney) is the de facto captain of a professional football team from Duluth, Minnesota, an impecunious squad which must forfeit a game because it does not have money to provide a second game ball when the first is stolen. They travel from blue collar Midwest town to blue collar Midwest town, drying their laundry by hanging it outside the train as they go, changing destinations if their next opponent goes bankrupt in the middle of the week. In an effort to achieve greater financial stability for the league, Connelly recruits a young Princeton star, Carter Rutherford (John Krasinski) to play for the team. But Lexie Littleton, played by Renee Zellweger, is a reporter who has been hired to try and uncover an embarrassing secret in Carter’s military service, and when she begins to travel with the team, Connelly and Rutherford both begin to fall for her.

As a football player, the smooth and handsome George Clooney is miscast. His character is a forty-something football veteran who has made a living for years doing little else. When his Duluth team temporarily disbands and he seeks employment, he comes face to face with the reality that he has no skills or education to make him attractive to an employer. And yet, this uneducated Midwestern football player, who gets in multiple fist fights during the course of the movie, is oh so smooth with Ms. Littleton, master of the frank look and the tilted head, the slight caress to the chin before his soft lips brush hers. No French noble was ever more debonair. My grandfather played semi-professional football for a blue collar Midwest city back in the 1920’s and I can tell you that this is not how he wooed his women. Nor, to judge from his stories, did his teammates operate anyway similar.

There is more than just Clooney’s effete charm that feels out of place. The radio announcers sound like they are working for ESPN, for instance. I have heard old time radio broadcasts and the cadences and rhythms and vocal tones of these men sound nothing like what one hears today. A couple hours with some archival tapes might have helped to add some authenticity to the picture.

The football action isn’t impressive either, not that this distinguishes the movie from any other football movie I’ve ever seen, but it would be nice for once to see a football movie in which the director was less interested in rigidly composing the action of a play to the point where it feels stilted and the camera interferes with the flow. Why not just line the boys up and let them play some football with the cameras rolling? This would have the added benefit of cutting down on plays which one sees two or three times in a season but in the movie one sees with a frequency that makes them boring.

But these are small complaints. A bit more problematic is the script itself, which often has trouble choosing a story to pursue and leaving many in their incipient stages. In the beginning of the movie some ado is made of a new recruit from high school that will be joining their team at the next train stop. It turns out that the teenager is a whale of a man and capable of beating the snot out of anyone who comes near him. But after this introduction, his importance in the movie is reduced to appearing in the background during some of the games. One wonders what the point was of spending time introducing him. There are a couple distracting scenes which seem to have been filmed simply because they were opportunities for slap stick comedy, not because any role they play in bringing us to the third act. And the third act itself is less satisfying than it might be because the various threads of plot are not brought together in a last madcap rush of adrenaline, but rather fizzle out one by one. The end of the second act, to the extent that I am even confident I know when this occurs, doesn’t leave one yearning for the third as it should, tingling with anticipation.

A comedy can survive, however, with a middling story if the scenes are funny enough. The Good Lord knows that Monty Python’s Meaning of Life is not as good as its predecessors, largely due to a wandering script with little cohesion between scenes, but many of the individual scenes themselves are hysterical. Leatherheads has moments when it is amusing in a charming and clever way – mainly when Clooney and Zellweger are interacting – but all too often the right notes just aren’t hit at the right tempo. And not enough hay is made with the different characters’ objectives, which are at cross purposes with the others, nor with all the deceit and trickery in which they might have engaged.

Worst of all, the movie can’t – or perhaps it is more correct to say refuses – to keep its momentum going. For all the other irritations, the worst part is when Carter’s back story, whose culmination is premature, deviates into some sort of government-worshipping morality tale when Congress assigns a commissioner to the professional league – something which, as far as I can tell, is entirely fictional – who starts to impose order on the affairs. What would we poor folk do without a government? The commissioner immediately imposes rules, licenses the players – God forbid that people start playing football without bureaucratic say-so! – and with a threatening stare and a tough-guy voice begins to generally throw his weight around. In a scene which flattens the momentum – a scene devoid of the quick banter that provided the most humorous moments – the story slows down so that the tough guy can deliver a lecture and, one cannot help but feel, so that Mssr. Clooney can lecture us a little as well. It was far too serious, too slow and too preachy for the movie in which it appeared.

For all that’s wrong with it, however, it still has its charm. Zellweger and Clooney have some very good moments filled with snappy dialogue, and Randy Newman’s score is the perfect compliment to the picture; indeed, his score is what the movie should have been: relentlessly lighthearted, brisk, old-fashioned and too caught up with having fun to slow down and get serious. Maybe Newman should have composed the score first and the script could have been written, and the scenes shot, while the artists listened to it on their IPods.

Final Grade: C+

Movie Review: Doomsday

Neil Marshall, director of the recently released Doomsday, is still in the early stages of his career and as of yet it is difficult to assess his overall ability, especially when each opus sends a different signal. His first movie, Dog Soldiers, was a surprisingly decent flick that could very easily have been pure schlock. After that he made Descent, another opportunity for awfulness that he adroitly turned into a very respectable effort. After these two lower budget, minimal scope efforts, he graduated to something grander in reach and far more expensive, but in doing so revealed that his ability, at least as of yet, is not up to the task of a bigger production.

The Scottish director, even with his more successful efforts, never demonstrated much proficiency in screen writing. Descent’s plot, which he penned, is very simple, even rudimentary. It involves getting a group of female spelunkers lost in a cave system and then stirring in some humanoid monsters. It does not, on the whole, delve very deeply into character, but the different roles do at least display distinctive personalities, and with careful craftsmanship Marshall makes the most of the premise. Doomsday is his attempt at a more intricate plot, but its failure as a story may be an indication that Descent’s simplicity was not obscuring a latent talent in writing awaiting an opportunity to better express itself, but rather may have been the very extent of that talent. It is the viewer’s further misfortune that, during his latest project, the director’s abilities, which indisputably are there somewhere, either abandoned him or retreated deep inside.

Doomsday is another post-apocalyptic tale, this one, like 28 Days Later, set in the British Isles. The entire nation of Scotland has been quarantined due to the outbreak of what is called the Reaper Virus. When, decades later, the virus shows up again in London, a team of trained specialists, led by Rhona Mitra, is tasked with penetrating the quarantined land to find a man believed to have the cure. Things, the good reader will be unsurprised to learn, do not go as planned.

Directing talent can be a mercurial thing and oftentimes one gets the feeling that certain director’s are good without them knowing exactly why. A director like Hitchcock who grows into his talents over time is no mystery at all; it is the Francis Ford Coppola, the George Lucas, the Wolfgang Petersen who requires an explanation. Perhaps some directors grow too self aware and begin to strangle their art with wrongheaded, over-deliberated decisions where, in their better efforts, instinct would have gotten them smoothly through. Maybe they lose courage, or success satiates the hunger that drove them to excel. Whatever the reason or reasons, Neil Marshall has been stricken with the same syndrome, which I shall name after Lucas, whose fall from ability exceeds in depth those of Coppola, McTiernan and Petersen, among others, as much as the Pacific Ocean does the Olentangy River.

Mr. Marshall’s mistakes come early and often. The beginning of Doomsday, when the scene is set and the characters and obstacles introduced, moves at the pace of a hurricane, almost eager to be done with itself. This is in stark contrast to Descent, which was far more circumspect about its first act and never seemed to be in a rush to move on. Anyone who has ever gotten into trouble at school and was made to wait until Dad or Mom came to mete out a punishment knows that the anticipation is often worse than the sentence. So long as the wait is not too drawn out, this same principle of tantalizing expectation can work to augment just about any sensation and Marshall used it to good effect in his previous movies. Its absence is a disappointment as well as a harbinger of things to come.

There is a scene when the team first enters Scotland whose basic premise recalls a bit from James Cameron’s Aliens. Transported by armored vehicles, the team, in pursuit of their objective, enters an abandoned building where they come under attack and must make a chaotic retreat. One could do a case study on the difference between lazy, uninspired filmmaking and the better crafted variety by comparing and contrasting the scenes from these two different movies. James Cameron did not do profound character studies in his sequel to Ridley Scott’s masterpiece, but what he did quite expertly manage was to give each role a distinguishing personality as well as establish an interesting and believable group culture and dynamic. By the time Cameron’s space marines must infiltrate the seemingly abandoned compound, we are already quite invested in what happens to them. When things start to fall apart, skillful directing and editing tell the tale from multiple perspectives, and each step along the way is a well developed mini-story all on its own. No such brilliance is to be found in the Marshall version, which is a haphazard collection of action and gore which would almost make as much sense and be just as emotionally satisfying if the shots were randomly rearranged. If he had spared half the attention to detail, tension and development in this scene as he does to the scene in Descent where the spelunkers must cross a chasm while hanging from its roof, it would have come out alright. Sadly, he seems to have contracted indolence during the preparations for shooting.

In depicting the quarantined savages, Marshall does not seem to be concerned with much detail, a further indication of lassitude. The traditions and institutions of a society of that sort must be rooted in basic survival, shaped by the austere environment in which they live. If the bulk of a nation were to die off and the remainder cut off from the rest of the world, the most immediate concern for any survivors would be clean water and food. Do they farm? Do they hunt? How do they live off the land? Shelter was provided, of course, by the dead civilization before them, but how do they eat? The director is quite unconcerned with such questions, but these are questions which could lead to a fuller, more satisfying development of the world in which the story takes place. Instead of a society, we just see wave after wave of heedless warriors who, when not engaged in battle with the forces from London, are engaged in grotesque partying, thanks in part to gasoline and electricity which is still, apparently and inexplicably, readily available.

Apart from the aforementioned problems, the movie suffers from the usual illogic whereby the importance of motive, perspective and even location is sacrificed to bring us more violence and gore. By illogic of motive I mean that characters do things to help maximize gore rather than behave like the individuals they presumably are. Like automatons in a video game, they leap out in front of automatic weapons, maniacally screaming, so that we may see their bodies erupt and blood spurt. By illogic of perspective I mean that villains suddenly show up at the right time and place, as if they were omniscient, when a character with more human-like senses and less mystical knowledge would not have known where to show up to try to foil the heroine’s plans and, as it happens, have a high-adrenaline car chase. By illogic of location I mean that all matters of travel time, distance and location are forgotten so that the right confrontation or meeting can be had, whether it be a character implausibly hiding nearby in enemy territory with an available train so that a serendipitous escape can be made, or characters ranging, by automobile or helicopter, all over the island of Britain in mere moments.

But none of this is appreciably worse than scores of other forgettable action movies through the years. What makes Doomsday stand out as particularly bad is its ridiculous depravity. The survivors of apocalypse, Marshall would have us believe, will groom themselves like punk rockers and behave like inebriated teenagers at all times. There is no event in this fictional Scotland that is too mundane to be greeted with a wide open mouth, a strident howl, and a furious shaking of the head. Physical violence is the norm, and great delight is taken from the most degenerate and horrific rituals, all accompanied, of course, by open mouths, eye makeup, and screaming. Humans devour one another, and cadavers are abused for pure shock value. There is no tenderness in these people, no refinement, no culture, no humanity. And yet there have been numerous peoples, throughout history, who have been subjected to terrible emotional trauma and who have lived at a subsistence level without descending to the sheer wantonness we see in Doomsday. An exploration of the pathologies that result due to the Reaper Virus and the quarantine could be interesting, but Neil Marshall gives us only monstrous caricature.

It may be that at no time does a critic do more important work than in eviscerating the bad art of a promising director. Rather than let him continue to stray down the path begun with Doomsday, rather than let his Lucas Syndrome go untreated, let us ridicule his mistakes so that they can be corrected. We’ll stop of short of the point reached with David Lean where, after Ryan’s Daughter was roundly criticized, he stopped making films for fifteen years, but let us proceed far enough to nudge Mr. Marshall onto a different course, the one suggested by his first works. I add my weight, meager as it is, to the collective effort. This way, we might yet enjoy the long career of a talented artist rather than suffer through decades of similar offal wondering what became of that guy – what was his name? – who made Descent.

Final Grade: D

Ohio State Football All 1980's Squad

The 1980's were the first decade without Woody Hayes as coach since the decade in which the Nazi's were toppled. After Woody's demise the program was entrusted to Earle Bruce, a Woody disciple who had successfully turned around the program at Iowa State. But after his first season, in which a late USC drive in the Rose Bowl left Ohio State two points shy of a national title, Earle was never able to take his teams quite so far. Towards the end, the program had slipped and the decade ended on a very sour note.

In investigating why "9 and 3" Earle lagged behind his mentor and predecessor, it immediately becomes apparent that the defense softened during these years. The offensive stars of the 1980's compare favorably enough with past decades, and the linebackers were as strong as any group yet, but there is a distinct paucity of the high quality defensive backs with whom OSU had thrived under Woody and, after Earle's first class graduated, a complete lack of the powerful defensive linemen who used to fill the trenches on Saturdays.

The final scores demonstrate this decay of the Buckeye defense. From 1981 to 1985, Ohio State registered one shut out, and Earle Bruce teams had only three in his final seven seasons. Compare this to Woody's 1977 and 1973 squads, who each registered four shutouts. In this seven-year span, nine teams scored 30 or more points on the Buckeyes, compared with only two teams in the 1968-1977 period, and none managed it in the regular season. From '68-'77, only 21 teams put up 20 or more on the Bucks, while 33 teams did it in the '81-'87 period. While it is true offenses opened up in the early eighties, the top ten scoring defenses were not dramatically different, and though Ohio State was consistently in the top ten in the 1970's, they never once made the top ten list in the 1980's.

But for all that, it was still a successful decade. Earle Bruce got five bowl wins, even though many of them were lesser bowls than the Buckeyes were used to, and Ohio State still managed four wins over Michigan. If the defensive talent had been as deep and broad as the offensive talent, it might have been a tremendous decade indeed, but there is still plenty to celebrate. Let's see who tops the list.


BACKFIELD

QB Art Schlichter - Oh what he might have done in the NFL without fewer off-the-field problems! He still was the Big Ten MVP in 1981 and a good enough passer that people forget how well he ran.

FB Keith Byars - The era of the Woody fullback was over, but this tailback, who nearly won the Heisman Trophy when he wasn't injured, was big enough to play some FB in the pro's.

TB Tim Spencer - One of Ohio State's all-time leading rushers, room must be made for him even if it means shifting Keith around a bit.


RECEIVERS

WR Chris Carter - Probably had the best hands in Ohio State history, a phenomenal All-American and long time pro player. His presence on the 1987 team might have been enough to turn that season around.

WR Gary Williams - A fine and nearly forgotten receiver from the early eighties; one of Schlichter's favorite targets.

TE John Frank - Little dispute over this one, perhaps the finest receiving tight end OSU has had in the modern era.


OFFENSIVE LINEMEN
OL Jim Lachey - Yeah he was All-American, yeah he was a multiple All-Pro, but did you know he finished second in the state track meet in the hurdles?

OL Kirk Lowdermilk - Mr. Lachey's buddy on the O-line, he had a long and distinguished NFL career.

OL Joe Lukens - Three-time All-Big Ten honoree, probably should have been an All-American

OL Bill Roberts - Passed over by awards committees, this powerful tackle was a first round NFL pick.

OL Jeff Uhlenhake - An All-American, Cooper's favorite of his early linemen.

DEFENSIVE LINEMEN

DT Jerome Foster - The one true star of a group that lacks punch, Mr. Foster was a sack specialist for the early Bruce teams.

DE Erik Kumerow - Earle's OLB were DE's too. Erik stands out among a moderately talented bunch.

DE Rowland Tatum - Another solid OLB/DE, an All-Big Ten selection.

LINEBACKERS

LB Chris Spielman - There was defensive talent at Ohio State in the 1980's, you just have to know where to look. No one was ever better than All-American and future All-Pro #36 Chris Spielman.


LB Marcus Marek - All-American and all time tackles leader at OSU. A four year starter.


LB Pepper Johnson - An All-American with a distinguished pro career, this Detroit native found his true home in Columbus.

LB Orlando Lowry - A solid OLB/DE and future NFL player. Paired up with Rowland Tatum in the first part of the decade.

DEFENSIVE BACKS

DB William White - A good cover man at the end of Earle's Buckeye tenure, All-Big Ten, he had a nice pro career.

DB Shaun Gayle - Another solid DB with a long pro career, he labored on the forgotten 1983 team.

DB Sonny Gordon - Another All-Big Ten pick who played along side Mr. White.

DB Garcia Lane - All-Big Ten and partner to Shaun Gayle on the 1983 team.

Ohio State Football All 1970's Squad

It is quite probable that in no other decade has Ohio State produced more talent than during the 1970's. The combined record of these ten teams reflects this, as they compiled an incredible 91-20-3 mark. But at the same time that Buckeye fans were enjoying nearly uninterrupted success, they were dealing with the frustration that comes with coming close to, yet never achieving, championships.

On new fewer than three occasions, Ohio State went to the Rose Bowl undefeated and untied and, with a win, would have won a national championship. Each time they lost, to Stanford, UCLA and USC. On one other occasion they made it to the Rose Bowl undefeated and pummeled USC, but an earlier tie with undefeated Michigan, in Ann Arbor, left them in the #2 spot.

The decade started with the senior season of the Super Sophs. After avenging a los to Michigan the previous year, they lost to thrice defeated Stanford in the Rose Bowl and lost a national title. Four years of Archie Griffin followed soon after, but in three of those years, despite defeating Michigan, they lost the Rose Bowl. The one year they did defeat the (then) Pac 8 team, they tied Michigan. A promising 1977 squad came up just short against the Sooners and Wolverines and then, inexplicably got pounded by Alabama in the Sugar Bowl. The 1979 squad, the first coached by Earle Bruce, started slowly but, by the end of the season, was rolling over opponents and found themselves ranked #1 in the nation in the AP poll before falling by a single point to Charles White and the USC Trojans.

The decade was a study in contrasts. For the first time since the 1930's, a decade would pass without an Ohio State national title. Perhaps the greatest decade of talent ever assembled, led by two-time Heisman winner Archie Griffin, failed to bring home a national title, despite being so close for so long. Finally, an aging Woody Hayes, whose teams were beginning to underperform - especially the immensely talented 1977 squad - lost his cool one last time and got himself fired for an embarrassing punch to the face of an opposing player. The resurgence of Buckeye football in the late sixties had yet been tinged with the tragic loss to Michigan in 1969, the last game of the decade. Perhaps that fateful game hung over the team in the coming decade.

Nevertheless, the All 70's Squad might be the best that Ohio State, or indeed any college, has ever offered.


BACKFIELD

QB Cornelius Greene - Probably the best scrambler in Ohio State history, he developed into a decent passer with more experience. Won the Big Ten Silver Football award the year Archie won his second Heisman.

FB Pete Johnson - Combined power with speed, his legs never seemed to stop chugging. Led the nation in scoring and, the year Archie won his second Heisman, ran for over 1,000 yards!

TB Archie Griffin - Any questions?


RECEIVERS

WR/WB Brian Baschnagel - A utility man, he ran the ball and caught the ball and, in the pro's, even played some DB. An underpraised but integral part of the middle 70's juggernauts.

WR Doug Donley - Woody's teams did not pass much, but when Schlichter arrived receivers started getting some attention. The best of them was Doug Donley.

TE Doug France - A first round draft pick, he went on to be a tackle in the NFL, in case there is any doubt as to what sort of TE Woody looked for. Not often used to catch passes.


OFFENSIVE LINE

OT John Hicks - Woody went so far as to say that John Hicks was the best lineman he ever had... better even than Jim Parker. In 1973, despite teammates Griffin and GRadishar finishing 5th and 6th in the Heisman voting, and despite playing offensive tackle, Hicks finished 2nd in the Heisman balloting! Case closed.

OT Chris Ward - Some would argue for Schumacher in the second spot. Both were imposing tackles; we'll give the edge to Mr. Ward.

OG Ted Smith - An All American and member of Woody's most beloved class, 1975.

OG Ken Fritz - Another All American offensive lineman from the 1970's. When multiple All American lineman don't make the All Decade team, you know it was a good decade for talent.

C Tom DeLeone - Another toss up with Steve Myers, from what we have seen, DeLeone might have had a small edge.


DEFENSIVE LINE

DE Bob Brudzinski - Some of Woody's assistants insisted that Robert was as good as Jim Houston. This All American sure lasted a long time in the pro's.

DE Van DeCree - All American and member of that 1973 defense. Was there ever a better one?

DT Pete Cusick - Injuries cut his pro career short, this All American was part of the immovable 1973 defense.

DT Aaron Brown - Another All American and sack specialist from the 1977 team.


LINEBACKERS

LB Randy Gradishar - They just don't come any better. Finished 6th in the Heisman balloting in 1973, considered by many to be Ohio State's all time greatest linebacker. 7 time All Pro.

LB Tom Cousineau - #1 pick in the draft, he preferred to play in Canada at the start of his career. One of the best conditioned athletes ever and a tackling machine.

LB Rick Middleton - Patrolled on defense with Randy Gradishar, a first round draft pick and possible oversight for All American honors.


DEFENSIVE BACKS
DB Tim Fox - A long career in the pro's awaited this All American Ohio State safety. Prominent member of the 1973 and 1975 teams.

DB Ray Griffin - Archie's brother and another All American. Some said he had more talent than #45.

DB Neal Colzie - Also a wonder on special teams, this CB intercepted passes when QB's dared throw in his direction.

DB Mike Guess - Overlooked for All American honors, he started four years and was named All Big Ten three times. Helped the 1979 squad to an undefeated regular season.

Ohio State Football All-1960's Squad

Ohio State football in the 1960’s was marked by two episodes which make the decade stand out from the rest. Both figure prominently in Buckeye lore, one for the worse and the other, which served as a sort of corrective to the first, for the better. The former episode was the vote by the university to prevent the football team from playing in the Rose Bowl. Undefeated with one tie, the 1961 Buckeyes, featuring what was possibly the greatest backfield in Ohio State history, were ranked at #1 and #2 in the two polls and, with a Rose Bowl win over UCLA – something that Minnesota, the replacement team, easily accomplished – would likely have claimed a share of the national title. Instead they finished second in both polls. This blow reverberated for years to come and cost Ohio State in its recruiting battles, the consequences of which were felt by the dearth of Big Ten titles for the next six seasons.

Having arrived as head coach in 1951, Woody Hayes soon established a pattern of excellence, winning a national title every three or four years, and each title team was coupled with another only slightly less powerful team either the preceding or following year. In his fourth season, in 1954, Hayes’ Buckeyes went 10-0 through a brutal schedule and followed it with a very solid 1955 campaign which also brought home a Big Ten title. The 1957 team posted a 9-1 record, won the national title and was followed by a 6-1-2 team the following year. The 1961 team, which should have played for yet another national title, was preceded by a 7-2 squad that shut out three of nine opponents and held three others to a single touchdown.

But after the denial of the Rose Bowl, the Buckeye fortunes soured. The next assembly of talent to make a run for a championship were the 1964 and 1965 squads. This time, however, after posting records of 7-2, neither one was able to win the national title nor even a Big Ten title. There certainly was talent there – the 1964 Buckeyes had three All-Americans and two others who would be so named in the coming years – but it fell shy of the champions of previous years. The 1964 team, the better of the two, started 6-0 and in mid-season spent two weeks ranked #1. But a lackluster sixth win followed by an inexplicable 27-0 home loss to a Penn State team that would finish 5-4 dashed their title hopes. When Michigan shut them out two weeks later, they lost the Rose Bowl as well. The companion team of 1965, though posting the same record, struggled mightily to eek out desperate wins that better Hayes-coached teams would have rolled through. The years ’66-’67 were, by Buckeye standards, truly terrible. The former lost more than it won, and the latter, one of the weakest three-loss teams in Buckeye history, started 2-3 before putting together some victories over middling competition.

With his career on the line, Wayne Woodrow Hayes went on to engineer the second episode, the resurgence. He put together a class of talent that would come to be known as the Super Sophomores, four of whom would be first round draft picks, eight of whom would make at least one All-America list. A Lombardi and Outland award winner played on the defensive line and the nation’s defensive MVP in 1970, a converted fullback, played in the backfield. The Buckeyes would win the national championship in 1968 and in the following years put some of the greatest football teams ever assembled onto the gridiron. In the decade when football modernized, Ohio State’s fortunes swung like a pendulum, but by the end of the decade Hayes had secured his place in history. Never again, not even during down periods, would Buckeye football be seriously questioned.

The common memory of the 1960’s, as established through Buckeye lore, is the modestly accurate but nevertheless slightly distorted view one gets from looking through the rosy haze of fond memories, and a few things could bear some clearing up. The 1968 team, for instance, is commonly held to be the greatest Buckeye team in history. ‘Tis no such matter. The 1968 team was very young, with sophomores, then the youngest eligible players, starting up and down the unit, including at quarterback. They posted an impressive shutout win over #1 Purdue early on, but through the middle of the season they struggled. Inconsistency plagued them, as it will young teams, and they recorded three one-score victories over unimpressive competition, including a 31-24 win over an Illinois team that would finish 1-8. It was not until the end of the season that they turned into the great team that their talent promised. In defeating #4 Michigan 50-14 and then rolling over #2 USC 27-16 in a game that was not as close as the final score would seem to indicate, the Buckeyes gave us a glimpse of what they would become the following season. They finished very strong indeed, but taken as a whole the 1968 team was not as powerful as a score of other Buckeye teams who, had they met on the field with all differences in size and era accounted for, would probably have beaten or even thumped the Super Sophomores in that first year. Even if one uses a different yardstick, giving more weight to the final record rather than the impressiveness of the performance, the 1954 team, with the same 10-0 record, was surely stronger if the entire season is considered.

It was the 1969 team that proved itself the most formidable force of the decade. Now experienced veterans, the Super Sophomores, well supplemented by talent from the other two classes, steamrolled their competition and soon established themselves as the most powerful team at that point in Buckeye history. But maybe the wins came too easy, and when Bo Schembechler, Woody’s protégé, led a Michigan team that finally stood up to Ohio State and punched them right in the mouth, the Buckeyes, hampered by an injured quarterback who, in light of the talent on the bench behind him, never should have started, fell to the Wolverines in what is probably the bitterest defeat Buckeye fans have ever tasted. As if the decade had not provided entertainment enough, it also saw the beginning of the Ten Year War between Woody and Bo.

The 1961 group is often called The Forgotten Buckeyes, but it must be admitted that, when every Buckeye fan with a modicum of knowledge of Ohio State history knows them as such and can tell you why they are so called, they have ceased to be forgotten. The Cheated Buckeyes, The Might-Have-Beens-Through-No-Fault-Of-Their-Own Buckeyes, but surely not The Forgotten Buckeyes. The true forgotten team of the 1960’s was the 1964 squad. They raced to #1 behind a line that must rank as one of Woody’s greatest and two future pro running backs. Two All-Americans anchored the defense along side three others who would claim All Big Ten honors before their careers were finished. Powerful teams fell before them, including #2 Illinois, which failed to score. Just when they seemed perched to claim Woody’s third or fourth national title, depending on how one is keeping score, they stumbled and fell in the most spectacular and mystifying fashion. Over the last thirteen quarters of their season they scored only one touchdown, and twice in their last two games they lost and failed to score, both times at home. They are not celebrated; they are not talked about; they are not even agonized over anymore. If ever there was a forgotten team, but not forgotten because it was mediocre, it was they.

Such was the 1960’s for Buckeye football, a drama with all the fascinating facets of a fine story: abysmal lows, sudden heartbreaks, backstabbing and controversy, and shining triumphs. With its fine start derailed by treachery, its sojourn through the wilderness and ultimate victory, the good reader could be forgiven for mistaking it for an epic concocted by ancient Greeks, of confusing Woody with Odysseus. And of all the fine warriors that the hero commanded, which were the greatest? There are many to choose from and good arguments for multiple candidates. Alas, only twenty two positions do we have to fill, and these are the humble blogger’s choices:


BACKFIELD

QB Tom Matte – A controversial choice, Matte, a Vince Young prototype, completed a very high percentage of his passes at a time when most passes fell incomplete. He would go on to play many years in the pros… as a running back. Started in 1959 and 1960, we’ll put him in the 1960’s list as the 1959 team was forgettable.

FB Bob Ferguson – As good as Jim Otis was, Woody was quite clear on who was his best fullback. Mr. Ferguson labored for the 1961 group.

TB Thomas Barrington – There were no iconic tailbacks/halfbacks from the 1960’s but there were several good ones. We prefer the one with the best kick return stats in Buckeye history. From the 1964 team.


RECEIVERS

WR Paul Warfield – More of a halfback/wingback and underutilized, he still was twice named All Big Ten. His pro career, as a true wide receiver, is legend. Along with Matt Snell and Bob Ferguson, formed what was probably the best backfield in Buckeye history.

SE/TE Bruce Jankowski – Call him a fast tight end or a strong receiver, Jankowski was a frequent target of Mr. Rex Kern in the late sixties.

TE Jan White – An All-American as a senior, along with Jankowski one of the Super Sophs.


OFFENSIVE LINE

OL Jim Davidson – Possibly Woody’s greatest lineman from this decade, a first round draft pick and All-American who cleared the way for Barrington.

OL Doug Van Horn – All-American guard who played with Davidson, his pro career was long and successful.

OL Ray Pryor – All-American center from the mid-sixties.

OL Dave Foley – All-American tackle was a senior on the ’68 champions, a first round draft pick and All-Pro.

OL Bob Vogel – Hard to argue against a first round draft pick and six-time All-Pro.


DEFENSIVE LINE

DT Jim Stillwagon – Indisputable, possibly the greatest DT in Buckeye history. All-American, Lombardi and Outland award winner and one of the most super of the Super Sophs.

DT Dick Himes – OT his senior year, two time All Big Ten honoree whose career left him between the 1964 and 1968 teams. A true forgotten Buckeye

DE Matt Snell – Better known as a running back, Mr. Snell spent his junior year of 1962 on the defensive line and went on to a stellar pro career.

DE Mark Debevc – Lesser known Super Soph was twice named All Big Ten.

LINEBACKERS

LB Dwight Kelley – Two-time All-American, anchored a stingy 1964 defense.

LB Tom Bugel – All Big Ten selection, played alongside Kelley.

LB Mike Ingram – One of the best defenders on a 1961 defense without many big names. All Big Ten selection.


DEFENSIVE BACKS

DB Jack Tatum – Indisputable, perhaps the greatest player in Ohio State history. Two-time All-American, 1970 defensive MVP, first round draft pick, Super Sophomore… called The Assassin for his debilitating hits.

DB Mike Sensibaugh – Free safety still holds the all time Buckeye interception record. Another Super Soph.

DB Tim Anderson – All American cornerback. First round draft pick. Super Soph.

DB Arnold Chonko – All-American on the 1964 team, played what would today be called free safety.

Movie Review: Vantage Point

Perhaps more so than other hobbyists and enthusiasts, the cinephile must brace himself for disillusionment, which comes to him more frequently than parallel disappointments do to fans and dabblers in other fields. It is not that a football fan does not frequently suffer, but he does not see his expectations so recurrently shattered. A football fan, or fan of any sport, if he is moderately knowledgeable, does not often see his predictions proved grossly inaccurate. If he believes his team a championship contender, and they instead finish 10-2, he has suffered only two true disappointments in twelve games, a pace which any lover of movies envies, for the lover of movies is plagued by the preview.

Even an experienced and circumspect moviegoer cannot completely inoculate himself from heartbreak and letdown, for the artful editor, in selecting certain shots and moments that run no more than a couple minutes out of a movie that may last hours, has fashioned a deceptive trailer. In all but the most lopsided of football games, a losing team is yet able to cobble together intermittent moments of competence and even artistry. The losing team nearly always scores, and only rarely does the winning team never punt the ball, or at least fumble or suffer a sack. The difference is that the football fan of the losing team has not been shown these bright moments beforehand to the exclusion of everything else, whereas the wretched cinephile, no matter his cynicism, must yield at least a little to the enticements of a trailer. These repeated disappointments are exacerbated by the fact that when a movie disappoints, the entire theater suffers, whereas when a football team underachieves the other contingent of fans is happy. There is a guarantee of balance in football, but in cinema, when a movie is a disaster, only the director’s ex-wife rejoices.

Which brings us to Vantage Point. Advertisements for this particular flick have been around for a very long time by the standards of the industry. We have seen a solid cast assembled and the premise is alluring. The shots we have glimpsed were competently taken. No big name director was at the helm but the project, having passed through the filter of a trailer, had come out looking as if it had originated from a good movie. It is your humble blogger’s duty, as critic, to slice away the mendacity of advertising and expose what could not pass through the filter.

Set in the current political climate but linked to no specific year or administration, the story takes place in Salamanca, Spain, on the occasion of a visit by the president of the United States. As Secret Servicemen take the scene and news crews record it, the president arrives at the Plaza Mayor to give a speech, but an assassination attempt followed by bomb explosions derail the proceedings. From the vantage point of several different characters, we view and review the event nearly to the limits of human endurance.

If a single flaw in the movie were to be cited which no amount of excellence in other aspects of filmmaking could overcome, it would be the very structure of the story. No fewer than seven times that I can recall, a storyline progressed to the threshold of the climax only to freeze, rewind, and finally start again at the beginning from a different vantage point. This very soon grows tedious and quickly passes from tediousness to a point where the viewer simply stares in tumescent disbelief that the filmmakers are going to make us sit through the same scene yet again.

Sadly, the structure of the film is not its only impediment to pleasure. It suffers from such an earnest proclivity for the dramatic that it sweeps aside realism in its pursuit, crossing characters with improbable coincidence, or giving them absurd behavior in order to place them in more precarious circumstances. Sometimes realism is eschewed for no better excuse than what I take to be rank laziness, and sometimes for no discernible reason at all. The procedures and protocols of the Secret Service, for instance, do not strike one as thoroughly fleshed out and genuine. In the Line of Fire, whether or not it was well researched, at least convinced one ignorant of such matters that it had been. Vantage Point does no such convincing. The crowd in the Plaza Mayor is full of faces that seem suspiciously New World, lacking the classic Castilian features, and the bits of Spanish that are tossed about often have a decidedly Latin American accent, excepting, of course, actor Eduardo Noriega. One character is magically teleported to a distant part of the city so that a scene of poignant reuniting may take place. The worst of it is to be witnessed in the president’s hotel suite, where the commander in chief and his advisers carry on in such a juvenile manner that one marvels at the puerility of the mind that conceived it.

When the seemingly interminable rewinds and replays are finally finished, ninety percent of the climactic scene is taken up by a car chase. It is the same car chase that the good reader saw last week, which was the same car chase he saw the week before and the week before that. But for the quicker cuts and more mobile camera it was the same car chase he saw in 1985. I have reached a point where, no matter its incongruity with the established character of the villain, rather than lead the hero on another dull, high velocity/multiple impact car chase, if no fresh and interesting perspective on vehicular pursuit can be found, I would prefer that he simply hand over the keys, turn himself in and end the movie a few minutes sooner. If the hero is the one being pursued, then he should allow himself to be shot and his offspring can catch the villain in the sequel.

One last flaw I will expound and then leave off, with the understanding that the enumeration of certain defects in the movie shall not be construed as denying or disparaging other defects contained in it. This last shortcoming is the entire terrorist enterprise, which is so grand in scale, so intricate in execution and so dependent upon a variety of players from a myriad of backgrounds that a credible explanation for how such an endeavor could be undertaken is quite simply an obligation on the part of the storytellers. There is nothing wrong with a fantastic conspiracy, even if it breaks through the bounds of what could reasonably occur in real life, so long as the filmmakers demonstrate how it might plausibly be put together. Such a demonstration would not only alleviate incredulity but could prove quite interesting in and of itself. Failing that, leave it in mystery. Don’t show us who carried it out, or at least not all of them. Don’t fill in all the details; leave the audience with the chill of unfulfilled suspicion. Make the investigation only a partial victory or, better yet, no victory at all. I merely offer some suggestions for when the movie is remade in 2032.

Final Grade: D+

Ohio State Football All-1950's Squad

With all apologies to Kansanians, some of whom have some rudimentary knowledge of reading and might stumble across this page, it must be acknowledged that the game of football has evolved, much like a language or a species. If you go back far enough, you could find young men playing an almost unrecognizable sport that would eventually become football, soccer and rugby. Any interested Kansanian could go follow the progress of the sport through time and notice the accumulation of small changes that turned it into the sport we recognize today. Notice, if you take the journey, that the leather wearing brutes of 1918 did not suddenly show up to a game one day in 1919 wearing face masks, modern helmets and pads, playing a nickle defense on third and long and sending the wingback in motion to put him in a better position to block the outside linebacker, which seems to be your understanding of how the evolution of species works.

At any rate, because of the gradual nature of the evolution, it is difficult to locate a single moment in time when football became the modern sport played today and left behind its roots. My opinion is that the 1950's represent this bridge between modern football and its paleo predecessor. If the good reader were to watch a football game from the 1960's, he would see a very recognizable sport whose differences from the game played today are principally stylistic and hardly worth mentioning. On the other hand, the 1940's seem very different indeed.

The 1950's had a fairly well developed specialization at each position. It is true that players generally played on offense and defense, but each particular position, regardless of who played it, had well defined duties and required skills. Tailbacks no longer led their teams in passing, for instance, and a definite difference in the body types and skill sets of halfbacks and fullbacks had arisen. Passing was coming into greater popularity, partly because the shape of the ball had finally been settled on and was more aerodynamic. Also, facemasks came to be used sometime around 1955, if photographs are to be believed. This is an important development because it affects how a defender is willing to defend, what he is willing to do to his body and therefore what an attacker must endure. If the good reader does not believe us, we invite him to view rugby, which does not give its players much in the way of armor, and contrast it with a good football game today.

If the 1950's was the beginning of modern football, or at least on the threshold of it, and if Ohio State is the greatest program in football history - a proposition against which no serious argument can be raised - then it is worth asking what greatness looked like when the modern game was just developing. What, it may well be asked, is the best of the best of the decade? In considering all Ohio State teams, which players would form the All-1950's squad?

The humble blogger must confess to having only a little experience in watching the players of this era. If there were a remedy for this he would certainly avail himself of it, but alas he must make do with reputation and contemporary reports. Also, a decision must be made as to whether a given player should be on the offensive or defensive side of the ball. For better or worse, this is his vote for best of the best of the 1950's:

Backfield



QB John Borton - Probably Woody's most prolific passer, he set a record that would not be broken at Ohio State for a quarter century.

HB Hopalong Cassady - Heisman Trophy winning HB was Woody's best until a certain number 45 came around. Led Ohio State to the 1954 national championship.

HB Don Clark - Forgotten two-time All Big Ten Halfback, a mainstay on the other national championship squad of 1957.

FB Bob White - A bruising fullback (aren't all fullbacks so described?) and All-American who teamed up with Clark in the Buckeye backfield.


Offensive Line/Ends


OL Jim Parker - The greatest offensive lineman in history. Eight time All-Pro and college All-American, Mr. Parker opened up large holes for Hop Cassady.

OL Aurealius Thomas - Cassady had his Parker, and Clark had his Thomas. An All-American.

OL Ernie Wright - After laboring in undeserved obscurity at Ohio State, he anchored NFL lines for many years. Also on the 1957 team.

OL Dick Schafrath - Yet another standout from the 1957 team. Longtime NFL lineman and the first man to canoo across Lake Erie. At least, the first with white skin...

OL Jim Tyrer - Played two years in the 1950's, one year in the 1960's and then fourteen in the NFL. First round draft pick.

TE Dick Brubaker - Ohio State's main receiver on the 1954 squad.

TE Leo Brown - The main receiver for the 1957 squad and two-time All Big Ten.

Defensive Line



DE Jim Houston - Two-time All-American and mainstay for the Browns in the 1960's. Led the Buckeye defense on the 1957 title team.

DE Dean Dugger - All-American, the Houston of the 1954 squad.

DT Jim Marshall - A second All-American DL for the 1957 team, he played in the NFL for about 67 years.

DT Francis Machinsky - All Big Ten DL/OL from the 1954 squad.


Linebackers
LB Jerry Reichenbach - All-American Guard/LB from the 1954 squad.

LB Bill Jobko - After helping OSU to the 1957 title, he had a good career in the pros.

LB Hubert Bobo - LB/FB from the 1954 team.



Defensive Backs

DB Vic Janowicz - Won the Heisman as a HB, but may have been even better on Defense.

DB Fred Bruney - Went on to multiple All-Pro seasons in the NFL.

DB Dick LeBeau - Another underappreciated 1957-man who went on to multiple All-Pro seasons in the NFL.

DB Don Sutherin - Several qualified candidates for this fourth spot, we'll go with yet another 1957 man with a short NFL career.