Binge-r #279: Winning Time + Pieces of Her
Slam Dunk: John C. Reilly (Jerry Buss) and Quincy Isaiah (“Magic” Johnson) in Winning Time
WINNING TIME S1
Streaming Service: Binge
Availability: All 10 episodes now streaming
With broad strokes and even broader performances, the first season of HBO’s professional basketball saga captures the attraction of victory at the unfettered end of the 1970s, whether it’s a mogul-in-the making pulling off a life-changing deal, a professional athlete proving their mettle in the public eye, or a woman simply having some agency in her professional life. Obviously those stakes vary, but in this tale of how the misfiring Los Angeles Lakers became one of the famous sporting franchises in the world everyone is trying to pull themselves higher while pulling off whatever they can get away with along the way: pants or pay rises are frequent choices. It’s just knowing enough, and thoughtfully paced with this first season covering the transformative 1979-80 season, that the let it all hang out philosophy doesn’t become a burden.
Do you need to be a bro, or even better a hoops bro, to enjoy Winning Time? Not necessarily, but it helps. You absolutely have to be a John C. Reilly fan. The wonderful character actor plays Jerry Buss, a scientist turned millionaire who hangs at the Playboy Mansion and compares basketball to sex: “it’s always moving, it’s rhythmic,” he marvels. Canny and a little corny, Buss scrapes his way into buying the Lakers at a time when America’s National Basketball Association is wavering in popularity. His express pass to excitement and fun is to snare top college prospect, Earvin “Magic” Johnson (Quincy Isaiah), a big-hearted Black prodigy so good he might be paid almost as much as his best white contemporary. The genuine friendship between owner and player is the show’s foundation: all the crazy stuff piles in on top of it.
The first episode gets the full Adam McKay treatment, with TheBig Short and Don’t Look Up director capturing the actors addressing the audience – Reilly is a master of this – film stock switches, date graphic inserts, and general textural excess. It didn’t need all that juice, because the writing paints so many of the entitled men as oversized personalities. Lakers coach Jerry West (Jason Clarke) is a fountain of fury, while legendary centre Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (Solomon Hughes) lives in self-imposed exile (apart from shooting Airplane!). But the storylines slowly start to fill in the holes, and casting Gaby Hoffman as a Buss lieutenant unsure of her new boss allows for some redress of the excess. The success of the Michael Jordan documentary, The Last Dance [full review here] obviously spurred on the adaptation of Jeff Pearlman’s Lakers’ history, but I don’t think this has quite the same broad appeal. Still, John C. Reilly – with his shirt unbuttoned to the waist – does wonders.
Mother Superior: Toni Collette (Laura Oliver) in Pieces of Her
PIECES OF HER (Netflix, all eight episodes now streaming): Some actors acquire fascinating faces as they age, beset with experience and bisected by unyielding truths. Toni Collette is definitely one of them. This twisted identity thriller is not on a par with Collette’s previous Netflix triumph, 2019’s Unbelievable [full review here], but it does understand that the sharp slash of her mouth and her withering gaze can tell a story in more nuanced ways than most plots. With New South Wales doubling for America, Collette plays Laura, a breast cancer survivor who acts with ruthless skills to protect her daughter, Andy (Bella Heathcote), from an active shooter. When the footage goes viral, both woman have to go on the run, as Laura’s past surfaces alongside sundry spooks and goons. Adapted from Karin Slaughter’s 2018 novel of the same name, this is a brisk, somewhat ludicrous thriller – David Wenham plays a CEO named Jasper Queller – but the many turns and flashbacks are anchored by the bond between mother and daughter, and the question of what deception it can withstand.
NEWLY ADDED MOVIES
New on Netflix: From co-writer and director Taylor Sheridan to star Angelina Jolie, everyone atop the wildfire survival thriller Those Who Wish Me Dead (2021, 99 minutes) fails to deliver what’s expected of them; Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019, 161 minutes) is a Manson-era Los Angeles epic that is blessed with Brad Pitt’s stuntman just hanging out and doing chores before everything spins out of control.
New on SBS on Demand: Melanie Laurent’s moody, downbeat Galveston (2018, 90 minutes) is part of a fascinating subset of American crime dramas directed by international filmmakers (see Roman Polanski’s Chinatown), looking anew on familiar tropes as Ben Foster plays a double-crossed enforcer on the run who kidnaps Elle Fanning’s escort.
New on Stan: Jason Reitman’s best film, Young Adult (2011, 94 minutes) is an acerbic, telling black comedy that stars Charlize Theron as a disaffected writer who goes home for a reunion with very bad ideas on how to fix her life; the ultimate pregnancy movie, Rosemary’s Baby (1968, 137 minutes) is a slow burn horror classic from Roman Polanski where Mia Farrow’s pregnant young bride begins to worry about her husband’s allegiances.
>> Missed the last BINGE-R? Click here to catch up on Disney+’s compelling Silicon Valley scandal The Dropout and Stan’s Tiger King tale Joe vs. Carole.
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