![\"Down-and-out](\"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/resurrectingchamp.jpg\" "\\"resurrectingchamp\\"")
Down-and-out Samuel L. Jackson shows sportswriter Josh Hartnett he's still got a few moves<\/p><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Things to Do in Denver When You\u2019re Dead<\/span><\/em><\/h1>\n\u00a0[xrr rating=3.5\/5]<\/span><\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\nResurrecting the Champ<\/em><\/strong>. Starring Samuel L. Jackson, Josh Hartnett, Kathryn Morris, Dakota Goyo, Alan Alda, Rachel Nichols, Teri Hatcher, Kristen Shaw, Nick Sandow, David Paymer, Harry J. Lennix, Peter Coyote, Ryan McDonald, Chris Ippolito, Jake LaMotta, and Jameson Trenholm. Music by Larry Group\u00e9. Cinematography by Adam Kane, A.S.C.\u00a0 Production design by Ken Rempel. Costume design by Wendy Partridge. Edited by Sarah Boyd, A.C.E. Screen story and screenplay by Michael Bortman and Allison Burnett. Based on the Los Angeles Times Magazine<\/em><\/strong> story by J.R. Moehringer. Directed by Rod Lurie. (Yari Film Group Releasing\/Phoenix Pictures, 2007, Color, 111 minutes. MPAA Rating: PG-13).<\/strong><\/p>\nAs redemption tales, boxing movies more than hold their own alongside war pictures, Bible epics, and tough-guy teachers who turn around inner-city classrooms. What makes movies like Rocky<\/em>, Raging Bull<\/em>, The Great White Hope<\/em>, Cinderella Man<\/em>, Somebody Up There Likes Me<\/em>, Million Dollar Baby<\/em>, and The Set-Up<\/em> resonate with audiences goes way deeper than their underdog champions.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\nIn fact, I cannot think of one movie about a prizefighter that hasn\u2019t <\/em>been a tale not only of defeating the odds, but also of the hero battling the demons of inner weaknesses. These stories inspire us even when they end in tragedy, because they dramatize in a pure, elemental way, through the crucible of the fight game, the struggles we all face in life. The fire in the belly that moves our working-class hero to step into the ring and get beaten to a pulp\u2014yet emerge victorious\u2014doesn\u2019t smolder in a full stomach. It comes from a burning hunger that only those in desperate circumstances know.<\/p>\nIn Resurrecting the Champ<\/em>, <\/em>sportswriter Erik Kernan, Jr. (Josh Hartnett) has that same hunger. The paradox is that it doesn\u2019t show in his writing: Kernan\u2019s dispatches for the Denver Times<\/em> are dull and flavorless. He hopes for better assignments than covering down-the-card bouts, but his hard-nosed editor (played sour and dour by Alan Alda) buries Erik\u2019s stories in the back of the sport\u2019s pages.<\/p>\n\u201cI appreciate what you\u2019re doing, but your copy\u2014<\/em>it\u2019s unimpressive. A lot of typing, not much writing,\u201d he tells the young reporter. \u201cI forget your pieces while I\u2019m reading them.\u201d<\/p>\nOne wintry night after a match, Kernan stumbles across an ancient vagrant (Samuel L. Jackson) lying in an alleyway. The old man had just been used as a punching bag by some goons who mockingly call him \u201cChamp.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou say you\u2019re the Champ, what are you talking about?\u201d Kernan asks, helping Champ to his feet.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m \u2018Battling Bob\u2019 Satterfield. Number three in the world!\u201d<\/p>\n
Kernan finds in the old-timer\u2019s unlikely riches-to-rags tale a great story that, he suddenly realizes, could reverse his own fortunes on the newspaper. He starts returning to the alley to meet with Champ and get his life story for a feature he starts to write.<\/p>\n
Bob Satterfield hasn\u2019t been himself lately. The fire in his <\/em>belly has long ago been extinguished. He\u2019s lost his career, his family, and finally, his home. As Kernan sits across from him in a deli booth, Champ regales him with stories about his heyday in the ring during the 1950s. Names of legends roll of his tongue, like Jake LaMotta, Ezzard Charles, and Floyd Patterson. As the homeless man relives his past glories, though, he doesn\u2019t seem as hopeless as his circumstances might indicate. A sense of pride and drive reemerge on his face as he relates to Kernan how he beat heavyweight legend Rocky Marciano in a sparring contest.<\/p>\nWhen the conversation turns to his family, though, Champ has only regrets. He\u2019s ashamed of his father, and it\u2019s been decades since his own son talked to him. A bond develops between Champ and Kernan over issues of fatherhood: When Kernan was a boy, his own father\u2014a famous sportscaster, now deceased\u2014walked out on him. Today, Kernan still labors under the omnipresent shadow of his absentee father as the veterans in his trade always compare him to the old man.<\/p>\n
As his marriage falls apart, Kernan seems fated to repeat his bleak family history. Yet, he remains determined to play an everyday part in the life of his young son. He has built himself up in his youngster\u2019s eyes as a famous sportswriter who plays golf with Muhammad Ali and pals around with John Elway. Although at times I couldn\u2019t buy the low-key Hartnett as a sportswriter, he is very convincing as a dad, struggling to become the hero his boy imagines him to be.<\/p>\n
Now, for the first time in his career, Kernan throws himself into his work, using his story about Champ to leverage a better position on the newspaper. His fight coverage improves, too, when he brings Champ to cover bouts with him at ringside. As a boxer is getting the stuffing pounded out of him by a seemingly superior opponent, Satterfield predicts the contender will take the match. \u201cHe had that \u2018figured-out\u2019 look in his eyes,\u201d he confides to Kernan. \u201cI seen it too many times in my opponents\u2019 eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yet, while researching Satterfield\u2019s past, Kernan keeps running into roadblocks and dead ends. There is next to nothing about Bob Satterfield on the Internet, and his archivist (Rachel Nichols) finds little more in the newspaper\u2019s morgue. Half his queries to old-timers in the fight game result in comebacks like, \u201cBob Satterfield? I thought he was dead.\u201d When he telephones Satterfield\u2019s only known survivor, his son in Chicago, all he gets is an expletive deleted and a dial tone.<\/p>\n
Still, Kernan forges ahead with the pathos-filled story of Champ\u2019s fall on hard times\u2014the story he\u2019s sure will bring him a Pulitzer Prize. And in fact, when \u201cResurrecting the Champ\u201d appears in the Denver Times<\/em>\u2019s magazine, it catches fire. Overnight, Kernan\u2019s whole life turns around. Job offers suddenly abound. He even lands an appearance as ringside announcer for a Showtime boxing special.<\/p>\nBut when an old fighter named Tommy emerges from the past and into Satterfield\u2019s life, Kernan begins to see the Pulitzer drift beyond his reach.<\/p>\n
Resurrecting the Champ <\/em>is one of this year\u2019s best movies. More than a boxing picture, it\u2019s also a heartfelt story about fathers and the legacies they leave their sons. Samuel L. Jackson gives an Oscar-caliber performance in his portrayal of Champ, and he more than carries Hartnett for the fifteen rounds of this gut-wrenching flick. I doubt any other actor except his mentor, Morgan Freeman, could have brought such dignity and emotional range to the role. Jackson\u2019s portrayal was clearly of the \u201cmethod\u201d school\u2014he truly lived this role, never giving the appearance of acting. But his performance is so convincing because the method itself is invisible.<\/p>\nAlong with Alda\u2019s excellent supporting effort are solid performances from Dakota Goyo as Kernan\u2019s son, Teddy; from Peter Coyote, who turns in a memorable cameo as a crusty boxing promoter; and from Teri Hatcher as a skanky producer for Showtime.<\/p>\n
Loosely based on J. R. Moehringer\u2019s Los Angeles Times<\/em> article of the same title, Resurrecting the Champ<\/em> is a movie that delivers a great message without becoming a \u201cmessage movie.\u201d It\u2019s one simple lesson\u2014that honesty is the greatest virtue a father can model for his son\u2014holds the key to the destinies of the film\u2019s two protagonists and of the lives they touch.<\/p>\nAs a study of crushed dreams and personal redemption, Resurrecting the Champ<\/em> belongs in the same company as The Verdict <\/em>and The Browning Version. <\/em>Its depiction of life\u2019s sometimes-fleeting triumphs and irreversible errors is presented with sincerity and nobility, but never with pity.<\/p>\nRobert L. Jones is a photojournalist living and working in Minnesota. His work has appeared in\u00a0<\/span>Black & White Magazine<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0<\/span>Entrepreneur<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0<\/span>Hoy! New York<\/span><\/span>, the New York\u00a0<\/span>Post<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0<\/span><\/em>RCA Victor\u00a0<\/span>(Japan)<\/span><\/em>,\u00a0<\/span>Scene in San Antonio<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0<\/span>Spirit Magazine<\/span><\/span>\u00a0(Canada),\u00a0<\/span>Top Producer<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0 and the Trenton\u00a0<\/span>Times<\/span><\/span>. Mr. Jones is a past entertainment editor of\u00a0<\/span>The New Individualist<\/span><\/span>.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u00a0 \u00a0 Things to Do in Denver When You\u2019re Dead \u00a0[xrr rating=3.5\/5] Resurrecting the Champ. Starring Samuel L. Jackson, Josh Hartnett, Kathryn Morris, Dakota Goyo, Alan Alda, Rachel Nichols, Teri Hatcher, Kristen Shaw, Nick Sandow, David Paymer, Harry J. Lennix, Peter Coyote, Ryan McDonald, Chris Ippolito, Jake LaMotta, and Jameson Trenholm. Music by Larry Group\u00e9. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,37,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dramas","category-independent-films","category-mreview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=391"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":394,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391\/revisions\/394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Resurrecting the Champ<\/em><\/strong>. Starring Samuel L. Jackson, Josh Hartnett, Kathryn Morris, Dakota Goyo, Alan Alda, Rachel Nichols, Teri Hatcher, Kristen Shaw, Nick Sandow, David Paymer, Harry J. Lennix, Peter Coyote, Ryan McDonald, Chris Ippolito, Jake LaMotta, and Jameson Trenholm. Music by Larry Group\u00e9. Cinematography by Adam Kane, A.S.C.\u00a0 Production design by Ken Rempel. Costume design by Wendy Partridge. Edited by Sarah Boyd, A.C.E. Screen story and screenplay by Michael Bortman and Allison Burnett. Based on the Los Angeles Times Magazine<\/em><\/strong> story by J.R. Moehringer. Directed by Rod Lurie. (Yari Film Group Releasing\/Phoenix Pictures, 2007, Color, 111 minutes. MPAA Rating: PG-13).<\/strong><\/p>\n As redemption tales, boxing movies more than hold their own alongside war pictures, Bible epics, and tough-guy teachers who turn around inner-city classrooms. What makes movies like Rocky<\/em>, Raging Bull<\/em>, The Great White Hope<\/em>, Cinderella Man<\/em>, Somebody Up There Likes Me<\/em>, Million Dollar Baby<\/em>, and The Set-Up<\/em> resonate with audiences goes way deeper than their underdog champions.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n In fact, I cannot think of one movie about a prizefighter that hasn\u2019t <\/em>been a tale not only of defeating the odds, but also of the hero battling the demons of inner weaknesses. These stories inspire us even when they end in tragedy, because they dramatize in a pure, elemental way, through the crucible of the fight game, the struggles we all face in life. The fire in the belly that moves our working-class hero to step into the ring and get beaten to a pulp\u2014yet emerge victorious\u2014doesn\u2019t smolder in a full stomach. It comes from a burning hunger that only those in desperate circumstances know.<\/p>\n In Resurrecting the Champ<\/em>, <\/em>sportswriter Erik Kernan, Jr. (Josh Hartnett) has that same hunger. The paradox is that it doesn\u2019t show in his writing: Kernan\u2019s dispatches for the Denver Times<\/em> are dull and flavorless. He hopes for better assignments than covering down-the-card bouts, but his hard-nosed editor (played sour and dour by Alan Alda) buries Erik\u2019s stories in the back of the sport\u2019s pages.<\/p>\n \u201cI appreciate what you\u2019re doing, but your copy\u2014<\/em>it\u2019s unimpressive. A lot of typing, not much writing,\u201d he tells the young reporter. \u201cI forget your pieces while I\u2019m reading them.\u201d<\/p>\n One wintry night after a match, Kernan stumbles across an ancient vagrant (Samuel L. Jackson) lying in an alleyway. The old man had just been used as a punching bag by some goons who mockingly call him \u201cChamp.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou say you\u2019re the Champ, what are you talking about?\u201d Kernan asks, helping Champ to his feet.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m \u2018Battling Bob\u2019 Satterfield. Number three in the world!\u201d<\/p>\n Kernan finds in the old-timer\u2019s unlikely riches-to-rags tale a great story that, he suddenly realizes, could reverse his own fortunes on the newspaper. He starts returning to the alley to meet with Champ and get his life story for a feature he starts to write.<\/p>\n Bob Satterfield hasn\u2019t been himself lately. The fire in his <\/em>belly has long ago been extinguished. He\u2019s lost his career, his family, and finally, his home. As Kernan sits across from him in a deli booth, Champ regales him with stories about his heyday in the ring during the 1950s. Names of legends roll of his tongue, like Jake LaMotta, Ezzard Charles, and Floyd Patterson. As the homeless man relives his past glories, though, he doesn\u2019t seem as hopeless as his circumstances might indicate. A sense of pride and drive reemerge on his face as he relates to Kernan how he beat heavyweight legend Rocky Marciano in a sparring contest.<\/p>\n When the conversation turns to his family, though, Champ has only regrets. He\u2019s ashamed of his father, and it\u2019s been decades since his own son talked to him. A bond develops between Champ and Kernan over issues of fatherhood: When Kernan was a boy, his own father\u2014a famous sportscaster, now deceased\u2014walked out on him. Today, Kernan still labors under the omnipresent shadow of his absentee father as the veterans in his trade always compare him to the old man.<\/p>\n As his marriage falls apart, Kernan seems fated to repeat his bleak family history. Yet, he remains determined to play an everyday part in the life of his young son. He has built himself up in his youngster\u2019s eyes as a famous sportswriter who plays golf with Muhammad Ali and pals around with John Elway. Although at times I couldn\u2019t buy the low-key Hartnett as a sportswriter, he is very convincing as a dad, struggling to become the hero his boy imagines him to be.<\/p>\n Now, for the first time in his career, Kernan throws himself into his work, using his story about Champ to leverage a better position on the newspaper. His fight coverage improves, too, when he brings Champ to cover bouts with him at ringside. As a boxer is getting the stuffing pounded out of him by a seemingly superior opponent, Satterfield predicts the contender will take the match. \u201cHe had that \u2018figured-out\u2019 look in his eyes,\u201d he confides to Kernan. \u201cI seen it too many times in my opponents\u2019 eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n Yet, while researching Satterfield\u2019s past, Kernan keeps running into roadblocks and dead ends. There is next to nothing about Bob Satterfield on the Internet, and his archivist (Rachel Nichols) finds little more in the newspaper\u2019s morgue. Half his queries to old-timers in the fight game result in comebacks like, \u201cBob Satterfield? I thought he was dead.\u201d When he telephones Satterfield\u2019s only known survivor, his son in Chicago, all he gets is an expletive deleted and a dial tone.<\/p>\n Still, Kernan forges ahead with the pathos-filled story of Champ\u2019s fall on hard times\u2014the story he\u2019s sure will bring him a Pulitzer Prize. And in fact, when \u201cResurrecting the Champ\u201d appears in the Denver Times<\/em>\u2019s magazine, it catches fire. Overnight, Kernan\u2019s whole life turns around. Job offers suddenly abound. He even lands an appearance as ringside announcer for a Showtime boxing special.<\/p>\n But when an old fighter named Tommy emerges from the past and into Satterfield\u2019s life, Kernan begins to see the Pulitzer drift beyond his reach.<\/p>\n Resurrecting the Champ <\/em>is one of this year\u2019s best movies. More than a boxing picture, it\u2019s also a heartfelt story about fathers and the legacies they leave their sons. Samuel L. Jackson gives an Oscar-caliber performance in his portrayal of Champ, and he more than carries Hartnett for the fifteen rounds of this gut-wrenching flick. I doubt any other actor except his mentor, Morgan Freeman, could have brought such dignity and emotional range to the role. Jackson\u2019s portrayal was clearly of the \u201cmethod\u201d school\u2014he truly lived this role, never giving the appearance of acting. But his performance is so convincing because the method itself is invisible.<\/p>\n Along with Alda\u2019s excellent supporting effort are solid performances from Dakota Goyo as Kernan\u2019s son, Teddy; from Peter Coyote, who turns in a memorable cameo as a crusty boxing promoter; and from Teri Hatcher as a skanky producer for Showtime.<\/p>\n Loosely based on J. R. Moehringer\u2019s Los Angeles Times<\/em> article of the same title, Resurrecting the Champ<\/em> is a movie that delivers a great message without becoming a \u201cmessage movie.\u201d It\u2019s one simple lesson\u2014that honesty is the greatest virtue a father can model for his son\u2014holds the key to the destinies of the film\u2019s two protagonists and of the lives they touch.<\/p>\n As a study of crushed dreams and personal redemption, Resurrecting the Champ<\/em> belongs in the same company as The Verdict <\/em>and The Browning Version. <\/em>Its depiction of life\u2019s sometimes-fleeting triumphs and irreversible errors is presented with sincerity and nobility, but never with pity.<\/p>\n Robert L. Jones is a photojournalist living and working in Minnesota. His work has appeared in\u00a0<\/span>Black & White Magazine<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0<\/span>Entrepreneur<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0<\/span>Hoy! New York<\/span><\/span>, the New York\u00a0<\/span>Post<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0<\/span><\/em>RCA Victor\u00a0<\/span>(Japan)<\/span><\/em>,\u00a0<\/span>Scene in San Antonio<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0<\/span>Spirit Magazine<\/span><\/span>\u00a0(Canada),\u00a0<\/span>Top Producer<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0 and the Trenton\u00a0<\/span>Times<\/span><\/span>. Mr. Jones is a past entertainment editor of\u00a0<\/span>The New Individualist<\/span><\/span>.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0 \u00a0 Things to Do in Denver When You\u2019re Dead \u00a0[xrr rating=3.5\/5] Resurrecting the Champ. Starring Samuel L. Jackson, Josh Hartnett, Kathryn Morris, Dakota Goyo, Alan Alda, Rachel Nichols, Teri Hatcher, Kristen Shaw, Nick Sandow, David Paymer, Harry J. Lennix, Peter Coyote, Ryan McDonald, Chris Ippolito, Jake LaMotta, and Jameson Trenholm. Music by Larry Group\u00e9. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,37,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dramas","category-independent-films","category-mreview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=391"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":394,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391\/revisions\/394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}