Two Indie Films

A couple weekends ago, I was comped a ticket to this independent documentary about the American Basketball Association – a small-market competitor of the NBA that disappeared in 1976 after the NBA took in four of its teams in a league expansion – easily confused for a merger, but importantly not a merger. The result, this film argues, was decades of economic injustice against players who pioneered a style of play that made the NBA much more entertaining to watch. Director/narrator Michael Husain follows an Indianpolis mergers and acquisitions lawyer named Scott Tarter as he fights a years-long, pro bono battle to convince the NBA to give those players their due, culminating after many frustrating delays in a settlement described as recognition payments – not a pension – and only a faint, partial semblance of justice for the now elderly, physically and financially ailing players.

IMDB only lists one cast member: sportscaster Bob Costas, who covered the ABA in the early days of his career. But it features a lot of basketball greats and near-greats, some of them struggling toward the end of their life. The screening I attended was followed by a Zoom Q&A with Husain and ABA player Ron Perry. It was interesting to hear about the process of putting the film together, and how the story evolved from what was expected to be a feel-good short about sports history to an emotionally gripping, personal journey. But it's been weeks since I saw it, so I'll move on lightly to the Three Scenes That Made It For Me: (1) Tarter photographs Sam Smith on his deathbed, lying next to a replica ABA basketball (you'd know it by its red, white and blue segments), and that pic's publication prompts the NBA players' union to press for change. (2) Tarter, left cooling his heels for hours while the NBA team owners haggle out a settlement with the surviving ABA players, picks up the phone saying, "It's either the NBA or it's pizza." Of course, it's pizza. (3) An NBA bureaucrat explains why the resolution was so long coming – an explanation that made the audience with me that night audibly angry.

This is definitely a movie that will get you in the feels, even if you're not particularly into basketball. The idea, forcefully driven home, that ABA players agreed to the "merger" (sic) based on a false understanding that their pensions would survive the extinction of their league, will definitely make you mad and the cheapness of the league that left them in the cold will charge that anger up to a whole new energy level. My big takeaway from this movie is that the documentary is definitely a category of film that I haven't properly appreciated.

Last weekend's concluding installment in the local movie house's month-long independent film festival was this Minnesota-made crime thriller, in which a small-town police chief realizes that his best friend, the local dentist, is a serial killer. Paul, the dentist, has a dark past related to clergy sexual abuse and an older brother's suicide. The victims include the priest who abused him and his brother and other reverends implicated in the tragedy. None of this is a spoiler; the film reveals this all along. The interesting bit is how the trail of evidence leads Paul's buddy, the cop, to become convinced he's the guy.

The movie builds a lot of dark tension, with some Minnesota local color woven in – always fun for Greater Minnesota audiences, who might suspect the fictional town of Scandia to be right around the corner. The grim theme of child sex abuse is lightened (a bit) by some wholesome family drama, the razor wit of a Bureau of Criminal Apprehension detective grown moody while trying to quit smoking, a cute dog (who in a lowkey way is also a witness to murder) and a side plot about a police secretary with a violently jealous husband. While the cast doesn't have any familiar names in it, save Vincent Kartheiser of 1990s child star fame (and later TV's Mad Men and Angel), one standout, in my opinion, is the third, elderly priest, who defies his killer. That was one tough guy, for a hospice patient with a death sentence looming over him regardless; his refusal to "take, eat" of the blasphemous communion that Paul offered left me kind of admiring him.

Three Scenes That Made It For Me, besides the one just described: (1) "I'm a monster." Paul actually says this in two scenes, but I'll let it count as one. (2) The cop and his kids discover Mrs. Cop cuddling the dog in the middle of the night, after she had put her foot down about adopting him. (3) The dog growls at the sound of Paul's voice on the cop's voicemail. All right, so some scenes made it for me. But full disclosure: The movie left me a little disappointed. I thought the ending was weak. Don't want to spoil it, but I think it let Paul off easy and resulted in less of a denoument and more of a limp, petering out. Cop guy keeps saying Paul was his friend, and an ambiguous trans-woman says something about people surprising you, but I felt like with more circumstantial detail and dramatic punch, those last couple of scenes could have been better written. Just sayin'.