macs
February 19, 2010, 4:03pm
1
My personal favorite is the HBO film "Dead Solid Perfect’ with Randy Quaid. Dan Jenkins did the screenplay and had a cameo role in it. Jack Warden - one of my favorite character actors - was great in it as well.
I’m hearing that Reid Sheftall - author of the fantastic book ‘Striking it Rich’ - is trying to get funding together for a film based upon his book. This would be great stuff! For those not familiar with the book or Dr. Sheftall’s story - I urge you to pick up a copy - you will not be sorry. This guy is one of the most amazing people I’ve ever heard of. Briefly, he was a great junior golfer who competed against the likes of Joey Sindelar and John Cook who gave up the game in his mid-teens because of embarrassing temper tantrums on the course. He later graduated from MIT with a degree in Physics - after competing on MIT’s tennis and rowing teams. He was a 21 year old physics professor at USC but decided he wanted to get into medicine…and eventually did. He financed his medcial school education by learning to be a “card counter” at various casinos. Much later on, he founded a clinic for burn victims in Cambodia and - in his mid-forties - was enticed back into golf by a bunch of gambling Cambodian generals (I’m not making this up…). he got so good at beating them that they kicked him out of their games. Still later, on the advice of Mark McCumber - he tried pro golf by qualifying - at the age of 47 - for the Asian PGA tour. HIs thoughts on playing tournament golf are unlike anything that I’ve ever read. This has got to be some of the greatest material for a golf film that I’ve ever heard of.cypress
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by Dr. Sheftall » Thu Feb 18, 2010 9:52 pm
Thank you CYPRESS for mentioning my book and my plans for a film.
Yes I am working on a film version of my book. I have alot of good ideas for this film and I can’t wait to give them a try. In particular, I am going to try to make a golf movie that is a realistic study of the struggles that a good but not incredibly good golfer (my USGA handicap which I keep for comparison purposes is currently +4.2) wrestles with on the pro golf tours. I have been playing for 5 years now and have improved to the point that I have made 11 cuts in a row and actually won a tournament last summer but, oh, its always a struggle. Yes I am still working as a full-time surgeon and that complicates matters too.
One of my pet peeves regarding golf movies is the terrible casting. Matt Damon in Bagger Vance, Kevin Kostner and Don Johnson in Tin Cup, Mason Gamble in A Gentleman’s Game, etc are all fine actors but they can’t play golf very well. So when we hear an observer in the first scene say, when watching him hit the ball,: “Absolutely fcking pure Timmy. absolutely f cking pure.” we moviegoers immediately chuckle under under our breaths and the movie loses credibility. I’m going to try to fix that.
The other problem with golf movies are the ridiculous, unbelievable stories. Some of the writers don’t play golf or they would realize that Kevin Kostner hitting 5 balls to the green and finally getting one on doesn’t mean anything. A 5 handicapper can do that. What separates the tour player is that he can do it on the first ball over and over and if he misses he will get the ball up and down from in front of the pond 80% of the time. And if he doesn’t get it up and down, he will shoot 71 that day instead of 70. Getting these things right in my film is going to be my challenge. Bagger Vance? gosh I don’t know what to say. I know alot of people liked that movie but to me it was embarassing. Bad golfer gets 12 strokes behind Jones and Hagen but comes back miraculously after poorly cast new wave caddy tells him to find his swing in the middle of the round. Nonsense- that’s not pro golf. Its not even believable during a twilight round playing by yourself. Pro golf is course management, keeping your perspective so your nerves don’t make you unravel out there, controlling your emotions when things start to go south on you (which might be only bogeying an easy par-5 or missing two short putts in a row.)
Do our forum readers here agree with me on these things?
To fix this I’m going to use actors and pro golfers tto play the roles (or play themselves). I was even going to play myself to save money but I’m getting too old. My favorite sports movie is HOOSIERS . It is great to a large degree because the KIDS COULD PLAY.
I would appreciate any comments as I get deeper into the creation of the film. I know I am adding to this thread late (the last entry was on Jan 12 but I hope someone still sees it and responds. Thank you everyone.Dr. Sheftall
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by macs » Thu Feb 18, 2010 11:16 pm
Dr. Sheftall
You can start a new thread in this area asking for suggestions. People here are very forthcoming. And may be you will find your cast here. There are some good golfers here.
macs
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by Dr. Sheftall » Fri Feb 19, 2010 12:25 am
Hi Macs:
I don’t know how to start a thread. Can you do it for me? Please Use CYPRESS"S reply followed by mine to start it. This will help me immensely to hear various opinions on golf movie shortcomings.
Dr.Sheftal asked me to start a thread about feedback for his proposed movie based on his book “Striking it Rich”. Forgive me for the flashy title. He did not propose that. But who knows someone from here may get the lead role.
Styles
February 19, 2010, 8:55pm
2
I did it already Macs.
Not as flashy a title as yours for sure though
macs
February 21, 2010, 2:42am
3
Styles
i saw ur thread later.