The Great White Hope 1970

Is that the guy in one of the bond films?

 

Please, don't get me started on that Michael Mann piece of junk that was supposed to be "Ali" on film. Will Smith was decent, Jamie Foxx a little better than decent and James Toney playing Frazier was disgraceful.

I would like to see a director focus on Jack Johnson's career during the times he fought Langford, Jeannette and Sam McVey.

 

Dempsey is the prime candidate in my opinion. He was a polarizing character who was also considered unbeatable during one of the most unique decades in American history...
Movies are nicely budgeted if the financiers believe they'll make money on their investment. There was still enough interest in Ali as a boxer and as a political figure to make his movie a viable option for movie executives.
I think there is still a lot of interest in Joe Louis, not only as a boxer but as a key figure in American History but an excellent documentary was just made about him.
A TV movie was made on Rocky's life and career about 10 years ago...
Several documentaries and movies have been made about Jack Johnson...

 

I guess the question is whose career actualy makes a story worth making into a film. I am not certain that Marciano's career or even Ali's makes a stand alone story.

Jack Johnson and Joe Louis's careers lend themselves prety well to films because they would be viable plots even if they as characters were completely fictional. You could still end up with something better than Rocky.

 

Will Smith was as good a choice to play Ali as there is and he did a fine job, but i think the problem with casting Ali is that he is just too darn recognisable worldwide and everyone would be expecting an Ali clone to make it believable. I mean, i watched American Gangster the other night and Tony Scott is a good directer with attention to detail but did you see the state of the guy who was meant to be Ali. As for the guy who was supposedly joe louis, he looked more like jerry lewis. My point is that a movie obout the likes of the older fighters would be able to get away with not-so-perfect casting lookswise as the average joe wouldnt really know what they looked like. Add that to their colourful lives (johnson,dempsey,louis) and you got yourself a movie which ticks all the hollywood boxes (fame,fortune,heroism,drugs,sex and tragedy-well maybe not so much trgedy as far as dempseys concerned but you get my point)

 

I actually enjoyed the Ali film and I thought Will Smith did a great job.
As for Johnson, like I said I'm reading Papa Jack and he's just beaten Jeffries. You could make a film just around this fight and what happened after. The racism, the race riots and what it did for black pride. I think Johnson made an even bigger historical impression in his life than Ali did 50 years later.
Having said that it would be great to cover his whole life. How you would put all that content in one film and do it justice is beyond me though. It would have to done as a mini series. Some of these television series they're producing now are better than film in my opinion anyway.
Any suggestions as to who could play Johnson?

 

Ali definitely did not miss his vocation in life.

 

Yes, but he was playing himself.

 

I've always thought that TGWH was ok - clearly better than the likes of The Hurricane, The Champ and all the Rocky sequels but not in the league of, say, Fat City (one of the most underrated films ever), Raging Bull or The Harder They Fall.

Has to be said that JEJ was bloody outstanding in it though - right up there with De Niro, Keach, Day-Lewis and all the other memorable performances in any boxing film.

And on the condition of the right actor being found to play him along with the right screenwriter/director, a movie about Monzon would be a pretty bloody good one IMHO....

 

Last I saw of Yaphet Cotto was as the FBI agent "Mosley" along with Robert DeNiro "Jack" in the '88 hit--"Midnight Run."
:good

MR.BILL:deal

 

The Ali film was terrible


Only the acting was good like I said.


The movie tried to expose things in his life, that most people didn't know about him.

The movie made him look like a frustrated pissed off *****, whose TV persona was 100% false.

Bull****


They tried to expose new things about his relationship to Islam

They spent at least 10 minutes on sex scenes. Are you ****ing kidding me?! The man has done things and seen things that cannot be fit in a 10 hour film, and they put 10 minutes of sex scenes?

**** outa here.


Ali was no different then the version in which Ali played himself. In fact, the one Ali acted in was 10X better. They both ended with the same exact time period in his life, and one was made 20 years after the other.


I loved the acting, the boxing scenes, and I was obviously entertained. I was just pissed at the story, and what they did and didnt include