The Bronx Finally Burned

Since I pretty much spent the last six weeks either entertaining, traveling to the septic tanks of Middle America, or being held hostage by American Airlines, I'm a trifle late coming to the party on ESPN's 8 week mini-series, "The Bronx is Burning." Thanks to a TiVo season pass and several SoCal days that were too hot to venture out of central air conditioning, I just finished watching it.

For those of you in the perpetual dark, this was ESPN's first foray into dramatic product. They chose the best selling book by Jonathan Mahler for a variety of reasons. Beyond the fact that the summer of 1977 in NY would be a compelling story, ABC broadcast the Yankee-Dodger World Series that year and ESPN could easily (and cheaply) get its hands on a lot of that telecast footage. This enabled us to see for one more time what a complete buffoon Howard Cosell was. But, I digress...

Generally, you can safely say that the book is always better than the movie or mini-series. In this case, the table of contents had more substance than ESPN's production. First, the positives. John Turturro and Oliver Platt were truly excellent in the lead roles of Billy Martin and George Steinbrenner. For my money, Martin ended up being portrayed a bit more sympathetically than he should have, given the fact that the guy was a complete drunken bastard in real life. (And I once spent an afternoon with him, so I know.) Platt often added the tic of adjusting his toupee, which I thought was a stroke of genius in his enactment of the maniacal Yankee owner. Overall, these two actors provided what little reason there was to stay with the story for eight weeks. You can't say the same for Daniel Sunjata's portrayal of Reggie Jackson. First of all, he didn't even remotely resemble Reggie, assuming, of course, that Jackson wasn't really a mulatto. Sunjata missed every note he played and that messed up the trinity that was needed with Martin and Steinbrenner. Let's face it, the three of them together were essentially the Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin of baseball.

Where this show really failed was in the area of authenticity, which was further damaged by some of the lousiest production values I have ever seen on a TV mini-series. For all I know, it was filmed at a Costco after closing. There was absolutely no effort made to match any shots to any level of realism. Over the eight weeks, there were a variety of scenes set in empty stands and dugouts that were supposed to resemble the same at Yankee Ft. Lauderdale stadium, Yankee Stadium, Tiger Stadium, Fenway Park, and Dodger Stadium. Yet, they used the same damn set for every ballpark. For Pete's sake, at least vary the freakin' color of the seats.

As I mentioned earlier, they went to great lengths to cut in actual game footage with close-up shots of the actors. While the game footage was grainy, the new shots were crystal clear and the ultimate effect was so jarring that Lenscrafters could have made a mint as the underwriter. It was so incredibly sloppy that I was convinced the production staff came from the AV department at a junior college.

They also messed up bigtime when they tied in the Son of Sam investigation that paralleled the Yankee season. Once again, they cut real footage of the Stacy Moskowitz murder in with actors. While the murdered Brooklyn girl's mother, Neysa, was the epitome of the Florida Jewish housewife, the actress looked like something from the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. So, in one shot, Neysa is real. In the next shot, she looks like June Lockhart.

They also botched the capture of David Berkowitz. I used to live several blocks away from the building he lived in and it is a very tiny one laned street. Their depiction of that street as a major thoroughfare was ludicrous. In these days of Google Earth and Live Search, there are a lot of resources out there to prevent you from being that far off the beam.

While the guy playing Thurman Munson certainly looked the part and accurately depicted this kuncklehead who had about as much business flying a plane as JFK Jr, some of the other casting was laughable. Dick Howser was inexplicably played by Doogie Howser's best friend. And Yogi Berra looked like your friendly druggist at Walgren's.

All in all, a good idea badly executed. But, then again, what could I expect of something co produced by that legendary Hollywood creative force, Fran Healy?

Dinner last night: Braised Beef Canneloni at Maggiano's.