Cue That Awesome Bulls Arena Tune
Michael Jordan’s career is nothing if not inspiring. Laurence Fishburne lends his captivating voice to this great documentary/biography that looks at the NBA playoffs from the ’97-’98 season in which Jordan led the Bulls to their second three-peat. Using the playoffs as the over-arching story, we are also treated to a basic biography of Jordan’s life that is peppered in between scenes of the playoffs. MJ himself does a lot of the talking along with a variety of his peers such as Doug Collins, Phil Jackson, Bob Costas, Steve Kerr, and others. Biography events featured include MJ growing up, his triumph at the 1982 NCAA Finals, getting into the NBA, endorsements, the tragic loss of his father, his time in baseball, and his amazing return to the court.
It says a lot about a documentary, even one as short as this, when it has such a great replay value. The presentation and flow are great and in addition Fishburne narrating, there are some good tracks that amplify certain scenes. The direction of this piece is nicely done and there are plenty of interesting camera angles and use of slow motion.
The extra features include:
-Audio Commentary with Co-Directors/Producers James Stern and Don Kempf and Producer Steve Kempf
-Michael Jordan Stats – A listing of Jordan’s stats throughout his career presented in a standard row and column format.
-Behind the Scenes (21m, SD) – An interesting look at production footage and some vintage interviews filmed during production.
-Michael Jordan Bullet Time Feature (2m, SD) – The opening slow-mo dunk from the free throw line is put to music and examined in more detail; not as good of a feature as it sounds.
And there you have it — this is an overall good release of a great program. I would have loved some new features or additional content, but at least the presentation quality packs a nice punch.
To the summary…