Eight quick notes on HBO's "Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty"

1. Many pundits - including Kareem Abdul-Jabbar - complained loud and long about the ridiculous, exaggerated vibe of the show.  To us, that was a feature, not a bug.  The show works as a fable, a larger-than-life fictionalized spin on true events that were already a little ridiculous.  HBO and the producers just gave the whole thing a little nudge into crazy.  It's practically satire in some ways.  No reasonable person should ever consider this thing a documentary.  At this point, in fact, we have Google or Wikipedia open on our phone anytime we watch a movie or TV show that's supposedly based on a true story.  An instant fact check is often essential.
2. That said, it is curious that the show made Jerry West such a wild-eyed maniac.
3. John C. Reilly was born to play Jerry Buss.  Phenomenal.  We always remember Buss as the old-timer covered in locker room champagne with Shaq and Kobe during the 2000-2002 three-peat title run.  The depiction of him here as a creepy ladies man horndog - which, apparently, does have truth to it - was rather shocking.
4. On paper, a shaggy, montage visual style seeking to create a late 70s/early 80s vibe would seem like a pretty obvious choice.  Lots of movies use different film stocks and styles and jump cuts to create a period mood.  Yadda yadda yadda.  But there was something different about this.  The grainy film stock with 8mm-style sprocket holes, the glitchy TV video images, it all came together beautifully.  Along with the wardrobe and the set design, "Winning Time" may not be 1980 accurate, but it feels 1980 accurate.
5. Was Larry Bird really that surly and angry?  Dude.  Bonus points for using a beer car to catch the tobacco spit.
6. Fun fact: so it turns out HBO didn't want to call the show "Showtime" - which was what the Lakers of the 80s called themselves and what the book was titled on which the show is based - because of the competing Showtime pay-TV service.  HBO's Showtime.  Sort of be like Showtime's HBO, we suppose.
7. Aside from Reilly, the actors who played Magic Johnson and Kareem (Quincy Isaiah and Solomon Hughes) walk that line between perfectly evoking the real person without ever lapsing into an cringey impersonation.  Like much of the show, they feel exactly right.
8. All of that tedious business with the Buss family and the dying matriarch Sally Field seemed very important to the producers, but for us it paled in comparison to the layered drama and intrigue of the players and coaches trying to make this whole thing work.

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