A League of Ordinary Gentlemen

Infobox Film
name = A League of Ordinary Gentlemen
director = Christopher Browne and Alex Browne
writer = Christopher Browne
starring = Wayne Webb
Pete Weber
Walter Ray Williams Jr.
producer = Christopher Browne
music = Gary Meister
dinematography = Ken Seng
editors = Kurt Engfehr
David S. Tung
assistant editor = Becky Goldberg
production artist = Elizabeth Marcus | distributor = Magnolia Home Entertainment
released = March 21 2006
runtime = 93 min.
rating = R (MPAA)
language = English
budget = unknown
imdb_id = 430289

"A League of Ordinary Gentlemen" is a ten-pin bowling sports documentary that was released on DVD on March 21, 2006. It was written and directed by Christopher Browne and stars Pete Weber, Walter Ray Williams Jr., Chris Barnes, and Wayne Webb, amongst other well-known names. The documentary itself, based on ten-pin bowling, is unique in its genre.

The documentary's first national television appearance was on PBS on the TV station’s "Independent Lens" series on April 25, 2006. [http://www.pba.com/news/features.asp?ID=4532]

Tagline

Inside The Wild Wild World of Professional Bowling! or A Trip through the Wild World of Professional Bowling!

oundtrack

The documentary features the hit track by comedian Stephen Lynch called "Bowling Song (Almighty Malachi, Professional Bowling God)." This track is featured on Lynch's second official album, "Superhero", released in 2002. [http://www.ybtba.org.uk/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=4074#4074]

Blurb

Filmmakers Christopher Browne, Alex Browne, and Wilhelmus Bryan document the mission of a group of middle-aged bowlers as they attempt to revitalize the sport of bowling and get the television-watching public interested in it again.

It is a sports documentary that follows four professional ten-pin bowlers after their league is purchased by a trio of Microsoft programmers who hire a Nike marketing guru to turn professional bowling into the next second-tier sports franchise.

Characters

*Steve Miller
*Wayne Webb
*Pete Weber
*Walter Ray Williams Jr.
*Chris Barnes

tory

Though never a sport of kings, at one point in time bowling occupied a perfectly respectable place in the pantheon of American and British sports. This documentary focuses on the American aspect of the sport. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_pin_bowling#Ten-pin_bowling_in_media] It has long been one of the most popular participatory sports in America. When Eddie Elias convinced the country's top 33 bowlers to kick fifty bucks into a communal pot in 1958 at a banquet hall in Syracuse, NY, the Professional Bowlers Association was born. ABC began televising PBA tournaments in 1962, and as the lead in for "Wide World of Sports", Chris Schenkel's Saturday afternoon bowling telecast was for many years one of the highest rated sports programs on television.

Then something happened: America ceased to embrace the portly, middle-brow image the PBA was selling, and bowling got kicked to the curb. The sport and its players, many of whom grew up idolizing the sepia-toned gods of bowling's golden era, found themselves wallowing in the backwaters of the popular imagination, alongside rodeos and tractor pulls.

In 2000, three former Microsoft executives (Chris Peters, Mike Slade, and Rob Glaser) scooped up the entire apparatus of professional bowling -- its players, tournaments, trademarks and trophies -- all for about five million dollars and assumption of the league's debt. Their stated goal was to save bowling from the brink of extinction and raise it to new heights, or at least put it on par with the Bass Masters tour, which, at current market values, would represent a tidy return on equity.

The heavy lifting for this mission falls onto the broad shoulders of a man named Steve Miller, a former top Nike executive who had played for the Detroit Lions and rescued Kansas State football from the NCAA cellar.

The film focuses on Miller and four of his charges, professional bowlers at very different places in their careers, and their sometimes funny, sometimes sad adventures on tour as professional athletes - albeit the Rodney Dangerfields of professional sports.

Press Release

Tracing the historical arc of the professional bowling tour, the film includes archival footage from the sport's glory days in the 1950s and '60s, through its near extinction in 1997. The story takes a twist when newly installed CEO Steve Miller sets about modernizing the PBA. In addition to Miller, the chronicle focuses on four pro bowlers. Pete Weber, bowling bad-boy and son of legendary bowler Dick Weber whose conservative style doesn't jibe with the direction Miller is taking the new PBA. Pete's nemesis is Walter Ray Williams, a straight-laced six-time world horseshoe-pitching champion and, with 36 PBA titles to his name, the dominant player on the tour. Also, there's Chris Barnes, a young father of newborn twins, who must leave his wife and sons at home and hit the road to compete for the winnings that his young family is depending upon. Finally there's Wayne Webb, a 20-time PBA champion who has fallen on hard times and hopes to squeeze one more good season out of his career to stave off bankruptcy.

DVD features

* Deleted Scenes
* PBA TV Spots
* Skills Challenge Highlights
* PBA Event Clips
* Dexter Approach: Tips and Techniques (Hosted by 13-time PBA Tour titlist and current ESPN TV color-analyst Randy Pedersen.)
* Theatrical Trailer

Reviews

Below are some "soundbite" reviews of the documentary from the DVD cover and the website.

DVD Cover

* "Right up your alley. A witty look at bowling's quest for cool." - Kyle Smith, New York Post
* "It has more warmth, intimacy and grit and still manages to be as witty and engrossing as any Hollywood comedy." - Jan Stuart, Newsday
* "Terrifically poignant, low-down funny and sneakily suspenseful. Every bit as entertaining as The Big Lebowski."" - Ken Tucker, "New York" magazine

Website

* "Engaging, exciting, informative and endearing." - Kevin Thomas, LA Times
* "A joy to behold! Marvelously entertaining, full of great characters, tense drama and a striking look at the battle of style versus substance." - Glenn Whipp, Los Angeles Daily News
* "Funny, surprisingly poignant. No kidding – You can't wait to see these guys compete again." - Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News
* "Witty, wonderful and surprisingly involving." - Joshua Rothkopf,
* "As easy to enjoy as picking up a spare." – Mike Clark, USA Today
* "Who knew the world of professional bowling could be so dramatic?" - Film Threat
* "A skillful, amusing, insightful documentary." - Christy Lemire, Associated Press
* "A very fine documentary" – Kevin Canfield, Gannet News Syndicate
* "Exciting, entertaining, and lever let's up from the first frame to the last." - Lewis Beale, Film Journal
* "Beautiful. You truly have to see it to believe it." – Ain't It Cool News
* "GRIPPING! Has the audience sweating every spare." – Noel Murray, The Onion
* "An engaging, captivating portrait." – Nicholas Schager, Slant

Where The Film's Featured Bowlers Are Now

Wayne Webb never won another regular PBA Tour title after the completion of the film. He now runs a pro-shop in Sacramento, California, and has a Karaoke business on the side. He recently joined the PBA Senior Tour (for players age 50 and older), and made a splash by winning the 2008 Senior U.S. Open.

Chris Barnes most recently won the 2008 PBA Don Johnson Buckeye State Classic (his 10th career title), on his way to winning his first-ever PBA Player of the Year award. He has twice won the biggest prize check in the history of the Denny's PBA Tour ($200,000) by winning the Motel 6 Roll to Riches events in 2005 and 2006.

Walter Ray Williams Jr. is also still on tour at age 48, and shows no signs of slowing down. In September 2006 he surpassed Earl Anthony on the PBA's All-Time titles list with his win over Pete Weber in the 2006 Dydo Japan Cup. He currently has 44 Denny's PBA Tour titles after winning two in the 2007-08 season.

Pete Weber is currently tied with Mark Roth at 34 career Denny's PBA Tour titles, thanks to his win in the 64th U.S. Open (2007). He won the title in the same house in which, two years earlier while he was bowling in a Pro-Am event for the 62nd U.S. Open, he found out his father Dick Weber had passed away.

External links

* [http://www.bowlingmovie.com/ Official Website]
* [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0430289/ Internet Movie Database entry]
* [http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/leagueofordinarygentlemen/ Official PBS website of first national showing]
* [http://www.filmjerk.com/reviews/article.php?id_rev=580 FilmJerk Review]
* [http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/film_review.asp?ID=1609 Slant Magazine Review]
* [http://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=8870 E-Film Critic Review]
* [http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/league_of_ordinary_gentlemen/ Rotten Tomatoes list of reviews of the documentary]

ee also