RobBrown Tagged Articles at Cinematical

It's football season, which means it's also the season for at least one heartwarming and inspiring movie about the sport. This year the film comes from Universal -- The Express, a biopic of Ernie "The Elmira Express" Davis, the first African-American to win the Heisman trophy, back in 1963. However, the movie divides its time between Davis and his coach at Syracuse University, Ben Schwartzwalder, and shows the ways in which the two characters changed one another (for the better, natch).

The movie opens during the notorious Cotton Bowl game of 1960, when Davis (Rob Brown) was a running back on the Syracuse University team that played The University of Texas, which had not yet allowed black varsity team members. It's a rough game, but Davis is handling himself until all hell breaks loose ... and then we flash back to Davis's childhood in the 1940s and see how he learned to handle nasty racist situations even at an early age. He's stubborn and he's speedy, and eventually decides to use those assets to strive for his goal of playing professional football. His idol, Cleveland Browns running back Jim Brown, advises Davis to play for his alma mater Syracuse because Schwartzwalder (Dennis Quaid) is such an excellent head coach. But Davis encounters difficulties in the ways Schwartzwalder handles the black team members. The coach's primary goal is to avoid "trouble," so they're warned away from the white female students, and worse yet, at certain Southern games they're not allowed to score touchdowns. The real action culminates when the film returns to the Cotton Bowl game in Dallas.

Thursday bites:

• According to The New York Post, Scarlett Johansson has more than just Woody Allen on her professional palette. There have been previous rumors about her signing on for The Sound of Music, but it nows seems that she's got her heart set on something more south, specifically, a revival of South Pacific. That's right. S-J is reportedly in talks to take on the lead role -- Nellie Forbush. A source told the Post that they want someone sexy because "This is not going to be a stodgy production..." I don't know. We've already discussed on Cinematical whether Scarlett has the acting chops. I just cannot picture her in a Broadway musical. She's just not the peppy Broadway type.
• In November, I posted news that an Ernie Davis biopic, The Express, was in the works. Erik followed up with word that Dennis Quaid would play Davis' mentor, Ben Schwartzwalder. However, there was still no word on the legend himself. Finally, we've got a star, and it's none other than Rob Brown. The guy is no stranger to feel-good mentor sorts of stories -- he's the kid from Finding Forrester. I'm sure he'll do fine in the role, but hopefully it won't get too sappy. Then again, most sappy treatments don't end in tragedy as Davis' story does, so perhaps it will escape that curse.
• Finally, we've got New Line nabbing a dramatic thriller pitch. The Black Path, to be written by new screenwriter Henry Jones, is about a brilliant, job-less novelist. While doing a travel piece in Ecuador, he finds a legendary Incan treasure -- based on a real story of the Incan treasure of Atahualpa. Unfortunately, the people in his search party start killing each other to take the gold. That pesky greed... It's a killer.