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Michael Jordan And The Chicago Bulls Play Some Good Basketball In 'The Last Dance'

The documentary series The Last Dance, which begins Sunday night on ESPN, is about basketball.

Maybe that should be obvious, since it's the story of Michael Jordan and the dominant Chicago Bulls team that won six NBA championships in the 1990s. But understand: it's really about basketball. It's not O.J.: Made In America, which was primarily about race and policing and media. It's not like some of the documentaries in ESPN's 30 For 30 series — to which this feels like a spiritual cousin — that use sports as a way to talk about other things.

No, The Last Dance is really, deeply, intensely about NBA basketball. It's about why Michael Jordan was as dominant and feared as he was, and about how you build a team that can win that much. It's also about how even Jordan could not win championships by himself, and about how team dynamics were affected by such a towering figure. It's about the business of the NBA and the egos and whims of owners and general managers.

The structure of The Last Dance is a little complicated, in that it follows two timelines simultaneously, one gradually catching up to the other. The first is the entire period of the Bulls' ascendance and dominance, from the drafting of Jordan in 1984 through their six championship seasons: a three-peat in 1992, 1993 and 1994; another in 1996, 1997 and 1998. The second timeline is a much more deliberate examination of just that last winning season, the 1997-98 year in which, despite the five championships they'd already won together, the futures of Jordan, coach Phil Jackson, and underpaid second man Scottie Pippen were all uncertain. (The documentary explains early on that in 1997-98, the Bulls and Jordan allowed a film crew tremendous access, which is why there's abundant footage from that season.)

Director Jason Hehir makes wise use of visual cues and a sliding on-screen timeline to continually reorient you to where you are in the story. And it's effective to tell the story of that last season and slide back in time, over and over, to revisit the story up to that point. But I suspect there will be people who will find the back and forth frustrating, particularly if they're following it week by week rather than in a giant binge.

At the center of the documentary, at the center of the Bulls, and in some ways at the center of the world, especially circa 1993, is Michael Jordan. Jordan has always somehow been both ubiquitous and a little elusive. These are by far the most involved, seemingly candid interviews I've ever seen with him; he gave the filmmakers a lot of time to talk about everything from his tensions with Isiah Thomas to the death of his father.

Incidentally, the bad blood between the Bulls and the early '90s Detroit Pistons — Thomas especially — is one of the juiciest tales that arises from the first years of the Bulls' dominance. Some examinations of old sports rivalries show former athletes burying the hatchet or at least finding some humor in their pasts (as in the outstanding 30 For 30 entry Winning Time, about the Pacers and the Knicks). This is not that kind of documentary. Jordan doesn't seem to have lost an iota of his disdain when it comes to Thomas, and the filmmakers offer some artfully presented evidence that he's got good reason to remain frustrated.

The interview techniques here are very smart; I especially like the decision to sometimes let an interview subject see the footage of what someone else has already said. Sometimes you get a wry "that's about right"; sometimes you get a laugh; sometimes you get Jordan roundly ridiculing another player's reminiscence of perhaps having gotten the better of Jordan once, just for a moment. He assures you that never happened. Never.

In fact, one of the most compelling threads in The Last Dance is the fine line between Jordan's unmatched competitive drive — to which everyone attributes much of his success — and his extreme sensitivity to slights. Even at the height of his powers, he cannot bear to have anyone even casually compared to him, in any way, lest his uniqueness be bruised. Over and over, he explains that his desire to win a particular game came from a need to retaliate following something inadequately reverent that was said about him or the Bulls. (This at a time when he was also exhausted by the demands of being as famous as he was.) He attributes one of his best performances to wanting to get back at someone who didn't greet him at a restaurant.

Did Michael Jordan, who could have crushed most of his enemies in multiple ways at any time, actually need to make things this personal in order to be motivated, as he seems to suggest? Or was he just an outstanding basketball player who also nursed decades of grudges because it's just how he is? Do you need resentments to be that good?

It feels important that The Last Dance doesn't seem built to change anyone's opinion of Jordan, for better or worse. It returns again and again to his extraordinary talent, his legendary work ethic (including during his stint in minor league baseball, which took place between the Bulls' two three-peats), his closeness with his family, and his version of leadership — which looks a lot like bullying, but which teammates who are interviewed generally insist was for the best.

But there's also a lot of time spent on the fact that no matter how good Jordan was, and no matter how much talent he had, he was never going to win six championships without the rest of his team. In that final season, when Pippen — who everyone then agrees is wildly underpaid because he got into an ill-advised seven-year contract — decides to have surgery on his foot at the beginning of the season rather than getting it over with in the off-season, in part because he feels stung by management's unwillingness to renegotiate, Jordan is irate. Pippen has left him out there to fend for himself, he complains. He has disappointed the team. Indeed, the season doesn't start off well at all.

And ... well, wasn't this Pippen's point? Wasn't he precisely trying to demonstrate that he was needed more than they were treating him like he was needed, even with the great Michael Jordan on board? And didn't he prove he was right? This, too: Couldn't Jordan have thrown his massive influence behind Pippen's request for a renegotiation as he had behind Phil Jackson, announcing he'd quit if the coach was replaced? It's not explicitly explored, but watching Jordan get so angry that someone else was also trying to have his value recognized is, at times, curious.

The biggest open question from The Last Dance is what it would take to put together a team this dominant over this period of time again. Could you possibly keep guys together long enough? If a Scottie Pippen doesn't get into a bad seven-year contract (a mistake you have to assume young players want to avoid) that lets the Bulls keep him cheaply, does Michael Jordan get the support he needs to be Michael Jordan in the first place? Put another way: No matter how good LeBron James is, it seems like he was probably never going to win six championships in eight years with the same team.

I think it will take at least a passing interest in the NBA, or in Jordan, to find this series fully satisfying. But for people who wonder whether we'll ever see sports dynasties again, there's a great deal here to enjoy. And if nothing else, you will certainly see some tremendous dunks.

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Too Hot to Handle: Where is the cast of the popular Netflix show now?

“Too Hot to Handle” is the latest reality show crazy taking the world of Netflix by storm.

The show, which is barely and probably not PG-13 (viewer discretion is very much advised) features five males and five females who are all single and tasked with spending time together while not having any physical connection for a month.

Those who can do it split the prize money. Those who can’t don’t but may have a future together.

One of the top questions on the Internet today is, where are the cast members now?

To limit spoilers, we’ve simply linked to all of their social media accounts, which provide a glimpse into their post-show lives. You can check them out now or watch the show first and then double back.

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Lady Gaga, Celine Dion, Andrea Bocelli, John Legend Offer ‘The Prayer’ for ‘Together at Home’ Special

Lady Gaga also covered the pop standard “Smile” during Global Citizen event

Lady Gaga, who helped curate Global Citizen’s One World: Together at Home special, brought together iconic vocalists Celine Dion, Andrea Bocelli and John Legend to sing “The Prayer.” The song was originally released in 1999 as a duet between Dion and Bocelli.

The singers were joined by famed pianist Lang Lang for the remote performance. Dion kicked things off, reassuringly delivering the classical song. Gaga and Legend sang select parts while the majority of the tune was handled by its original performers.

Gaga also performed on her own, covering “Smile,” as made famous by both Charlie Chaplin and Nat King Cole. She performed from behind her white iano with lit candles around her, offering some joy in the midst of the ballad with breaks for jauntier playing. Before her performance, she noted how honored she was to be a part of the World Health Organization and Global Citizen. The special helped generate $127 million in donations that will go towards WHO’s efforts to fight COVID-19 around the globe.

The special — hosted by late-night TV’s Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon — also featured Paul McCartney (who performed the Beatles’ “Lady Madonna”), Kacey Musgraves, the Rolling Stones, Billie Eilish, Taylor Swift, Lizzo, Alicia Keys, Stevie Wonder, Celine Dion, Usher, Eddie Vedder, Chris Martin, J Balvin, John Legend, Camila Cabello, Shawn Mendes, Pharrell Williams, Sam Smith, Billie Joe Armstrong, LL Cool J and many more.

Like many other spring releases, Lady Gaga chose to postpone the debut of her upcoming album Chromatica. She noted in her official statement that she had events like a secret Coachella set planned leading up to the LP’s release. She added that it didn’t feel “right’ to release the album in the middle of the global pandemic. Gaga promised a new release date soon.

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Mystery Road season two: Director Warwick Thornton says there was ‘no excuse’ on not making something powerful

The first season won audience and industry awards and was a ratings hit. Its new director says there were “no excuses” on not making something powerful.

As the director behind two of the most accomplished Australian films of this century – Samson and Delilah and Sweet Country – Thornton had only ever worked on the big screen.

But even as he signed up to direct half the episodes of the second season of acclaimed TV drama Mystery Road, returning to the ABC on Sunday at 8.30pm, he knew that a smaller canvas didn’t mean creative compromise.

“When we went into it, we said ‘we have no excuses’,” he told news.com.au. “If we want the best action scene, we do the best action scene. If we want the best landscape or the darkest characters, let’s go for it.

“We don’t have an excuse because we have all the tools and toys to do whatever we want.

“We have such an amazing country – we have incredibly amazing writers and incredible people like at the ABC who will back that, so there’s no excuse to not have something visually stimulating and powerful. It’s all there in front of you, you just have to do it.”

Thornton is a newcomer to the Mystery Road franchise, and at this point it is a franchise. The character of Jay Swan, a troubled and gruff but fair detective played by Aaron Pedersen, originated in Ivan Sen’s 2013 film Mystery Road, followed by its feature sequel Goldstone.

In 2018, the character made the jump onto TV in a six-part series with Pedersen reprising the character and Rachel Perkins as director. This time, Jay Swan was investigating the disappearance of two cattle hands from an outback station alongside a local cop played by Judy Davis.

The TV spin-off was a hit, garnering high ratings, critical praise and accolades from both the publicly-voted Logies and the industry-awarded AACTAs.

The second season returns with Jay Swan in a different town, investigating a different crime – this time, a headless corpse washed up in the mangroves that may intersect with the drug syndicate Swan has been chasing, and possibly a nearby archaeological dig.

Keeping track of the various subplots is one of the new filmmaking elements Thornton had to contend with.

“In a feature, I usually work with six actors and this had about 38 of them, all with incredibly important storylines that intertwine and connect, each of them handing over certain parts of the mystery in each episode – classic Agatha Christie concept.

“That’s the stuff I wasn’t versed in, having that many characters and having to understand who they are at that point in each episode and the repercussions of what happened before and where they need to be when they walk out that door, when they get out of that car.

“That’s the stuff Wayne knows really well. He came with a lot of knowledge I didn’t have. I learnt so much.”

The “Wayne” Thornton was referring to is Wayne Blair, who was an onscreen presence in the first season of Mystery Road and has also directed films including The Sapphires and last year’s Top End Wedding.

Blair has been a steady presence in front of and behind the camera for more than two decades and also counts Redfern Now among his TV credits.

Thornton directed the first episode and the last two while Blair took the helm on the three chapters in between. Thornton was also the director of photography on the whole season, bringing his eye and visual sensibilities to the series.

The result is a show that is textually rich, making the most of the soaring Australian landscapes. You could almost call it “cinematic”.

And that’s where Mystery Road season two was first shown – in a cinema.

The first two episodes were screened as part of the Berlin Film Festival in late February, one of two prominent film festivals (the other being Sundance) that was able to go ahead before the coronavirus pandemic shut down the film industry.

Thornton thought it ironic that he signed up for a TV series and “suddenly you’re at the Berlin Film Festival and there are two sold-out screenings in a cinema”.

With COVID-19 keeping everyone at home, it’s a great time to sink into a series such as Mystery Road, but Thornton said that while “poor old cinema is collapsing as we speak” he believes that once the world comes through it, “there will be a bigger hunger to have that cinematic experience”.

“We’ll all be sick of our televisions and iPads. We’ll want to go back to wide screens and popcorn and telling people to turn off their phones. We’ll want to experience watching something together.”

Filmed on location in Western Australia in Broome and Dampier Peninsular, Mystery Road is a Bunya Productions series, which is how Thornton got involved. Bunya made his previous film, Sweet Country.

But Thornton has a confession to make.

“I will tell you the absolute truth and that’s I’ve never seen the features and I’ve never seen the first series,” Thornton admitted.

“I know Ivan’s work and I know Rachel’s work but when they asked me to direct the second series, I purposely didn’t watch the first series.

“It comes with a beautiful provenance and legacy, but I didn’t want to do the same thing. I know Rachel is a brilliant director, but I didn’t want to be too tainted.”

Thornton said he was given access to the writers during the six weeks pf pre-production and one of the things he asked of them was “less talking and more shooting”.

So expect the second season to lean more into neo-western conventions.

“Let’s not get bogged down in a detective standing at doors and asking ‘where were you the night of the 26th at 7pm?’ and instead he knocks on the door and someone on the other side has a shotgun and tries to kill him,” he explained.

“It’s not just the Americans who are allowed to play with westerns. We have an amazing landscape and these towns that think they’re lawless. It’s all here.”

For Thornton, an Alice Springs-born Kaytetye man, telling Australian stories is his raison d’etre and Mystery Road is part of that.

That’s evidenced in his body of work so far, from the beautiful but complex love story of two Indigenous teenagers in Samson and Delilah to the story of an Aboriginal farm worker forced on the run after killing a white man in self-defence in Sweet Country.

They’re both films that engage deeply with the question of Australian identity and the myriad, not always easy, experiences that make up the fabric of this country.

“We’re Indigenous writers and filmmakers. That’s what I do for a living and that’s what Wayne does and that’s what the writers have been doing.

“We have a responsibility foremost to entertain, but there’s a certain form of education and there’s a certain form of creating or handing over knowledge to an audience of what’s happening in the outback.

“We have a responsibility to tell those stories and to make those stories important to a wider audience.

“Through Jay Swan and through all those other characters, you’re making not just bloody perfect entertainment, there’s a subsidiary education about our country, its past and future.

“There’s a hunger for our history and a hunger about which future we are looking at. When people watch these stories, they have better knowledge and maybe they’ll choose a better path.”

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ou’ll Get What You Need With This Very Acoustic Rolling Stones Performance

But we got this song! So maybe we can get what we want if we try sometimes? And we just might find: The Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Ronnie Wood, and Charlie Watts pulled off the coveted four-part acoustic living-room harmony on Saturday’s One World: Together at Home special, grooving to “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” in a quadrant so perfect that we barely even noticed Watts was air-drumming the entire time. (Fun fact, Watts didn’t drum on the original song due to, uh, reasons beyond his control.) Now, after enjoying five minutes of Let It Bleed bliss, on to the more important homeware queries: Where did Jagger buy his floral curtains? Who gave Wood that inflatable palm tree? And is Picasso’s The Old Guitarist just out of frame, fueling the inspiration for Richards’ posture?

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