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      Different Sides of Bill Walton and Wilt Chamberlain in New Series

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      New documentaries explore the star-crossed careers and delicate spirits of Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Walton, two of basketball’s greatest.Pity the poor 7-footer.That’s the message of two new documentary series about storied basketball players: “The Luckiest Guy in the World,” about Bill Walton (available in the “30 for 30” hub at ESPN Plus), and “Goliath,” about Wilt Chamberlain (premiering Friday at Paramount+ and Sunday on Showtime).Serious and thorough, “Luckiest Guy” and “Goliath” are positioned to draft on the success of an earlier basketball biography, ESPN’s popular Michael Jordan series, “The Last Dance.” But while they are also portraits of men with supreme physical gifts, they are less focused on their subjects’ on-court exploits and more determined to get inside the players’ heads. The sportswriter Jackie MacMullan delivers what could be a thesis statement for both in “Goliath”: “I’ve found that big men are much more sensitive than we realize.”Chamberlain, who died of heart failure in 1999, and Walton both have well-defined personas, which they participated in creating. Each series spends a lot of its time picking apart the received wisdom about its subject while also indulging, for the sake of dramatic impact and storytelling shorthand, the very stereotypes it wants to deconstruct: Chamberlain the unstoppable, insatiable giant; Walton the goofy, fragile flower child.The four-episode “Luckiest Guy” was directed by the accomplished documentarian Steve James, always to be remembered for “Hoop Dreams,” and was made with the full cooperation of Walton, 70, who revisits old haunts and sits down for an entertaining round table with Portland Trail Blazers teammates like Lionel Hollins and Dave Twardzik. It’s engagingly introspective and personal, in part because James pushes back against Walton’s incessant recitation of the title phrase. How can Walton call himself the luckiest guy in the world, James asks from behind the camera, when his career was utterly ravaged by injuries that eventually crippled him and drove him to consider suicide?That, broadly speaking, is the idea that haunts both documentaries. The conundrum of Walton’s and Chamberlain’s careers is that they were marked by success — college and professional championships, statistical domination (in Chamberlain’s case), reputations for unmatched athletic skills — and defined by disappointment. Neither won as often or as easily as he should have, in Walton’s case because of injury and in Chamberlain’s because of the dominance during the 1960s of the rival Boston Celtics and their center, Bill Russell, enshrined in sports mythology as the hard-working Everyman to Chamberlain’s sex-and-statistics-obsessed egotist.“Goliath,” directed by Rob Ford and Christopher Dillon, is a more workmanlike and conventional project than “Luckiest Guy.” But across three episodes it makes a persuasive case for Chamberlain as a generous, sensitive soul who was both blessed and constrained by his stature and his extraordinary all-around athletic ability.It does its sports-documentary duty, laying out Chamberlain’s triumphs and more frequent setbacks on the court. But it is more interested in the trails he blazed as a Black cultural figure and self-determining professional athlete, and it favors writers, pundits and scholars over basketball players in its interviews. (The scarcity of images from Chamberlain’s younger days in the 1940s and ’50s is compensated for with shadow-puppet scenes reminiscent of the work of Kara Walker.)Watching the series side by side, the differences between the two men are less interesting than the sense of commonality that emerges. Both were self-conscious stutterers who learned to endure, and perform under, the most intense scrutiny. Chamberlain may have been more flamboyant, but Walton, in “Luckiest Guy,” is just as conscious of his affect — there’s an ostentatiousness, and no small amount of ego, in the way he performs modesty. (James also challenges Walton’s lifelong, generally debunked claim to be only 6 feet 11 inches tall.)The veteran sports fan might see another commonality: As good as they are, neither “The Luckiest Guy in the World” nor “Goliath” is as exciting to watch as “The Last Dance.” This is a bit of a conundrum, because both Chamberlain and Walton are, quite arguably, more complex, interesting and moving figures than Michael Jordan. But Michael Jordan is a nearly unparalleled winner. And while winning isn’t the only thing, it is, for better or worse, the most compelling thing about the subject of a sports documentary. More

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      What’s on TV This Week: ‘Waco: The Aftermath’ and ‘The Hummingbird Effect’

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      A limited drama series from Showtime puts the resurgence of the militia movement into context, and a new slate of programming comes to PBS in celebration of Earth Month.Between network, cable and streaming, the modern television landscape is a vast one. Here are some of the shows, specials and movies coming to TV this week, April 10-16. Details and times are subject to change.MondayFrom left, Tim Holt, Walter Huston and Humphrey Bogart in “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.”Warner Bros., via Everett CollectionTHE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE (1948) 8 p.m. on TCM. Adapted from the 1927 novel of the same name by B. Traven, this Golden Globe and Academy Award winning film follows Fred C. Dobbs (Humphrey Bogart) and Bob Curtin (Tim Holt), two drifters living in Mexico, as they team up with a prospector (Walter Huston) and head for the hills of the Sierra Madre in hopes of finding gold. The film not only explores concepts of greed and self-preservation “in a most vivid and exciting action display,” Bosley Crowther wrote in his review for The New York Times, but it is also “a swell adventure film” with “fast and electric” details. Though the movie has been the subject of criticism for its stereotypes of Mexicans, in 1990, the Library of Congress selected “Sierra Madre” for preservation in the National Film Registry.TuesdayROAD WARS 10 p.m. on A&E. This documentary series centered around road rage in the United States is back for a second season, as the show’s film crew gets back on the road to document the accidents, wacky weather events and instances of extreme human behavior that take place on America’s roadways.WednesdayA female green-crowned brilliant hummingbird in “The Hummingbird Effect.”Filipe DeAndradeNATURE: THE HUMMINGBIRD EFFECT 8 p.m. on PBS. In celebration of Earth Month this April, PBS is featuring a new collection of programs, documentaries and specials devoted to the topics of climate change and sustainability. “The Hummingbird Effect,” a new episode in the natural history documentary series “Nature,” is one such special. Set in Costa Rica, the episode explores the tiny birds’ relationship to the flora and fauna around them, and how their existence is vital to the health of the overall environment in which they are a part.NOVA: WEATHERING THE FUTURE 9 p.m. on PBS. This new episode from the documentary series NOVA documents the effects of climate change in the United States. From heat waves and megafires, to intense rainstorms and long-lasting droughts, the documentary focuses on how Americans are adapting and innovating in reaction to extreme weather.ThursdayHEADLINERS WITH RACHEL NICHOLS 10 p.m. on SHOWTIME. Featuring interviews with “players, coaches and front office personnel” in the world of basketball, the show, which is hosted and co-executive produced by the veteran NBA reporter Rachel Nichols, will offer fans a more intimate portrait of the industry, while still establishing an on-site presence during important game days. Nichols previously hosted “The Jump,” a daily basketball show on ESPN, until its cancellation in 2021, when it was reported that Nichols had made disparaging remarks about one of her colleagues.THIS IS MARK ROBER 10 p.m. on DISCOVERY. Produced by Kimmelot and ITV America, this new series offers a behind-the-scenes look of the concepts and processes of some of the most engaging viral videos of the former NASA engineer and YouTube star Mark Rober. He first gained notoriety in 2018, when he posted a video pranking package thieves with an engineered glitter bomb box. Since then, Rober has amassed over 20 million followers on his YouTube channel, where he is known for his intricate engineering experiments, pranks and gadget videos. “This is Mark Rober” is a companion series to “Revengineers,” a prank show executive produced by Rober and Jimmy Kimmel, which premieres next week.FridayDandara Veiga, center, and the ensemble of Ballet HispánicoTeresa WoodNEXT AT THE KENNEDY CENTER: BALLET HISPÁNICO’S DOÑA PERÓN 10 p.m. on PBS. Through movement by the versatile choreographer Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, the dance company Ballet Hispánico paints a portrait of the life of Eva “Evita” Perón — the Argentine actress turned populist first lady. The ballet follows Evita’s ascent from poverty, showcasing her time as a performer and as first lady, and ends with her death from cervical cancer at age 33. In her review for The Times, Siobhan Burke highlights the ballet’s “thoughtful integration of movement” with its “handsome design elements,” adding that “this harmony stands out from the first, saintly image” of the performance.SaturdayKazunari Ninomiya at Saigo in “Letters from Iwo Jima.”Merie W. Wallace/Warner Brothers Pictures and DreamWorks PicturesLETTERS FROM IWO JIMA (2006) 3:30 p.m. on FLIXe. This Golden Globe and Academy-Award winning Japanese-language film portrays the Battle of Iwo Jima — the monthlong battle in 1945 between the Imperial Japanese Army and the United States Marine Corps and Navy that became memorialized through Joe Rosenthal’s Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph “Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima.” Directed and co-produced by Clint Eastwood, it is the companion film to Eastwood’s “Flags of Our Fathers,” which was released two months earlier. “Letters From Iwo Jima” portrays the battle from the perspective of the Japanese soldiers, while its companion depicts the same battle from the American perspective. In the film’s observation of the lives and deaths of Japanese soldiers “it is unapologetically and even humbly true to the durable tenets of the war movie tradition, but it is also utterly original, even radical in its methods and insights,” A.O. Scott wrote in his review for The Times, calling the film “the best Japanese movie of the year.”SundayWACO: THE AFTERMATH 10 p.m. on CMT, PARAMOUNT and SHOWTIME. This five-part limited series looks at the so-called Waco siege, — when federal agents raided the Branch Davidian religious group’s compound northeast of Waco in 1993. At the compound, 75 people were killed, a third of them children. Coinciding with the 30th anniversary of the tragedy, the series puts into context the recent resurgence of the militia movement in the United States through its focus on what happened after the siege: the trials of Branch Davidian members who survived, and the indoctrination of the Oklahoma City bomber, Timothy McVeigh. More

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      Hank Goldberg, Betting Maven and Sports Radio Star, Dies at 82

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      A New Jersey fan of sports and gambling who became one of the country’s top television handicappers: What are the odds?Hank Goldberg, a prickly, bombastic and witty sports talk radio and television personality in Miami who became nationally known for handicapping horse races and N.F.L. games on ESPN, died on Monday, his 82nd birthday, at his home in Las Vegas.The cause was complications of chronic kidney disease, which required dialysis treatments and caused the amputation of his right leg below the knee last year, said his sister and only immediate survivor, Liz Goldberg.For more than 50 years, sports and gambling were inseparable spheres to Mr. Goldberg. A habitué of racetracks and casino sports books, he ghostwrote for the celebrated oddsmaker Jimmy Snyder, known as Jimmy the Greek, in the 1970s. He was an analyst for Miami Dolphins football games on radio, hosted sports talk shows on two Miami radio stations, and reported and anchored sports for a local TV station.As a major sports figure in Miami, he counted the Dolphins’ former head coach Don Shula and former quarterback Bob Griese among the friends with whom he bet on horses at Gulfstream Park in Hallandale Beach, Fla. He imbibed the privileges of celebrity, including being treated like a king at the famous Joe’s Stone Crab restaurant in Miami Beach.“I own this town,” he said while driving around Miami in archival video that was used by ESPN in a tribute to him after his death.Starting in the early 1990s, he found a broader audience as ESPN’s betting maven, dishing out his takes on favorites, underdogs and point spreads before Sunday’s N.F.L. games and the odds before Triple Crown and Breeders’ Cup horse races.ESPN reported that Mr. Goldberg had a .500 record or better in 15 of the 17 seasons that he handicapped N.F.L. games for the network.“It was the next step up from what ‘the Greek’ did,” said Mark Gross, a senior vice president of ESPN. Mr. Snyder declared which teams would win but was prohibited by the N.F.L. from discussing point spreads. Mr. Goldberg was restricted only from using team nicknames on the ESPN show “SportsCenter” but could talk about their cities.Mr. Goldberg’s outsize personality emerged most fully on radio, where he started in 1978, at WIOD-AM in Miami. His aggressive style led him to argue with callers and sometimes hang up in disgust.Joe Zagacki, one of Mr. Goldberg’s producers at WIOD, recalled in a phone interview a day when “Hank had an argument with a caller — he had one of his volcanic explosions — and I said, ‘My goodness, you just hammered that guy. You’re ‘Hammering Hank Goldberg.’”The nickname stuck. After he started at ESPN in 1993, Mr. Goldberg began banging a mallet on a studio desk to express his disagreement with a colleague or his disdain for a sports figure. He referred to himself as “Hammer.”He initially appeared on ESPN2, which was new at the time and was attempting to reach a younger audience with anchors who dressed in a casual, cool style. Not Mr. Goldberg, who was definitely not cool but brought a quirky, brassy personality to the network — although it was more congenial than his in-your-face radio demeanor.“Hank could fit into any genre; he could fit anywhere,” said Suzy Kolber, a longtime anchor and reporter at ESPN who worked with Mr. Goldberg on ESPN2 and in Florida. “Plug him into the horse-racing crowd or the ESPN2 bunch. He fit right in.”Henry Edward Goldberg was born on July 4, 1940, in Newark and grew up in South Orange, N.J. His mother, Sadie (Abben) Goldberg, was a homemaker; his father, Hy, was a sports columnist for The Newark Evening News. Hy Goldberg frequently took his wife and children to the Yankees’ spring training in Florida, where young Hank became friendly with Joe DiMaggio, who called him Henry, Ms. Goldberg said in an interview.At 17, Mr. Goldberg went to the racetrack for the first time and won $450 when he hit the daily double at Monmouth Park in New Jersey. When he brought his winnings home, he recalled, his father told him, “Oh, you’re in trouble now.” In an interview this year with The Las Vegas Review-Journal, he added, “He knew I’d never get over my love for the races.”After attending Duke University, he transferred to New York University and graduated in 1962. He started his career as an account executive for the advertising agency Benton & Bowles. He moved to Miami in 1966 and continued to work in advertising.He found work in the broadcast booth of the Orange Bowl in Miami as a spotter — helping the play-by-play announcer by identifying which player caught a pass or made a tackle — for network telecasts of the Dolphins. He developed a friendship with the NBC play-by-play announcer Curt Gowdy. and also developed relationships in the local sports world that led him to meet Mike Pearl, who wrote and produced Jimmy Snyder’s radio show and ghostwrote his syndicated column.Ms. Goldberg said that Mr. Pearl introduced her brother to Mr. Snyder and they got along well. When Mr. Pearl left for CBS Sports, where he would produce “The NFL Today,” Mr. Snyder asked Mr. Goldberg to take over the column.In 1978, he was hired as the host of a sports talk show and a commentator on Dolphins games at WIOD, replacing Larry King. In 1983, he added work as a sports reporter and anchor on the Miami TV station WTVJ. He also continued to work in advertising; from 1977 to 1992, he was an executive with the Beber Silverstein agency. Despite his success on WIOD, Mr. Goldberg was suspended several times over the years and fired in September 1992, following a dispute with the program director over the content of his show.“The biggest radio name in South Florida sports is a loudmouth who loves to drop names — often like dirt — and who upon announcing the Dolphins’ fantastic finish Monday Night didn’t know it was his own, too,” wrote Dave Hyde, a columnist for The Sun-Sentinel, a South Florida newspaper. Mr. Hyde suggested that all the station should have done was “wash out his mouth.”Mr. Goldberg was quickly hired by another local station, WQAM-AM, where he was again successful. But he left in 2007, believing he had been lowballed in contract negotiations.By then, he was well into his two-decade run at ESPN. It ended around 2014, but he returned for the “Daily Wager” show in 2019, a year after he moved to Las Vegas. He was also a prognosticator for CBS Sports HQ, a sports streaming service, and Sportsline, an online CBS sports network.Asked what motivated her brother, Ms. Goldberg gave a simple answer: “He loved the microphone.” More

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      Dan Le Batard to Leave ESPN

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeHoliday TVBest Netflix DocumentariesAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyAfter Much Sparring, Dan Le Batard Is to Leave ESPN in JanuaryLe Batard, a radio- and television-show host, had recently criticized his bosses for laying off one of his producers, and he has bashed the network’s reluctance to allow commentary on politics.Dan Le Batard on the set of the ESPN show “Highly Questionable” in 2014.Credit…Rodrigo Varela, via Associated PressBy More