Do you ever want to feel artistically superior to all of your friends? Maybe you are tired of your friends talking about how great the latest action film is and want to sound better. Maybe you want to impress your date with obscure film trivia. Maybe you think that knowing a lot about film history and art will somehow validate your meaningless existence and will replace that ever-growing pit in your heart that tells you that you don’t matter and no one cares about you. Well, don’t worry! Because I watch a bunch of art house films and can give you recommendations on what to watch and what to feel superior about! So without any delay, let’s get pretentious!
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In 1973, French Director Jean Luc-Godard wrote and directed a little-known film titled Oncle Drew. Many called it Godard’s best film, but after premiering at Cannes Film Festival in 1973, Italian Director Roberto Rossellini challenged Godard to a fist fight. The fight was over the fact that as Oncle Drew premiered Rossellini claimed that Godard stole the idea from him and his script for the now lost film called Mio Zio, Drew. Both films featured the plot line of a young man down on his luck soon to be evicted from his apartment. In Oncle Drew the young man was played by Horst Buchholz of Life is Beautiful and The Magnificent Seven fame. In Mio Zio, Drew the role was played by Robert De Niro in his earliest film role. In an attempt to gain short-term monetary gain, the young man attempts to lead a team of sportsmen by winning a championship game. In Godard’s film the sport was soccer while in Rossellini’s the sport was a cricket. The hero of the films would then meet an older gentleman who was surprisingly amazing at the games and agreed to lead the team, this older man’s name in both films was “Drew”. In Oncle Drew, Drew was played by Alain Delon while in Mio Zio, Drew the character was played by Marcello Mastroianni. The similarities were uncanny.
The fight raged on throughout the festival. Many filmmakers took various sides. Andrei Tarkovsky claimed that he read the script for Oncle Drew years previously and that Rossellini merely stole the idea himself. While others such as Ingmar Bergman and Federico Fellini believed that Rossellini was the true owner of the film and that he had been attempting to get the film produced for decades. As the battle heated to a climax with Agnés Varda, wearing only the blood of Jacques Demy, stabbing Akira Kurosawa. The film community came together and agreed the only way to move forward peacefully was to discard all traces of the two films. Godard and Rossellini agreed, thinking that if they couldn’t have their story then no one could. The 1973 Cannes Film Festival concluded with the community coming together and burning every reel of both Oncle Drew and Mio Zio, Drew. Lost forever, only those able to attend the two screenings of the films would know the majesty and elegance of the films. Many film historians consider any copies either film to be the holy grail of the film community. In 1998, Steve Spielberg claimed to have witnessed a showing of the two films in the depths of Thailand while location scouting for Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. He said that the beauty of the films inspired him to make Saving Private Ryan and the heart and soul of the films is what gave him the confidence to direct Schindler’s List. Many say that Spielberg was lying and that no copies of the film even exist.
But in 2011, while at the premiere of a colleagues film, Michael Haneke found the original script to Oncle Drew. He quickly sold it to the Museum of the Moving Image in New York. There Pepsi bought the script and began Avant-Garde short films inspired by the story. Many of these short films won awards at Cannes, Sundance, and Venice Film Festivals. One even won Best Live Action Short Film at the Academy Awards in 2013. With the success of their Avant-Garde short films, Pepsi decided the film community was ready for a new adaptation of the controversial picture.
And thus, Uncle Drew, the 2018 Basketball Comedy film about old people playing Basketball and Shaq being a karate master came into fruition. And it was the greatest film of the decade.