It’s the quintessential girls night out movie!
Women will cheer and applaud as they did at our screening earlier this week.
I’m talking about the sports dramedy BATTLE OF THE SEXES which relives the bombastic tennis match between young Billie Jean King and over the hill tennis pro Bobby Riggs.
It was a winner take all contest staged at the Houston Astrodome and televised live by ABC with commentary by none other than Howard Cosell.
The movie tells the backstory of what led up to the much hyped showdown including the near revolt of the incredibly underpaid players of the Women’s Tennis Association.
It was a world of over-the-top male chauvinism that played out heavily in the promotion of the big match.
And Riggs was the ultimate chauvinist pig pumping the media with lines like “Don’t get me wrong, I love women….in the bedroom and in the kitchen.”
Then there was the matter of Billy Jean’s sexuality……
She was married but succumbed to her hairdresser’s charms on the tour.
It’s all neatly packaged into a big screen bio-play which may just bring yet another Oscar nomination Emma Stone‘s way.
Was Steve Carell‘s performance as over-the-top as Riggs?
It’s as solid as Carell is in just about everything he tackles.
Add impressive supporting talents by Sarah Silverman, Bill Pullman, Alan Cumming, Elisabeth Shue and Andrea Riseborough as Billie Jean’s hairdresser/lover and you are in for two hours of a very entertaining evening at the movies.
You won’t be disappointed when you take in this BATTLE OF THE SEXES with lines like “I’m not saying that women don’t belong on the court….who’d pick up the balls otherwise?”
OUCH!
My grade: B
JACK GOES TO THE MOVIES Friday mornings on 98.1 FM, KMBZ and anytime on Facebook.
Am not into new movies, but am into old theories that may/may not prove more than conjecture. While some recall Bobby Riggs lost to Billie Jean King in September 1973, fewer may remember that mere months before Riggs defeated the #1 ranked women’s player Margaret Court.
If Donald Trump wrote ‘The Art of the Deal’, Bobby Riggs gave birth ‘art of the hustle’.
Once the world’s #1 ranked men’s tennis player, Riggs admitted that he bet on himself during his prime playing years, pocketing over $100,000. With King unwilling accept Riggs ongoing challenge to play, Court, 31, accepted. Playing vs Riggs for $10,000, she lost, which led the formerly reluctant King to accept Riggs offer and play an $100,000 winner-take-all match with an additional ancillary $75,000 for each player.
The presence of ABC television as well 90 million watching at home (including young Kerouac) coupled weeks of advertisements, made the build up reminiscent Superbowl I when the Kansas City Chiefs faced the Green Bay Packers in January of 1967. As the case Superbowl 1, the tennis match did not live up to the hype as King won decisively, yet rumors persisted 55-year old Riggs threw the match in order to have his gambling debt (which according some just happened to match that winner-take-all prize) wiped clean, result his ‘throwing’ the match in favor the 29-year old King.
Supposedly tiring during the match, relic Riggs nonetheless was able to leap over the net at the end to congratulate King (thanking her all the way to the bank? and paving the way for future ‘Battle of the Sexes’ events, like 1992’s Jimmy Connors vs Martina Navratilova, a match that Connors won despite Navaratilova being given advantages.
What became known, after the fact: Billie Jean was gay, and it wasn’t Bobby’s day but hey, each walked away ok and King’s win paved the way endorsements and a new day and interest women’s game, continuing to this day… A men.
___________________
If the movie BATTLE OF THE SEXES ranks a B, Kerouac ranks the actual match a B.
Next: enough equality… 36 year old Serena Williams vs 36 year old Roger Federer in an ‘loser hand-restrings the winners racket’ match.
🙂
Good stuff right there!
Sounds like a really fun, well acted movie…count me in!
Noticed in today’s KC Star like none of the movie reviews were local. Not that movie reviews NEED to be written by local writers. However it is nice to be able to familiarize yourself with the reviewers to make better judgments as to how much credence to give their opinions.
More belt tightening, I guess.
Saw the “Battle” last night at Ward Parkway and it was top notch.
Great review, Jack.
The only puzzling thing; the theater had the movie listed as a comedy. Yeah, there were plenty of humorous scenes, but it’s hardly a comedy