I only know about it because of the commercial advertising the movie on CSNNW. It's probably the only place to get it from.
My copy just showed up today. Not bad for their cheapest S&H option. Looks like filmbaby.com is HQ'd in Portland as well, which also helps the delivery time stay short.
I'm not sure if the DVD is any good but if it is I would buy one. Let me know after you watch and give me your review. I do have to say something about the Blazer fans in 1977 and the following couple years. We started cheering and standing at least 20 minutes before each game and stomping our feet and it was so much louder then anything I have seen since. I have season tickets to the Ducks football and Autzen gets very loud but nothing like those years in the memorial coliseum. The fans now and in the 90's and 2000's are good but still nothing like those early fans. It truly was Blazermania.
Man.. I always wondered what it would've been like to live through Blazermania in the 70's. Hearing all those stories about crazy ass fans, and the Paramount Theater and the hundreds of thousands who lined up for the championship parade, that sounds like a lot of fun. I hope we get to live through something like that soon.
I watched it on CSN when it originally aired. While they did a good job at interviewing people I dont think they truly captured the mania involved. A lot of history involved that I never new about. The ending was so-so since I kind of felt empty because it's obvious it was filmed a couple years ago, so the Uprise wasn't totally in full effect yet.
Wasn't planning on giving a review, but since you asked... "Mania" is a movie primarily for fans of the '77 team. If you don't care about those guys, then you'll probably want to keep your $20. You can pretty easily divide the movie into two hour long halves: the first seven years, and then the other 30. You'll get all the old stories in the first half about Glickman's raincoat, Barnett's net ripping shot against the L*kers, Wicks' post game radio show meltdown rant against Roland Todd, the drafting of Walton, the hiring and firing of Lenny, and of course the fight in Game 2. That's about when you notice the first major failing of this movie: lack of game footage. You hear probably 5 first hand accounts of the fight, but you never see it; not even a photograph. The second flaw becomes apparent following 50-10. There's no mention of Walton's season long strike, the drafting of Mychal Thompson (who is featured rather prominently on the DVD menu screen), or any of the pre-Clyde 80's. It just jumps from 1978 to 1983, and jumps again to '89-'91, ignores another 9 years, talks about Game 7, touches briefly on the 'Jail Blazers' moniker, and then you get to some brief moments with Nate, Brandon, LaMarcus, and the 2007 Draft Party at the Rose Garden. Lots of team history is skipped over, particularly history that would be more interesting to fans born after the championship, like myself who became a fan in the late 80's. What you have to keep in mind though, is that this is really a movie about Blazermania at it's peaks, and not the team itself. The ending foreshadows where Blazermania eventually found itself last week with footage of fans cheering Oden being drafted. The movie is composed entirely of interviews with former players, coaches, executives, and fans. Some of them are really interesting, like Maurice Lucas and Stu Inman, and others you can do without, like the guy that owns (owned?) the "Geneva's" nightclub and the coach of the Blazer Dancers. I found myself watching the clock frequently towards the end, particularly during the segments about the Blazer Dancers and the now-grown-up ball boy with a shoe collection. If I recall correctly, this movie was shown at either the 2007 or 2008 NW Film Festival, so yes, it's a few years old, but since it's not focused on the current team, the film's age isn't too important. The film is dedicated to both Stu Inman and Kevin Duckworth, who died in 2007 and 2008 respectively. Extras found on the disc include deleted segments about the effort to bring Sabonis over, and hindsight/handwringing over the Blazers picking Bowie instead of Jordan in '84.
Thanks that was a great review. I didn't expect to you get that detailed about the DVD but I appreciate it. It does sound like something I would enjoy. I have been a Blazer fan from the start. I walked up and went to over 30 games the first year and bought season tickets the second year and keep them until about 10-11 years ago when I moves to the coast.
