"First Class used to be a better meal - now it's a better life."
Triggered by reading Cameron's great Rolling Stone article, in which he states that the screenplay took three and a half years to write. I assume that three and a half years included his research period when he travelled around meeting sportsmen and agents for background research (let's not forget he spent a year back in high school to research Fast Times at Ridgemont High). I couldn't do any such thing myself, but then look at the results he's got - this is a superb movie, though admittedly its centre is not about sport at all, but the way a man finds out he's capable of committing to an adult relationship.
Do you think he wrote the Mission Statement as well? Yes - of course he did - It's here.
Tom Cruise and Renee Zellweger are perfect, with great support from Cuba Gooding Jr., Bonnie Hunt, Regina King and of course Jonathan Lipnicki.
It was Jerry Ziesmer's second to last film as AD, the last being Almost Famous. He plays the man trying to wake Cuba - "Can you feel your legs?" Cameron: "It is one of my greatest delights that when Rod Tidwell comes back to life, the first face he sees is Jerry Ziesmer's. It is a metaphor for the relationship between a director and his assistant director, or at least mine. More than a few times, I've blinked back to life only to see the face of Ziesmer cheering me on. And like Tidwell, he has allowed me to dance. I didn't use to be a dancer, but I am now, thanks to Jerry."
And Jerry was also good at keeping away the 'suits'. Cameron again: "..one afternoon, I overheard Jerry soothing the anxiety of an inexperienced moneyman. "This is how it always works on the great ones", he said calmly. I will never forget it. He said those words loud enough for me to hear them too, simultaneously inspiring me and silencing the worried man in front of him. That's why he is the King."
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