“Challengers,” a sexy tennis love triangle from acclaimed director Luca Guadagnino and budding superstar Zendaya, has generated enough buzz and rave reviews that it may reach No. 1 in the rankings. 

But even if the story, directing and acting are all aces, to achieve greatness the movie still needs to provide genuine excitement and realistic drama on the court.

To provide an air of credibility, the film hired former pro and veteran analyst Brad Gilbert to consult on the film and to train Zendaya for three months; Guadagnino says she got so good he barely had to use her tennis stunt double in the film.

It should be an improvement over “Wimbledon,” with Kirsten Dunst and Paul Bettany, and not just because of “Wimbledon’s” flimsy dialogue. When Bettany reaches the Wimbledon finals, director Richard Loncraine relies on quick cuts, distracting camera movement, and close-ups of footwork and foreshortened shots from the players’ backs – they feel like shortcuts and drain away any sense that real tennis was played.

By contrast, “Battle of the Sexes,” which is less about tennis and more about Billie Jean King (Emma Stone) and the fight for women’s equality, gives its tennis showdown between King and Bobby Riggs (Steve Carell) its proper due. Directors Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton often shot from above and behind like a typical tennis match on television. This provides a familiar vantage point and allowed them to use tennis doubles, future pro Kaitlyn Christian and former pro Vince Spadea to have real rallies. (Rigg’s former coach and King herself consulted on the grips the players used and other details.) They also trusted the viewer and let points develop, including the moment of triumph where King shrewdly lobs to Riggs’ backhand and then finishes him off with a slice down the line. 

Good tennis cannot save a bad movie like “16-Love,” an insipid 2012 teen romance featuring Lindsey Shaw and Chandler Massey. Massey was cast partly because of his tennis skills and Shaw’s rival was played by Susie Abromeit, who had been a top-ranked junior but a weak script and poor directing renders all that irrelevant. 

On the other hand, good tennis can enhance a stronger movie, like the acclaimed 2020 French drama “Final Set.” Director Quentin Reynaud had played competitively as a youth and the star, Alex Lutz, trained enough to look believable during practice. For Lutz’s opponent in the big match, Reynaud cast French pro Jurgen Briand, who gives the points a thrilling realism, which makes Reynaud’s arty shots – swinging shadows and fancy footwork in the red clay as well as balletic slo-mo close-ups – feel earned, adding to the drama instead of distracting from it. 

There are plenty of movies and TV series that give tennis a cameo, typically for main characters who are amateurs. They frequently play the scenes for laughs – it’s often clichéd as in “Sabrina the Teenage Witch,” which wastes Andy Roddick as a coach in a scene that falls flat. But when done well, or with charming stars, it can still be effective: a brief scene in “Annie Hall” with Diane Keaton’s title character playing with a carefree glee perfectly introduces her “la-di-da” character; on “Seinfeld,” Jerry’s one good forehand launches a ball machine attack that nails Kramer in the head; and “Bachelor Party” is silly and forgettable but watching Tom Hanks childishly launch home runs while playing his future in-laws is still a delight. 

Then there’s the tennis as combat, whether played broadly in “Bridesmaids” to the soundtrack of AC/DC’s “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap,” or with more nuance as dramatic marital warfare between Jeff Daniels and Laura Linney in Noah Baumbach’s “The Squid and The Whale.” (The cheesiest version of this is “Hart to Hart,” the 1980s crime show that once featured Martina Navratilova as herself playing in a mixed doubles match; the overuse of closeups wasted Navratalova’s talent before the contrived plot devolved into an on-court shooting.) 

The exception is “Red Oaks,” a coming-of-age series that featured tennis prominently, with Craig Roberts as a tennis pro at the club and Paul Reiser, as a wealthy but aging weekend warrior. Set in the 1980s, it was able to capture the game as played at that level in that time. (Reiser’s opponent in the big season finale club match is none other than Brad Gilbert.)

Most movies with tennis as a notable part of the plot focus on elite athletes. Alfred Hitchcock’s 1951 classic, “Strangers on a Train,” depicts a tennis star Guy Haines (Farley Granger) caught up in the murder scheme of a psychopath, Bruno Anthony (Robert Walker). Taut and tense, but with little tennis, Hitchcock starts off the climactic match with long shots that capture the sport’s dramatic potential. But as the tension builds, Hitchcock, intercutting between Guy’s match and Bruno’s escapades, dilutes the tennis with close-ups, odd angles that don’t suit the sport and intrusive music. 

More impressive, tennis-wise, was “Pat and Mike,” the 1952 romcom with Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn. While the movie pales compared to their other films like “Adam’s Rib,” it was written to display Hepburn’s tennis and golf skills. Hepburn had no stunt double and in one big match played Gussie Moran, a recent Wimbledon finalist. The rallies are realistic and well shot and there’s also an entertaining section when Hepburn’s character’s controlling fiance shows up and she becomes so distracted that her game falls apart as she hallucinates her fiance in the umpire chair and her racket shrinking while Moran’s grows.

Wimbledon, unsurprisingly, frequently commands center stage… or Centre Court. Beyond “Wimbledon,” there’s “Borg-McEnroe,” about the epic 1980 Wimbledon final. John McEnroe (Shia LaBeouf miraculously pulls out a 20-minute fourth set tiebreaker, 18-16, before Bjorn Borg (Sverrir Gudnason) coolly prevails 8-6 in the final set. 

While the film devotes 20 minutes to the match, it fails to do the tiebreaker justice. It does show dynamite points like McEnroe nailing a leaping backhand volley off a Borg lob, or Borg whipping a passing shot down the line. While the scenes can appear like actors doing impressions of the players in between their tennis doubles hitting the real shots, the rallies have an air of authenticity. But as tension mounts, director Janus Metz Pedersen loses interest in the tennis itself, shifting to close-ups to show emotional and physical strain along with montages that feel cliche. 

In “7 Days in Hell,” the tennis, such as it is, exists outside of criticism. This riotous Andy Samberg mockumentary parodies the longest match in tennis history, a three-day Wimbledon battle between John Isner and Nicholas Mahut that finished with the score of 70-68 in the final set. Samberg’s Aaron Williams ups his game by snorting cocaine he had hidden in his water bottle and the court’s lines. In this never-ending match, Williams and Kit Harrington’s Charles Poole have a lengthy rally at the net while both are prone after diving for shots. It’s as far from realistic as possible but it works perfectly on its own terms.

Ultimately, the greatest tennis film of all time is “King Richard,” directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green. In telling the story of Venus and Serena Williams and their father, Green featured more drilling and match play than any other film. He also frequently shot the tennis shots with a low camera angle from behind the players, allowing the viewer to see the action in a way that, say, “Wimbledon” did not, while still creating a sense of immediacy and urgency.

And in the final match at the end between 14-year-old Venus and Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario, he repeatedly mixed in mid-range shots with long shots while giving the points time to build dramatically as they would in a real tennis match. While the teen loses that match, it is fitting that when it comes to tennis movies, the undeniable champ features the unsurpassable Williams sisters. 

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Betty Hallock | (TNS) Los Angeles Times

LOS ANGELES — Call them the vegetable whisperers. Sarah Hymanson and Sara Kramer are the two produce-obsessed chefs behind Kismet restaurant in Los Feliz, the growing chainlet of Kismet Rotisserie takeout shops (there are three across L.A. now, where the tahini roasted cauliflower is as popular as the chicken) and a new vegetable-forward cookbook to be released at the end of this month.

How is it that Hymanson and Kramer can create seemingly simple dishes of mostly vegetables (and a little meat too) in smart, surprising ways with so much compelling, complex, zingy flavor? It’s the foundation on which they’ve built their restaurants and their careers — spanning New York, where they met, to Los Angeles — and it’s what they set out to show us in “Kismet: Bright, Fresh, Vegetable-Loving Recipes.”

Their approach comes across as casual, breezy even, but it is, in fact, considered and exacting. “I think we’re not very fussy people,” says Kramer. She’s standing in her yellow and orange kitchen, at home on top of a garden-covered hill in Echo Park. “And our food — though fussy on the back end because we are very specific — I think we’ve conveyed in a way that’s also not very fussy.

“It’s through a lot of our own sort of neuroses, how do we get the very best out of this thing in the most efficient way? … that I think then translates into, how is this going to be easy for someone and natural and beautiful and delicious?”

Take broccoli, for example. This is how you should be cooking America’s most popular-but-not-sexy vegetable: Kramer hands over a piece of broccoli that has been blanched in a pot of salted water to jump-start its way to tenderness, then charred briefly in a hot cast-iron skillet .

“Blanching imbues it with flavor already because we’re seasoning it with salt and it’s really permeating,” she says. “And then we’re roasting the broccoli quickly, which gives it another dimension of this toasty, roasty flavor … so already on its own if you try a piece right now, it’s super delicious and took not very long at all, maybe 15 minutes to do that process.”

The broccoli is for a salad from the book, and the dressing is a “jazz” (à la Molly Baz, the food personality who volleys cheery monosyllabic culinary terms). The name is cute, the flavors are serious.

Kramer tops the florets with a mix of pumpkin seeds, olive oil, grated garlic, salt and Aleppo pepper, along with fresh mint and pomegranate seeds — a nod to the Middle Eastern and Mediterranean flavors that Kismet is known for, even if, as Hymanson points out, “we draw a lot of influence from a lot of places.

“What I actually have worked harder to know about is more Asian cuisine,” she says, “kind of broadly a lot of Chinese food, Indian food, Southeast Asian food. Sometimes it will be the same spices in combination that you would find in the Middle East that you’d also find in India or in China or Thailand. So I would say that we’re even less specific than [Middle Eastern]. We both have our own preferences, we come together, and this is where we land.”

For the broccoli with pumpkin seed jazz, flavors, colors and textures collide in its combination of seeds, spices, fresh herbs, tart citrus juice, the pop of pomegranate seeds and — here’s another tip — the grated raw garlic. They suggest adding a whisper of it (always fresh, never pre-peeled) to finished food — roasted vegetables, a pot of cooked beans, aioli, tahini sauce — for bringing “life and depth.”

“We’re always trying to build flavor in different simple ways,” says Hymanson, who’s at Kramer’s stove stirring a big pot of breakfast-lunch-dinner soup, another recipe from the book, an amalgam of egg-drop, minestrone and avgolemono. “We’re also big fans of things feeling fresh, so i would say in almost every dish there is a fresh component that helps our food feel alive.”

And though they’re married to the seasons and micro-seasons of Southern California (for peak combinations such as stone fruit and tomatoes in the warmest months), the two know exactly how to (slightly) bend rules. One of the tastiest salads in the book matches grapefruit with tomatoes. Why a winter citrus with a summer fruit? Across much of the U.S., cherry tomato varieties are available year-round; they’re pretty good flavor-wise but even better when roasted in spiced oil. Scoops of the zesty, creamy marinated feta are arranged with the roasted tomatoes and supremed grapefruit segments, the tangy cheese and spicy fruit juices melding into an addictive dressing. “The combination is Shakespearean,” write Hymanson and Kramer in the book, “a love match for the ages.”

Ideas for combining ingredients are kaleidoscopic: shaved apple with kohlrabi for a root vegetable winter salad; chamomile with caraway in a slightly vinegared honey to dress endive; more marinated feta added to roast squash and anchovy-caramelized onion; their can’t-take-it-off-the-menu cucumber salad with parsley seed za’atar, rosewater labneh, cherries and chervil.

For Kramer and Hymanson, who both worked at Blue Hill at Stone Barns in New York and cooked together at Glasserie in Brooklyn before moving to L.A., the way they eat defines their food as much as how they cook: “We love having lots of small dishes to pick at: a variety of textures, colors and flavors on the table. This snacky style of eating is us in a nutshell,” begins the chapter titled “As Good Tomorrow as It Is Today.” It’s as celebratory as mezze, banchan, tapas or zakuski, honors the abundance of seasonal vegetables in California, and clicks with Angelenos.

“We want things to look delicious, be delicious, not take too much of your time,” says Kramer in her kitchen, “and at the end of the day make it fun.”

____

Find Sarah Hymanson and Sara Kramer at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books on Saturday, April 20, at Booth 410, where they’ll be answering questions about “Kismet: Bright, Fresh, Vegetable-Loving Recipes,” 10 to 11 a.m.

©2024 Los Angeles Times. Visit at latimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

By Mary Ann Anderson, Tribune News Service

MILLEDGEVILLE, Ga.— When the Savannah-born Flannery O’Connor, widely regarded as the queen of Southern Gothic literature, moved home to Georgia from Connecticut in 1951, she was diagnosed with lupus, an incurable, crippling autoimmune disease. Her mother brought the then 25-year-old to live with her at Andalusia, the family farm just north of Milledgeville, a town of some 17,000 in the heart of Georgia’s lake country.

Environment is everything to a writer, and the venerable yet charming two-story white house rising on a hill and overlooking a quietly serene pond where Regina Cline O’Connor and her daughter lived is set among the hardwoods and pines on more than 500 acres of bucolic pastures and woodlands. It is peaceful here, despite the hectic four-lane U.S. 441 a stone’s throw away, and was the ideal place for the young writer to spend the last dozen years of her life writing much of her two novels and 32 short stories before she died at age 39 from the illness that also claimed her father.

The fans and scholars who appreciate Flannery O’Connor, Andalusia is the holy grail to absorb and understand all that is and was the writer and from where her creativity sprang.

Andalusia Farm, just off U.S. Highway 441 north of Milledgeville, Georgia, was once the home of author Flannery O’Connor and her mother, Regina Cline O’Connor. Now a house museum, about 90% of its artifacts are original to the home. The town where O’Connor did much of her writing is getting attention due to Ethan Hawke’s new movie “Wildcat,” a 2023 biopic that brings O’Connor to life and rolls out nationally in May. (Mary Ann Anderson/TNS)

“We call them Flanatics,” says Suzy Parker, a lively student-docent at Andalusia from nearby Milledgeville’s Georgia College and State University (GCSU) and expert on all things Flannery.

Among that number of Flanatics are Ethan Hawke, who directed, produced and co-wrote “Wildcat,” a 2023 biopic that brings O’Connor to life and rolls out nationally in May, and his daughter, Maya, who portrays the radical if not groundbreaking O’Connor. Laura Linney, whose mother is from Georgia, plays the steel magnolia of Regina. “Wildcat” weaves together O’Connor’s life story with reenactments of her short stories, with Hollywood heavyweights Liam Neeson, Steven Zahn and Vincent D’Onofrio rounding out the stellar cast.

Southern Gothic literature captures the essence of the rural South that we sometimes really don’t want to admit is real. If you’ve read O’Connor, then you know her stories and characters are disturbing, strange and specialized.

Family photos, including one of Flannery O’Connor, center, are among the artifacts at Andalusia Farm. The farm, where O’Connor wrote most of her books and short stories, is set on more than 500 bucolic acres near Milledgeville, Georgia. (Explore Georgia/TNS)

Outside of these peaceful red-clay landscapes and small towns is a side of Georgia that O’Connor conjures in her mind, among them the sinister murderer called The Misfit in “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” the loquacious Tom T. Shiflet in “The Life You Save May Be Your Own” with Shiflet a name that O’Connor plucked from the Milledgeville phone book; and the ungrateful, selfish Julian in “Everything that Rises Must Converge.”

Equally impressive is that in a Bible Belt state where just about everyone is Baptist or Methodist, O’Connor, who was Catholic, managed to somehow incongruously weave threads of religion onto almost every page that she wrote.

Andalusia Interpretive Center at Andalusia Farm near Milledgeville, Georgia, houses a gift shop, conference room and artifacts relating to Flannery O’Connor. A timeline of O’Connor’s life adorns the walls of the interpretive center. (Mary Ann Anderson/TNS)

“People come from all over the world for Flannery,” Parker explains. “Spain, California, India, England. She is considered a saint by Europeans. They come here to understand who she is and where she came from and can relate more to her writing by coming here. It humanizes her.”

Andalusia Farm, dating to 1814 when it produced primarily cotton, isn’t the only Flanatic stop in Milledgeville. The first stop, even before the farmhouse tour, should be GCSU’s Andalusia Interpretive Center, perched on a hill as you drive through the gate of Andalusia and up a gravel road. Open for just over a year, the bright barn-like structure encompasses more than 5,000 square feet of exhibition and conference space, a gift shop and, most importantly, an extremely detailed timeline of O’Connor’s life and artifacts including a few of her dresses.

I visit Andalusia with family members, and as we begin the house tour after visiting the interpretive center, Parker tells us that about 90% of the furnishings in the house are original. We walk patiently through the kitchen, dining room and other rooms before we come to O’Connor’s bedroom.

“Flannery’s health didn’t allow her to climb the stairs,” explains Parker, so familiar with the writer that she calls her by her first name. “So her first-floor bedroom served double-duty as her office.”

About 90% of the artifacts are original at Andalusia Farm, once home to Flannery O’Connor, the purported queen of Southern Gothic. Shown here is the cookbook of Regina Cline O’Connor, Flannery O’Connor’s mother. (Mary Ann Anderson/TNS)

The room is much the way O’Connor left it, even her crutches that she used when she couldn’t walk on her own anymore lean silently against the armoire. Her bed with its plaid quilt is still there, as are the dark blue plaid matching curtains. A typewriter is on the desk beside the bed and looks at the back of the armoire. Parker said that O’Connor wrote religiously every morning for three to four hours, facing the bleak rearmost of the armoire so that she wouldn’t be distracted from the goings-on around the farm, including birds galore and her famous peacocks that roamed the yard. The room was simple, dark, maybe a little musty — the home was built in the early 19th century — but it also had the ambiance that great words and stories were created within these wooden walls.

Later, as we stand and talk on the long, screened-in front porch with its row of white rocking chairs, a fat black rat snake suns itself in the garden, oblivious and uncaring as it enjoys the warmth of the springtime sun. Andalusia is in the countryside, and snakes, coyotes and other varmints are not uncommon.

Moving past Andalusia

Several historic sites dotting Milledgeville also tell the literary legacy of O’Connor. GCSU’s Heritage Hall in the downtown houses a special collections library including the Flannery O’Connor Gallery of Southern Literary Works. Other memorabilia and papers include the works of Pulitzer Prize winner Alice Walker, author of “The Color Purple,” and former U.S. Sen. Paul Coverdell, as well as collections related to Milledgeville’s contributions to the music industry.

Student-docent Suzy Parker from Georgia College and State University points out many of the items remaining in the bedroom of Flannery O’Connor. The room doubled as a study, and O’Connor wrote much of her two novels and 32 short stories within its walls. (Mary Ann Anderson/TNS)

Other places represent O’Connor’s childhood and life, including the Gothic Revival-style Sacred Heart Catholic Church, built in 1874 and where the writer attended church. You can also drive by the Cline-O’Connor-Florencourt House, often referred to as simply the Cline Mansion, where O’Connor lived throughout high school and college. The 1820 federal-style home is adorned with Ionic columns and Victorian touches. The house remains in the family as a private residence. Also visit O’Connor’s plain grave at Memory Hill Cemetery where she’s buried next to her father and mother. Fans have left tokens such as peacock feathers, coins, pebbles, poems and journals.

Milledgeville more than Flannery

There is more to do in Milledgeville than chase the ghost of Flannery O’Connor. Long before the state capital moved to Atlanta, it rotated between Augusta and Savannah, then Augusta alone, and after that Louisville. In 1807 Milledgeville became the capital, and a new capital building reshaped the city’s low-set skyline. Partially because it was the capital, Milledgeville was built in gorgeous, flower-lined squares still in place today. It remained the capital until Atlanta was named in 1868, but the bonus is that you can still visit the Old Governor’s Mansion and state legislative chambers.

Popping into the Milledgeville-Baldwin County Convention and Visitors Bureau, I meet Rebekah Snider, its executive director.

“People come for the lake and for the history and culture,” she says, noting that nearby Lake Sinclair covers some 15,300 acres of coves, marinas and vast open stretches of water perfect for fishing, swimming and boating. She also says that two “high demand” trolley tours are offered on weekends by reservation only, including a one-hour history tour that will take you past some of the most beautiful antebellum architecture in Georgia.

The other is a two-hour tour to the 2,000-acre Central State Hospital, originally known as the Georgia State Lunatic, Idiot and Epileptic Asylum. Now almost completely abandoned – a few patients are still housed at the hospital – the site, dating to 1842, gained national if not notorious recognition as the U.S.’s largest mental institution with more than 12,000 patients and 6,000 employees scattered across the then massive 8,000-acre complex.

Eating and drinking, Milledgeville style

Milledgeville is a small town with big flavor. We stopped in at the Reel Grill of Milledgeville right in the heart of downtown. My sister-in-law raved about the crab bisque, as did her sister about the bourbon salmon. I chose blackened shrimp with cheese grits as a side, and since then have been trying to figure a way to get back to Milledgeville soonest to have them again. For the drinking Flanatics, try the Flannery O’Connor Love Letters, a unique bourbon cocktail.

Milledgeville may be a small town but it is big on restaurants. From Southern cuisine to world-class pizza to amazing seafood, including the blackened shrimp, cheese grits and mac-and-cheese at the Reel Grill in historic downtown, Milledgeville is known for its local restaurants. (Mary Ann Anderson/TNS)

Greene’s Fresh Farmhouse is a well-liked weekday lunch spot that offers traditional Southern fare. Think: pulled pork, mac-and-cheese and sweet potato souffle. And biscuits. Oh, those biscuits. For breakfast, brunch and lunch, you’ll love the Local Yolkal, known for its award-winning eggs benedict and indoor and outdoor dining.

Milledgeville, with GCSU and its global students, has gone international with Kai Thai for traditional Thai and sushi. Go for curry, stir-fry, noodles or hibachi or all of the above. If you’re hankering for Italian, then hop to The Brick, known for its pizza, calzones, pastas and sandwiches. But don’t miss its Stuffed Sticks, a bit of heaven with fresh pizza dough, stuffed with mozzarella and a choice of other fresh ingredients.

Sleeping, Milledgeville style

Milledgeville offers a variety of hotel and lodging options with standard hotels, RV sites and campgrounds. Vacation rentals offer a variety of accommodations from antebellum homes to cozy lakeside cottages. For a unique stay and to soak up the local ambience, try the Inn on North Jefferson, a well-appointed bed and breakfast in a 200-year-old home, or the Rockwell House, a stunning 1838 home and events center where you can rent the entire home or one of four individual suites.

The last word

As I make the two-hour drive back home to south Georgia from Milledgeville, I ponder a great deal about O’Connor and her impact, even some 50 years after she passed away, on how others view Georgia and the South in general. Expressing her view of the region’s identity, if you will, she wrote in an essay in 1963 for The Regional Writer, “Southern identity is not really connected with mocking-birds and beaten biscuits and white columns any more than it is with hookworm and bare feet and muddy clay roads.”

Andalusia Farm, just off U.S. Highway 441 north of Milledgeville, Georgia, was once the home of author Flannery O’Connor and her mother, Regina Cline O’Connor. Now a house museum, about 90% of its artifacts are original to the home. (Explore Georgia/TNS)

And snakes, I think, as I’m reminded of the rat snake at Andalusia. When you visit the farm, and watch “Wildcat,” you just might gain a better understanding of where she came from, too.

If you go

Milledgeville is about 100 miles from Atlanta and Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. For more detailed information on what to do, where to eat and where to stay, including vacation rentals, visit Milledgeville-Baldwin County Convention and Visitors Bureau at www.visitmilledgeville.org or call 478-452-4687. For more information on Andalusia, visit www.gcsu.edu/andalusia. Milledgeville offers ghost walks throughout the year, Milledgeville Burger Week May 17-25, and the Deep Roots Festival in October. If you visit during the Christmas holidays, don’t miss the enviable décor at the Old Governor’s Mansion.

©2024 Tribune Content Agency, LLC.