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Faded Glory Sandy Springs Reporter Article

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Faded Glory Sandy Springs Reporter Article April 17, 2009 The team won a couple of local championships but after years on the soap opera “Guiding Light”; Chris character. Cohen said Davidson hadn’t worked on the broke up after its members moved around the Bruno, who also was in California with a successful show for a year before that, and he hasn’t acted Roy Hobbs hits the home run at the end of “The country. acting career that included playing the sheriff on the since. But the juxtaposition between the death of his Natural.” Jimmy Chitwood makes the jump shot at USA TV series “The Dead Zone”; Chad Brown, who acting career in New York and the rebirth of Network the end of “Hoosiers.” Even Willie Mays Hayes scores Encouraged by the crew, Cohen decided adult was traveling the world as a top pro player in poker in Phoenix proved to be a powerful addition to the the winning run on Jake Taylor’s bunt at the end of amateur baseball could make an interesting tournaments; and Terry Gatens, who also had movie, the filmmaker said. “Major League.” documentary, so he raised about $29,000 and took a followed his acting career to California but had been three-man crew to Phoenix for the 2006 NABA World estranged from Cohen since 2000 and was doing a 90- All of the guys also got something more than It’s so common for the good guys to pull off the Series. He said the footage was good, and he put day rehab stint at the Betty Ford Clinic for drug and competition out of the experience, Cohen said. Four miraculous win in sports movies that filmgoers who together a segment on injuries and another on what alcohol addictions when Cohen started trying to of the players in their 40s got married. Gatens has attend the world premiere of “Faded Glory” at the remained sober, although he and Cohen are again Atlanta Film Festival on April 23 or 25 will likely estranged, in part because Gatens wanted parts of expect the National Network team to stage a stirring his story cut from the film after it was done. Startoni ninth-inning rally in the semifinals of the National has stayed out of jail and gotten a legitimate job. Amateur Baseball Association (NABA) World Series in “The story is my journey, but it’s really all our Phoenix in 2007. They’ll be surprised. journeys,” Cohen said. “It’s a collective thing.” But Sandy Springs filmmaker Rick Cohen said his Cohen feels as if he’s on the right life path again, documentary isn’t about winning; it’s about the including the recent launch in Sandy Springs of experience of a journey of self-discovery. Endorphin Athletes, which makes recruitment videos for high school athletes seeking college scholarships. “If we had won, I don’t know if it would have been It’s a companion company to Endorphin that great a movie,” he said. Entertainment, the partnership between Cohen and Chris Pullaro that produced “Faded Glory” for less In some ways, “Faded Glory” is a communal midlife than $100,000. crisis played out against the backdrop of a baseball diamond. It shows what happens when five friends “I say the film has the seven I’s, and the seven I’s are who played adult amateur baseball get back together incarceration, intervention, infidelity, 17 years later in search of a championship season. In incompetence, injuries, illnesses and insanity,” the course of resurrecting their relationships on and Cohen said. “Give us 16 years, and it may have off the field, they manage to rebuild their lives. incontinence.” What the film doesn’t have is a happy ending. After a Cohen is the catalyst behind and in front of the miserable opening game, which Cohen said was the camera. The New York native moved to the Atlanta best thing that could have happened to Network, the area in 2000 after a decade in Los Angeles, where he team won five consecutive games before losing 10-8 was an actor and a screenwriter. He performed in the semifinals. mostly in commercials, and he wrote 14 screenplays, MIKE TOLLIN PETER GILBERT Producer/Director - Credits include: “Bronx is Co-director. Producer. "Hoop Dreams." Burning,” “Radio,” “Coach Carter.” www.endorphinentertainment.com "An important look into how men use sport to “Rick Cohen’s film is a work of true passion, a bond and relate to life itself." timeless story of hopes and dreams and one last shot at glory. Rick has captured a wild and DAVID ANSPAUGH wondrous journey that is a treat for anyone who “★★★★” thinks life should be lived to its fullest.” Director of both "Hoosiers” and "Rudy." LEIGH STEINBERG “Best Sports Documentary since Hoop Dreams!” ROGER TOWNE Legendary Sports Agent who inspired the MORGAN SPURLOCK Writer of "The Natural." character of “Jerry McGuire.” Director of “Super Size Me.” “Roy Hobbs and the New York Knights live in Rick “This is THE documentary that resonates and Cohen. I’ve not seen so much blood and guts, connects with the deepest hopes and fears of "A little film with a LOT of heart.” self-less honesty, despair, pathos, passion, honor, males throughout the country and is a landmark and above all, -- so much bravery in filmmaking. event--Rick is a truly gifted talent! Faded Glory ANGELO PIZZO offers an unique opportunity for women to Rick's poignantly invested and dramatized love Writer of both “Hoosiers” and “Rudy.” for his friends and the game of baseball shows experience the locker room environment and clearly in this documentary.” psyche of men in an alternative habitat. It should “A compelling documentary with authentic, well- not to be missed!” earned emotions.” selling one and having two others optioned but never baseball means to the middle-aged players. “But contact him again. “After the game, it was really amazing because we seeing one make it onto the big screen. there was no story there.” all realized it wasn’t about winning,” he said. “It The next five players on the roster were men who was about the journey and coming back together as “I would have never made this film without leaving The story, it turned out, was Cohen’s own. had ties to Cohen and at least one of the other four a team and renewing our friendships and everybody Hollywood,” Cohen said of “Faded Glory.” core Network players: Troy Startoni of Virginia sort of finding through baseball hope and A friend suggested he try to find his National Beach, Va., fresh out of jail after a conviction for Network teammates and make another run at redemption. And as sad as it was to lose, we almost Among other issues, Cohen felt as if he was manufacturing and distributing marijuana; Brien felt like we were fulfilled.” diamond glory. Cohen thought it was a great idea; his Blakely of Charlotte, N.C., a local news anchor for disappointing his father, a self-made man who second wife of less than a year thought he was crazy. started working at age 13 to support two younger the Fox-TV affiliate; former Reds and Pirates pitcher Almost. Mike Roesler of Fort Wayne, Ind., a mortgage broker brothers and went on to found one of New York’s A Jack Kerouac exhibit they visited at the public They also had the itch to try again, a feeling Cohen largest accounting firms, Mahoney Cohen, in 1969. library in New York settled the matter for Cohen. It who had to deal with the declining housing market and his wife’s degenerative nerve disease at the said is echoed by the not-quite-right ending. So But Rick Cohen included a display there’s an epilogue that covers the return of didn’t parlay his on baseball. same time; Scott Bailey of rural Castaic, Calif., who lived as a recluse with his girlfriend in a trailer he National Network to the World Series in 2008 with a I v y L e a g u e revamped lineup and a dream ending: Cohen with education into “Jack Kerouac, to my unbelievable t h e c h a m p i o n s h i p the career as a trophy, Bruno with the doctor, lawyer or surprise, was the o r i g i n a t o r o f Gold Glove award and i n v e s t m e n t Davidson with the MVP banker his father fantasy baseball. He was making up award after driving in w o u l d h a v e the championship- preferred. rosters and teams a n d c o m p e t i n g winning run in the 11th “I came to Atlanta a g a i n s t o t h e r inning. to sort of change friends of his back T h a t u n d e f e a t e d my life, get away in the 1950s. Who t o u r n a m e n t r u n from the rat race k n e w ? ” C o h e n included one inning of Hollywood and said. pitched by Darien raise my kids,” H e t h e n r e a d Smith, an Atlanta-area Cohen said. “But I man who was playing really didn’t know Kerouac’s “On the Road” and decided baseball for the last what I wanted to time before getting do. That was all t h a t j u s t a s Kerouac set out on deep-brain stimulation my wife’s doing at surgery at Emory to the time.” a “journey across the country to sort treat his worsening T h a t m a r r i a g e of find himself and Parkinson’s disease.
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