'30 for 30' - 'Marion Jones: Press Pause': Not the crime, but the cover-up
John Singleton lends a very sympathetic ear to the disgraced track star
Marion Jones and her "30 for 30" director John Singleton.
A review of tonight's "30 for 30" film, "Marion Jones: Press Pause," coming up just as soon as my cellmate decides to try me...
In the lead-up to the "30 for 30" doc on Allen Iverson, some readers wondered whether it was going to be a 90-minute blind defense of Iverson's role in the infamous bowling alley brawl. It wasn't. Though Steve James was obviously sympathetic to Iverson, the final film was very much a warts-and-all portrait.
"Marion Jones: Press Pause," on the other hand, was very much in the tank for its subject. John Singleton focused on the "the cover-up is worse than the crime" aspect of her story, all but glossing over her actual steroid use, why she tried it, why many consider it cheating, etc. (Edwin Moses was the only talking head to really condemn the steroid use itself, and even he got tangled up in a weird drunk-driving analogy.)
The film was oddly structured, with the actual story seemingly over halfway through, and the latter half devoted largely to an infomercial for Marion Jones, inspirational speaker and Marion Jones, WNBA bench player.
It's fine for a documentary to have a point of view, as most of the best films of this series have had. But the key is to not let your point of view completely overwhem the story. "The U" was very much a pro-Miami film, but Billy Corben didn't shy away from the bad things that the program and its players did. Here, any anti-Jones talking head was preceded by three or four pro-Jones opinions.
What did everybody else think?
News From Our Partners
-
In Pictures: The Stars of Star Trek Into Darkness
Digital Multiplex: The Last Stand, Side Effects, and More
RT on DVD & Blu-Ray: Ambitious, Time-Jumping Epic Cloud Atlas
-
The Telefile - TNT & TBS Upfront 2013: Reaping What Other Networks Sowed
The Telefile - Fall TV 2013: What's On When
The Telefile - New Girl: Wedding Do's and Don'ts
-
Hulu.com: 7 Things That Wouldn't Exist Without The Office
Larry Womack: In Defense of (the Original) James T. Kirk
'Storage Wars': Ivy Finds Giant Clam Shell
-
Best Alicia Keys Instagram Photos – Picture Perfect
Taylor Swift Fan Arrested for Swimming Near Her Rhode Island Beach House
Taylor Swift vs. Pink vs. Rihanna vs. Beyonce: Whose Tour Costume Do You Like Best? – Readers Poll
-
'Star Trek' Baddie Benedict Cumberbatch Reveals Role's Biggest Challenge
Cannes Film Festival 2013: Our Must-See Movies
'Star Trek Into Darkness': The Secret Behind The Sounds
-
Tolerability Index: This week we're barely putting up with The Killing
TV Roundtable: When My Boys tested its prickly chemistry by inviting some new faces to the poker table
The Walkthrough: The New Girl showrunners on topping season two’s big kiss (Part 5 of 5)
-
'Riddick' Trailer: Vin Diesel Is What Goes Bump in the Night
'The Simpsons' Taps Kristen Wiig For Guest Arc As FBI Agent
CBS Fall 2013 Schedule: 'Mike & Molly' to 2014, More Comedy Thursday, and 'Hawaii' to Friday
-
Demi Moore & Ashton Kutcher in $10M Tug of War
'Captain America: The Winter Soldier': Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Anthony Mackie Spotted in D.C. (VIDEO)
Katie Holmes Attracts the Wrong Kind of Attention on 'Mania Days' Set
Get Instant Alerts on What's Alan Watching
Latest Posts
-
Some experimenting, but mostly the same old, successful CBSWednesday, May 15, 2013
-
A badger gets loose at Cece's wedding, and Nick and Jess ponder their futureTuesday, May 14, 2013
-
Has the show solved Winston yet? What stories would she redo?Tuesday, May 14, 2013
-
Dan and Alan break down the first batch of fall schedulesTuesday, May 14, 2013
Comments
Option 1
Comment instantly as a guest GuestOption 2
Option 3
Login or create a HitFix account Login SignupMatt Cafaro
November 2, 2010 at 9:30PM EST Reply to CommentWhen the moron from The New York Pravda played the race card as to why Jones got jail time, as opposed to, you know, the fact that she committed a crime, that's when I checked out.
Seriously, Jones got 6 months because she is black.
I guess Martha Stewart is black, too.
jim That's about when I switched it off too. First 30 for 30 that I did not finish. I thought the subject had promise before it started, but just a poor angle to take.
November 3, 2010 at 11:59AM EST
November 2, 2010 at 10:25PM EST Reply to CommentI really wanted to hear more about hos Marion got involved with BALCO and how that came about. I wanted to hear that so bad, but all we got was a promotion for Jones, the public speaker.
Yes it's nice that she came full circle, but we lost a good chuck of the ugliness that she was a part of with her use of steroids.
So agree with Matt C on his post. That was a turn off. The only issue I can see is that Martha got such a soft camp, but Marion got some harder time, including isolation.
Ty Durden
November 2, 2010 at 10:48PM EST Reply to CommentSeriously, can I get that hour back. What a huge disappointment. The worst of the series to date. This was far from an honest look into "Marion Jones". When and why did she take PEDs? Who introduced her to the drugs? What about her first 2 husbands/boyfriends? What in her upbringing /background led her to make all these bad decisions? Ugh. I was actually looking forward to this doc.
paullu
November 2, 2010 at 11:03PM EST Reply to CommentTry to imagine the reaction to the exact same treatment, but replacing Marion Jones with Mark McGwire.
This was terrible.
Jimmy
November 3, 2010 at 12:11AM EST Reply to CommentWorst of the 30 for 30 series. In addition to everything else written here, what's most egregious to me is that Jones still insists that she took PEDs unknowingly, in the face of substantial evidence, and this was essentially ignored in this infomercial.
November 3, 2010 at 8:58AM EST Reply to CommentThe best thing about this documentary was the Nolan Richardson sighting. A 30 for 30 on Nolan would have been about 1000x better than this.
November 3, 2010 at 12:13PM EST Reply to CommentI was really looking forward to this - I have really strong opinions on athletes who use performance enhancing drugs (It incenses me that she's still allowed to earn her living in the sports world - and not just her, there's lots of others too!) and I'd been waiting to see how this was going to deal with the subject, but as soon as I saw Marion herself on it I knew it was going to be a massively skewed sympathetic approach..............haven't finished watching it yet, and don't know if I'll be able to without getting annoyed!
KJ Marion Jones is a real cutie and I think Singleton was smitten.
November 3, 2010 at 1:37PM ESTResult- Light weight interview, no uncomfortable questions and an uninformative segment.
susyq If the first part annoyed you, skip the rest. Watching her spread her message of "watch out who you hang with because bad friends make you do bad things," to school children made me want to throw up. She took little personal responsibility for her behavior and it was portrayed as just a bump in the road for an otherwise laudable person. Owning your behavior only after your lies have been discovered is not anything to be proud of. I'm sure that all of the people that she cheated out of the opportunity to stand on the Olympic platform are less than understanding too.
November 3, 2010 at 2:25PM EST
November 3, 2010 at 8:52PM ESTWeck
November 3, 2010 at 1:54PM EST Reply to CommentWeak sauce. When that director came on camera at the beginning I thought I was watching one of those puberty videos in junior high health class.
LionelHutz
November 3, 2010 at 11:54PM EST Reply to CommentHard to believe there are only two films left in this series.
TL
November 4, 2010 at 8:40AM EST Reply to CommentTerrible in every way. There was no narrative thread. I don't know much about Marion Jones; now I know she went to prison for lying to the feds and that she got out and had babies, but that's about it.
Hard to believe that John Singleton was once thought to be a rising star filmmaker (actually, "Boyz in the Hood" isn't that great either, and hasn't dated particularly well).
NickCascade
November 4, 2010 at 1:41PM EST Reply to CommentJohn Singleton peaked with "Boys from the Hood" and has never been the same since...
November 7, 2010 at 2:44AM EST Reply to CommentEasily and by far the worst of the series. Very poorly done on top of it all. Singleton is surely capable of much better. To completely ignore Jones' reasons for doping means the piece was meaningless.
Corey
November 9, 2010 at 4:02PM EST Reply to CommentI think there were two separate but related problems. Singleton basically avoided these two complicated issues under the guise of telling a biography without being overly preachy.
1) Singleton touches on but does not directly address the disparity in the athletic and criminal justice worlds' treatment of Jones. There's a quote in a WSJ article on the show where Singleton explains “Dealing with documentaries is different than narrative films. You can’t be too didactic or it becomes a soapbox. I could have said, ‘what about Roger Clemens?’ in the film. But that’s not the kind of piece I wanted to do.â€
2) Singleton sugarcoats Marion Jones' problematic past (including the fact that she avoided an indictment for her role in a prior checkcashing scheme). This problem (in my opinion) may have more to do with Singleton's recent personal mistake and his need to believe that people can make mistakes and move on. In 2007, he was involved in an accident where he hit and killed a pedestrian. Singleton tested negative for illegal substances and drunkenness. No criminal charges were filed against him either. It was merely an accident (I do not mean to imply or suggest that he bears any additional fault). I wonder if by simply telling Jones' story and showing that she can move on to succeed, he is mirroring his hope that his own story of moving forward and achieving additional success.
Just my thoughts...
Montrell
December 15, 2010 at 3:57PM EST Reply to CommentThis was easily the worst 30 for 30 I've seen yet. I doubt there was much national interest in this story and it was very poorly directed and choppy.