Chumps in Venice: White Men Can’t Jump at 30

Until I started writing this article, I had no idea Ron Shelton’s 1992 masterpiece White Men Can’t Jump had a budget of around $30 million. I mean that in the best way possible. It’s a film that came out a year before I was born, set in about a dozen nearly identical corners of Los Angeles and one Jeopardy! studio, with a decently earned hard-R and the goofy sensibilities of a feel-good PG-13. It has all the weird contradictions of a ‘90s indie film, and remains, years later, an odd and feverish assessment of sport, race, and romance in the grift of uniquely American vice....