COMEDY - THE WRITERS: HONEYMOON IN VEGAS, WHITE MEN CAN'T JUMP

In 1988, Shelton, a former minor league player, gave us BULL DURHAM, a movie about minor league baseball that was decidedly not minor league. While being a romantic comedy that satisfied on both counts, and then some, it also understood baseball in the way that most others don't, capturing the rituals and the realities of the game. WHITE MEN CAN'T JUMP attempts to do the same for basketball, and largely succeeds, except it's not a romantic comedy, it's a buddy movie.

The white man in this case is Billy (Woody Harrelson), a basketball hustler in the same way that Eddie Felson was a pool hustler - pretend you're no good, lull your opponent, and then beat the pants off of him. What helps is Billy dresses like he just came back from Club Med, and does calisthentics (onlookers wonder what's up with the Jane Fonda crap) before each game. So naturally, when Sidney (Wesley Snipes), the king hustler of the L.A. courts, takes him on in a shooting contest, Billy aces him. Sidney therefore comes to Billy with a proposition to team up. The idea is, Sidney will get involved in a pickup game, things will get just heated enough that he'll challenge his opponents to a two-on-two game, and let them pick his partner - which, naturally, is Billy, who, as everyone says, looks like a chump, though he doesn't play like one.

Off the court, things are a different story. Sidney is married to Rhonda (Tyra Ferrell), with a kid, and she tolerates his ball playing only if he treats it as a job (he has several other jobs as well). Billy, on the other hand, is on the run from gangsters (he didn't throw a game like he was supposed to), and is involved with Gloria (Rosie Perez), who dreams of getting on "Jeopardy." She is no-nonsense in that she'll put up with no nonsense from Billy. Talking with her, however, is the one challenge Billy can't really meet; after she tells him that you can lose and still win, and vice versa, he replies, "I have no idea what you're talking about." So Shelton is clearly reversing the stereotype about black people not being able to think; here, it's Billy who goes by instinct and pride, which gets him

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