CALL ME SNAKE

(EDITOR’S NOTE: The response to yesterday’s post on “Handball in the Media” was so great that we felt compelled to “stick with a winner, as it were, which is why this erstwhile volleyball blog is on the verge of becoming a handball blog.) THEY DON’T MAKE MOVIES LIKE THEY USED TO. I say that because I just finished watching “Next Stop, Greenwich Village,” which came out exactly 30 years ago. It’s not an especially great movie, and is perhaps most notable for featuring supporting performances by a young Christopher Walken and an even younger Jeff Goldblum. I can’t even say I liked the picture but it did have an unbelievably moving ending. And that’s got to count for something, right?

Without giving too much away, the movie concludes with the hero (played by Lenny Baker) leaving his old Brooklyn neighborhood to embark on a new, and potentially promising, career. The idea, it seems, was to end on a high note, a note of hope, and what better way to convey that than by showing a group of kids playing handball on the streets of Brooklyn? The scene only lasts a minute, and possibly a good deal less than a minute, yet its impact will stay with you forever.

The message, at least to me, is obvious. It’s OK to start a move with volleyball, as in “Top Gun,” where the volleyball scene came pretty early on, if memory serves correct. But if you want to leave ‘em laughing, or even crying, you could do worse than ending with handball. It worked for Paul Mazursky, and maybe it could work for you too.