Tiger gets teary

Tiger Woods pulls an upset: Cheating apology converts a cynic

Tiger Woods

Photo by Keith Allison [https://www.flickr.com/photos/keithallison/2311063598/]

This time when Tiger Woods disappeared behind the blue curtain, he left looking a little more human and a lot less like the con man of old.

Which means that Tiger aced his overstaged apology announcement.

Look, if you’re a journalist you wanted to hate this production. Woods and his team of handlers engaged in their usual manipulative, control freak act: Not allowing any questions, limiting attendance to three reporters and plenty of Tiger friends and only using a single camera.

And Tiger’s supposedly crack PR team places him in front of an actual, real blue curtain? Are you kidding me? Have they never heard of symbolism? Why not encourage Tiger to break out into a robot voice to drive home the idea he’s an unfeeling cyborg while you’re at it?

Yet, all the staging blunders were buried by Tiger’s words.

Words of actual apology. Words that didn’t skirt the real issue. Words that obviously pained him to say.

I’ve been covering Tiger Woods at golf tournaments for a decade. I’ve seen him at his best - walking along inside the ropes all 90 holes of his greatest triumph, that 2008 U.S. Open win at Torrey Pines when he dragged his busted-up leg to the trophy stand. I’ve seen him at his public worst - ordering his thug of a caddie, Steve Williams, to harass fans and camera men, staring daggers at young tournament flacks just trying to do their job.

I’ve never seen Tiger Woods like this.

Apologies have become something of a cottage industry in professional sports. Steroid cheats (sluggers A-Rod and Mark McGwire), cell-phone-camera-caught weed smokers (Olympian Michael Phelps) and dog fight ring kingpins (Michael Vick) all largely follow the same script no matter the level of their offense. Tiger Woods is the last athlete you’d expect to break from that pattern.

Only, he flipped the script. Tiger didn’t say sorry for some nebulous thing he never defined. He didn’t claim that while he regrets what he did it didn’t really hurt anyone. Instead, he spoke the words.

“I was unfaithful. I had affairs. I cheated,” Woods said.

Woods became the first superstar athlete of these times to actually admit to the sense of entitlement that everyone knows is there. “I convinced myself that the normal rules didn’t apply,” Woods said. “I felt like I could get away with whatever I wanted to. I felt I was entitled.”

Tiger talked about almost feeling he’d earned his discretions because of all the hard work he put into golf over his lifetime. It can be argued that this makes him even more of a creep. But, it’s still a rare burst of honesty from a creep.

Ninety percent of married, male professional athletes think the same thing. They’d just never say it.

Calling it the best sports apology of this decade is akin to declaring MTV’s latest Jersey Shore episode the most sophisticated Jersey Shore of all time. The competition is less than steep. Still, this is the most honest sports sorry we’ve seen.

“I recognize I brought this on myself,” Woods said, while smartly not setting the timetable for any return to competition (the U.S. Open at Pebble in June is the earliest golf fans should expect to see him now).

Now, there were false notes in Tiger’s announcement. He shouldn’t have brought up how the work at his foundation would go on - as if he’s been saving the world and its kids. Please. He probably should have kept his recommitment to Buddhism to himself.

He didn’t “lose” his way. He acted like an overindulged frat boy on a worldwide skirt bender.

Still, Tiger convinced this cynic. Tiger did something real - maybe the first real thing he’s done in forever in front of a camera. That overrides everything behind that blue curtain.

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Movie Review

George Clooney shines in Jay Kelly, a sharp and heartfelt look at fame

Photo by Peter Mountain/Netflix

George Clooney in Jay Kelly.

The life of a celebrity is paradoxical in that your life is lived in the public eye, yet who you really are is almost unknowable. Movie history is littered with films that try to dig into the private lives of real and fictional actors, with varying results. The latest film to try to unearth what it means to be famous is Jay Kelly.

In a perfect bit of casting, George Clooney stars in the title role as an actor who’s still world famous even if he’s edging toward the downside of his career. His coterie of helpers, including manager Ron (Adam Sandler) and publicist Liz (Laura Dern), make sure he is taken care of at every turn, often anticipating his needs before he realizes it.

A run-in with an old friend, Timothy (Billy Crudup), sends Jay spiraling, questioning not just the meaning of his 35-plus year career, but also his relationships with his two daughters, Jessica (Riley Keough) and Daisy (Grace Edwards). Jay’s attempt to manage the crisis pits his identity as a celebrity and as a father and friend against each other.

Written and directed by Noah Baumbach, and co-written by Emily Mortimer (who has a small role), the film has to walk the tightrope of making the audience like Jay even as he does and says things that might make him unlikable. There’s a very thin line between the character of Jay Kelly and the real life George Clooney; each is seemingly infinitely charming when dealing with the public, but they lead very different private lives.

Baumbach takes a light approach to the story, occasionally dipping into more serious territory but never going too deep. For some, this may seem like a copout, as if he’s merely pretending to want to explore what celebrity truly is. But as you see Jay navigate his way between his work, his family, and being out among the public, little details emerge that make him increasingly complex.

A lot of the film’s pleasure comes from the strong actors cast in relatively minor roles. There are not enough words to express what it means to have actors like Jim Broadbent as Jay’s mentor, or Greta Gerwig as Ron’s wife, or Stacy Keach as Jay’s father, or Patrick Wilson as a fellow longtime actor. Each of them and more lend an instant air of excellence to the film that elevates the story beyond its simple premise.

Clooney may be playing a version of himself, but as the film notes on multiple occasions, playing yourself is more difficult than it seems. He is deserving of an Oscar nomination, as is Sandler, who doesn’t give off even a whiff of insincerity as a man who has given perhaps a bit too much of himself in aid of another man’s career.

Jay Kelly is not a world-changing film, and some may accuse it of being another navel-gazing Hollywood story. But the forcefulness of Clooney’s performance, the long line of strong supporting actors, and the subtly effective storytelling by Baumbach and Mortimer (making her feature screenwriting debut) help it become much more than might be expected.

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Jay Kelly is now playing in select theaters. It debuts on Netflix on December 5.

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