Cougar Concern

Former Rocket Kenny Smith wonders where's the Houston in Tom Penders' program

Former Houston Rockets guard Kenny Smith still loves Houston — and he’d like to love the University of Houston’s basketball team. He just doesn’t see a lot of the Bayou City in the Tom Penders’ program to embrace.

Which is one of the reasons why Smith expects Maryland to beat the Cougars rather easily in tomorrow night's 4 vs. 13 game in Spokane, Washington.

"No, Houston gets no upset love from me," Smith told CultureMap in an exclusive phone interview. "I don't have any ties to the program anymore, so no love."

Smith isn't just talking about the fact that Clyde Drexler, his former Rockets teammate, found himself pushed out after two largely disastrous seasons as the Cougars head coach in the late 90s. Instead, it's more of a lament of what Smith sees as a lack of Houston in UH basketball.

"I wish U of H well. It's to good to see them back in the tournament," Smith said. "I'm just not sure that program's connected to the city though ... I don't think people realize what a draw the city of Houston is for basketball players. Houston is really a basketball mecca that people don't talk about. High school, college, NBA guys, (Houston) draws them all in. It's one of the top spots in the country where guys get together and play over the summertime.

"You have pro and college guys coming in from all over the country to train in Houston."

While Smith only spends a few weeks a year in Houston these days, he's still connected to the city's basketball pulse through his ties to the Fonde Rec Center, the legendary, old historic gym in the shadow of I-45 in the city's Sixth Ward. A plaque on Fonde's wall reads, "To play here, your game has got to be established, your desire must be proven and your love for the game had better be pure."

Whenever Smith is in town, this is where you can find the former New York City school boy star with the Jet nickname. These days in his role as a TNT analyst and Charles Barkley sparring buddy, Smith is probably best known by those in the know for the incredible parties he hosts (Smith's annual NBA All-Star Weekend bash is one of the hottest events, and hardest tickets, of the NBA's showcase).

But when the Jet comes to Houston, he comes to work.

"Houston is one of the best places in the country for a basketball player to be," Smith said, as he worked this interview in-between takes of some TV spots. "The training and innovations that guys have come up with here ... You have some of the best trainers in the country in Houston. The top basketball guys.

"You're fortunate if you're a basketball player in Houston."

Yet, Penders continues to be hounded by the perception that he doesn't recruit Houston high school players well — or put all that much effort into it. This current NCAA Tournament Cougars team has three players from Houston on its 14-man roster. That includes the nation's leading scorer, Aubrey Coleman. All three city Cougars (Coleman, Sean Coleman and Jamon Wilson) went to a junior college before coming to UH though.

Penders told the New York Times this week that he plans to continue to lean on JC players.

And even with the Cougars having made the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 18 years, the joke about UH not even being the best basketball team in the city continues — with undefeated state champion Yates High School drawing mention as a superior.

"There is definitely better basketball in Houston," Smith said.

Not that the guy who helped make Clutch City is dwelling on it. Smith's already penned in a first-round knockout of the Cougars on his bracket.

"I don't think Houston will be around that long at all in the tournament," Smith said. "What else do you want to talk about?"

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Movie Review

Action-packed Kraven the Hunter showcases gritty Marvel antihero

Photo by Jay Maidment

Aaron Taylor-Johnson in Kraven the Hunter.

One of the oddest things about the blockbuster era we live in is that while Disney owns the rights to the majority of Marvel comic book characters, Sony Pictures owns the rights to Spider-Man and any affiliated characters. Since they’re sharing Spider-Man himself with Disney, Sony has been trying to capitalize on those rights by making stand-alone films using niche characters that only comic book fanatics would know.

Having exhausted Venom and whiffed on attempts with Morbius and Madame Web, they’re trying again with Kraven the Hunter. Also known as Sergei Kravinoff, Kraven (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) is a self-styled vigilante who, as the film tells it, travels the world exacting vengeance on the truly bad people of the world. He’s the son of Nikolai (Russell Crowe), a hard-edged Russian oligarch, and brother to Dmitri (Fred Hechinger), who is relatively weak compared to the rest of his family.

The origin story has Kraven gaining his animal-like powers - including super-strength, speed, and jumping abilities - as a teenager from a mysterious serum given to him by a girl named Calypso (played as an adult by Ariana DeBose) after he was mauled by a lion. The two maintain a tenuous partnership as adults, with Calypso helping him hunt down other villains like Aleksei Sytsevich (Alessandro Nivola) and The Foreigner (Christopher Abbott).

Directed by J.C. Chandor and written by Richard Wenk, Art Marcum, and Matt Holloway, the film looks and feels enormously lazy, something made merely to hold on to potentially valuable intellectual property. Other than the tense family dynamic between the Kravinovs, little makes sense in the story. Kraven has an indecipherable moral code that has him going after poachers - because he’s part lion? - in addition to other high-powered criminals, with no clear goal except to … get back at his father?

The laziness extends to the action scenes, which feature Kraven being mostly impervious to any damage, whether it’s hand-to-hand combat, knives, or guns. The CGI-heavy scenes don’t even allow moviegoers to enjoy an R-rated bloody free-for-all, as all of the blood splatter is computer-generated, too. Since apparently one Spider-Man villain is not enough, three others make appearances with abilities that are under-explained and CGI that is poorly done.

That’s not even counting Calypso, another Spider-Man villain whose purpose in this film is nebulous at best. Her early connection with Kraven is so coincidental as to be laughable, and her continued reasons for helping him as an adult strain credulity as well. The only saving grace of her presence is that the filmmakers don’t try to shoehorn romance into the plot; perhaps they’re saving that for the (inevitable?) sequel.

Taylor-Johnson has had one of the most prolific-yet-anonymous careers in modern Hollywood, with appearances in big films like The Fall Guy, Bullet Train, and Tenet that have made very little impact. Even as the star here, he fails to hold your attention, with the story and visuals doing him no favors. DeBose has followed up her Oscar win for West Side Story with schlock like I.S.S., Argylle, and this, which doesn’t bode well for her career. At least Crowe gets to chew the scenery.

With a contractual inability to mention the name “Spider-Man,” movies like Kraven the Hunter exist in a weird area that forces filmmakers to make up stories for characters to which most people have no attachment. And just like Sony’s previous efforts, it is a very poor way to spend two hours in a movie theater; avoid at all costs.

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Kraven the Hunter opens in theaters on December 13.

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