Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		5.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		4.0
Overall		4.0

Winning Time - The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie Review

Do you believe in Magic?

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman October 1, 2022

Having grown up in a city that never had a sports team in any of the so-called "major leagues" (not necessarily referring only to baseball), I frankly just never quite understood the mania surrounding a hometown group to root for, even if watching various sporting events on television was (perhaps expectedly) a regular occurrence. But then I moved to Portland just as "Rip City" was entering the national lexicon, and I suddenly found myself ensconced in a sort of St. Vitus' Dance that had gleefully "infected" seemingly the entire populace, an infection that, well, went viral when the Blazers won the National Basketball Association championship. There's something akin to that mass mania at play, at least ultimately, in this series centered on Los Angeles, whose intermittently celebrated and/or disparaged Lakers are the focus of this almost manic production. "Showtime" may almost automatically remind home theater enthusiasts of a certain "premium" network, but for denizens of L.A., and especially fans of the Lakers, "Showtime" came to typify an entire era where the Lakers assumed the kind of supremacy that many sports teams can only dream about. But the athletic dominance of the team was only part of the "Showtime" branding, and in fact Winning Time - The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty offers some of the presentational "entertainment value" that the team attempted to offer at its games and for its broadcasts.

Dr. Jerry Buss (John C. Reilly) is a mover and a shaker, but he also may be just a bit of a scoundrel, albeit of the lovable variety. Winning Time - The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty follows Buss' purchase of the Lakers and his transformation of both the team and its presentational style, but the miniseries itself is kind of a carnival in its presentational style, as in an early breaking of the fourth wall (or perhaps fourth sheet, since the scene takes place in a bed) by Buss, who alerts the audience that since his bedmate isn't interested in hearing about his plans to buy a basketball time, he'll simply address things to the camera. This is a technique that is utilized throughout Winning Time - The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty, and that, along with an almost ludicrous number of different technologies to shoot the series, gives each episode a weirdly disjointed and yet completely organic feel.

A lot of this first season (a second season has been announced) follows the team's simultaneous upward trajectory with its first round draft pick, some guy named Earvin (Quincy Isaiah) or something, and in that "lovable scoundrel" department, the miniseries may take the first of several liberties by depicting Buss as the guy who really negotiated that deal, offering Buss as a kind of "everyman" who can relate to Magic on better terms than the guy Buss is buying the team from. In fact the miniseries paints erstwhile owner Jack Cooke (Michael O'Keefe) as the kind of unrepentant jerk that his head coach Jerry West (Jason Clarke) would probably label with some choice epithets in one of the frequent hilarious tirades the character of West is shown giving. Cooke himself is frequently seen screaming at his supposed secretary Claire Rothmann (Gaby Hoffmann), a woman whom Buss almost automatically recognizes has more acumen than Cooke ever had, with Rothmann playing an increasingly important role in the organization once Buss assumes control. And in fact a large part of how Winning Time - The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty unfolds involves for want of a better term what might be generally thought of as the marketing flash that Buss (with Rothmann's assistance) wanted to bring to both the live events and the television versions. Whether or not that really influenced some of the actual game strategies is an interesting subtext.

There are too many vignettes in this stuffed to the brim piece to really relate in an overview like this, but suffice it to say the miniseries is populated with a really fun supporting cast which includes two Oscar winners, Adrien Brody and Sally Field, as well as such others as Michael Chiklis, Julianne Nicholson and Jason Segel. Kind of coolly, the show also features DeVaughn Nixon as his own father, legendary point guard Norm Nixon. All of the performers provide an obviously winking assessment of the excesses of the era, but there's also some at least occasional heartfelt emotion in the Magic Johnson character and his interactions with his family in particular. The presentational style here is, as alluded to above, absolutely ADHD in not just expected elements like a surplus of quick cuts and what almost amount to occasional intertitles, but also the choice to use everything from minicams to 35mm to document everything. The result is like some kind of hallucinatory documentary you half remember having seen in a stupefied state (hey, it was the seventies and eighties). It may not be "reality", and reportedly the real life Jerry West has threatened to sue the series over how he's portrayed, though I have to say for me the "character" of West was both a comedy and tragedy highlight of the season. One way or the other, "reality" is most definitely heightened a lot of the time, to the point that this can be an exhausting viewing experience, but Winning Time - The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty is nonetheless a really fun watch, maybe even for those who, like I did, grew up without a hometown sports team to go crazy over.

Winning Time - The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Winning Time - The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty: The Complete First Season is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of HBO and Warner Brothers Home Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. I'm just going to start this review by stating overtly the presentation here defies any real dissection in terms of things we normally address in our reviews, since the presentational style is so widely variant by design, and filled with all sorts of things we normally find fault with, including video anomalies, damage, noise, pixellation and any other "issue" which may or may not occur to you. I'd simply recommend spending a few seconds looking at some of the screenshots I've uploaded to accompany this review to get some idea of the gamut of styles and imagery that you'll be greeted by. As is briefly discussed in some of the supplements included with this release, there was an intentional decision to use a huge array of different techniques here to "film", and I'd simply point those interested to this title's IMDb Technical Specifications page for at least a partial listing. As such, anyone looking for a homogeneous viewing experience had best move on, because this is one of the most rapid fire stylistic assaults I personally can remember seeing. Virtually no scene, let alone sequence, is delivered via only one "method", and indeed intercutting can often offer different "looks" at the same characters. It's an almost exhausting approach at times, one that I'm not completely sure makes a point other than to admittedly dazzle the viewer and give them perhaps a visual analog of what a "fast break" might feel like. All of this said, in the most "traditional" moments, which I'd term the 35mm content, detail on the film's wonderfully garish recreation of the fashions (?) of the era are beautifully rendered (the show's production design is one of its inarguable merits). Within the context of all of the typical bugaboos we curmudgeonly reviewers regularly find fault with being an intentional part of this presentation, this is an astoundingly varied presentation that receives a solid if psychedelic transfer.

Winning Time - The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Winning Time - The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty: The Complete First Season features a nicely immersive DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track that delivers a perhaps slightly less chaotic experience than the visual side of things does. That's not to say there isn't activity on this track, because it's often nonstop, with good layering effects that can, for example, deliver some background clamor like people hanging out at the Johnson home which can then suddenly feature a notable presence front and center, as in any of the many characters who break the fourth wall to deliver anecdotes directly to the camera. Nicholas Britell and the always amazing Robert Glasper contribute pulsing, propulsive cues that also populate the side and rear channels. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout. Optional English, French and Dutch subtitles are available.

Winning Time - The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Each disc contains The Forum featurettes devoted to individual episodes but often getting into various sidebars hosted by Rick Fox, with a rotating selection of guests.

Disc One

• The Forum - Episode 1 (HD; 6:51) features Fox with Quincy Isaiah, Max Borenstein and Adam McKay.


• The Forum - Episode 2 (HD; 5:52) features Fox with Quincy Isaiah, Rodney Barnes and Jason Clarke.


• The Forum - Episode 3 (HD; 6:38) features Fox with Quincy Isaiah, Jim Hecht and DeVaughn Nixon.


• The Forum - Episode 4 (HD; 6:27) features Fox with Gabby Hoffman, Max Borenstein and Jason Segel.

Disc Two

• The Forum - Episode 6 (HD; 6:10) features Fox with Quincy Isaiah, Rodney Barnes and Dr. Solomon Hughes.


• The Forum - Episode 7 (HD; 5:35) features Fox with Adrien Brody, Rodney Barnes and Dr. Solomon Hughes.


• Winning Time - Invitation to Set (HD; 2:58) is a very brief overview.

Disc Three

• The Forum - Episode 8 (HD; 6:24) features Fox with Max Borenstein, Tamera Tomakili and Hadley Robinson.


• The Forum - Episode 9 (HD; 6:29) features Fox with Rodney Barnes, Hadley Robinson and Sally Field.


• The Forum - Episode 10 (HD; 7:45) features Fox with Max Borenstein, John C. Reilly and Quincy Isaiah.


• Winning Time: Horse (HD; 2:10) features a friendly (?) game between Solomon, Quincy and DeVaughn.


• Winning Time: Changing the Game (HD; 1:52) is a brief look at the transformations of Showtime.


• Winning Time: Set Tour (HD; 2:41) features John C. Reilly as a tourguide.


• Winning Time: Training Time (HD; 1:18) looks at some exercise and training regimens.


• The Costumes of Winning Time (HD; 3:45) features Emma Potter.


• The Craft: Rodney Barnes (HD; 2:05) is the first of several featurettes profiling individual contributors.


• The Craft: Richard Toyon (HD; 1:25), production designer.


• The Craft: Argya Sadan (HD; 2:06), set designer.


Additionally, a digital copy is included and packaging features a slipcover.

Winning Time - The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Because of the vagaries of the way my reviewing life works, I binge watched Winning Time - The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty: The Complete First Season, and this frankly may not be one of those shows cut out for such a strategy. The series makes a compelling point about infusing energy into a supposed moribund institution, but that very jolt of energy makes this show "turned up to 11" virtually the entire way, both in a narrative but especially a presentational sense. As such, this might be best taken in small doses, so to speak, where the sometimes juvenile humor (see screenshots 8 and 14 for just two examples) probably come across better, and the film's peripatetic proclivities are arguably easier to digest. One way or the other, Winning Time - The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty: The Complete First Season is often hugely entertaining. Technical merits are solid and the supplements very appealing. Highly recommended.