Co-Prodcuer Jennifer Miller and Lead Actor/Writer/Director Richey Nash accept the award for Best Dramatic Feature Film at the Manhattan Film Festival
Los Angeles, Calif.— Hitting the Cycle, an independently produced feature film shot entirely on location in Lexington, Ky., was named Best Dramatic Feature Film at the 2012 Manhattan Film Festival in New York City. Hitting the Cycle will next be featured during the Woods Hole Film Festival on the Cape Cod waterfront in Massachusetts.
The fictional story follows Jimmy “Rip” Ripley, a professional baseball player nearing the end of his career, who reluctantly revisits his long-forgotten hometown to face his estranged, dying father. While attempting to reconcile his fractured past with an uncertain future, Rip begins to gain insight into the choices, opportunities and sacrifices that people confront when they outlive the life of their dreams.
Lexington native J. Richey Nash portrays the lead character of Rip in Hitting the Cycle. Now based in Los Angeles, Nash also wrote, produced and co-directed the film (along with Darin Anthony). Oscar-nominated actor Bruce Dern plays Rip’s father.
Hitting the Cycle screened at the 10-day Manhattan Film Festival in late June, and won the Best Dramatic Feature Film award at a ceremony on July 1st. Hitting the Cycle previously won an award in May at the Tupelo Film Festival in Mississippi.
Nash said, “We are very excited and pleased by the reception the film is receiving on the festival circuit. A lot of people worked very hard to bring this movie to the big screen, so the awards recognition is gratifying for all of us.”
Though many of the film’s stars and primary crew members are Hollywood-based, Nash decided to bring the production to Lexington because of the diversity of available filming locations and the growing number of production and talent resources (Kentuckians comprise two-thirds of the cast and crew). The opening scenes from Hitting the Cycle take place at readily recognizable Lexington venues, most notably the ballpark of the Lexington Legends, the popular local Minor League Baseball team. The remainder of the story unfolds in “Sayreville,” Rip’s fictional hometown. Shooting locations included public parks, private homes, bars, restaurants, a high school, and several University of Kentucky hospital buildings.
“Lexington was the ideal place to shoot this film not only for its beautiful scenery and varied locations, but also for the tremendous support of the local community,” said Nash. “We had such a great experience. I wouldn’t hesitate to come back to Kentucky for another film project.”
Hitting the Cycle will next screen on Friday, August 3rd at the Woods Hole Film Festival. The film will return to Lexington in October for a run at the historic Kentucky Theatre.
Yesterday, the RP joined his friend — and Louisville’s most popular radio host — Terry Meiners on Terry’s afternoon drivetime program (WHAS 700 AM) to discuss his impossible journey through the World Series of Poker.
Despite a lack of true post players, the USA Olympic team looks primed for another gold medal run in London. [ESPN]
Picture Dirk in a jersey that doesn’t say Dallas. As painful as it is, you might want to prepare yourself. The big man claims he’s “too old” for a team that’s rebuilding. [CBS]
Krzyzewski has always been hesitant to pull the trigger on transfers – but when he does, they’re good. Is Rodney Hood the next Blue Devil success story? [Yahoo]
Whether you support it, think it’s too strict, or not strict enough, only one thing is for certain: nothing is for certain when it comes to the future of basketball’s “one-and-done” rule. [ESPN]
A College of Charleston senior will be lacing them up for the home team in this summer’s Olympic games. [CBS]
By Jonathan Miller, on Tue Jul 10, 2012 at 9:15 AM ET
It’s instructive that my impossible run through the World Series of Poker tournament was a study in black and white:
An exhilarating roller coaster ride encompassing 40 hours of mind-thumping boredom.
A liberal former politician succeeding by playing with an über-conservative game plan.
A victory of steadfast patience, the absence of which has been my defining character flaw.
The long distance coaching of one of my better friends, whom I’ve only met twice in person.
A game legendary for its macho bravado that’s dominated by pasty-faced math geeks.
And the most striking contrast of all: I’ve lived a life of painstaking diligence — some might say monomaniacal zeal — toward building a career centered around moral values; and one of my life’s highlights — indeed one of its most truly spiritual moments — came playing a card game that I’d hardly practiced and that’s banned in my home state because of its purportedly immoral implications.
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On Independence Day 2012, the 73rd anniversary of baseball legend Lou Gehrig’s famous statement that he was “the luckiest man on the face of the earth,” I began a journey that certainly contested the Iron Horse’s declaration. Indeed, it was pure serendipity that I was even playing in the tournament in the first place.
Months earlier, when we learned the schedule of my youngest daughter‘s summer in Israel program, my wife, who had a trip planned already to Mexico, suggested that after I dropped Abby off at JFK airport, I should make it a long weekend playing poker in Vegas. She knew how much I loved no limit Texas hold ’em — a game that both rewarded my high school math skills and stoked my innate competitive fires — and that I so rarely got chance to play since online poker was made illegal.
Read the rest of… The RP: My Impossible Run Through the World Series of Poker
By Jonathan Miller, on Mon Jul 9, 2012 at 12:15 PM ET
It’s instructive that my impossible run through the World Series of Poker tournament was a study in black and white:
An exhilarating roller coaster ride encompassing 40 hours of mind-thumping boredom.
A liberal former politician succeeding by playing with an über-conservative game plan.
A victory of steadfast patience, the absence of which has been my defining character flaw.
The long distance coaching of one of my better friends, whom I’ve only met twice in person.
A game legendary for its macho bravado that’s dominated by pasty-faced math geeks.
And the most striking contrast of all: I’ve lived a life of painstaking diligence — some might say monomaniacal zeal — toward building a career centered around moral values; and one of my life’s highlights — indeed one of its most truly spiritual moments — came playing a card game that I’d hardly practiced and that’s banned in my home state because of its purportedly immoral implications.
===
On Independence Day 2012, the 73rd anniversary of baseball legend Lou Gehrig’s famous statement that he was “the luckiest man on the face of the earth,” I began a journey that certainly contested the Iron Horse’s declaration. Indeed, it was pure serendipity that I was even playing in the tournament in the first place.
Months earlier, when we learned the schedule of my youngest daughter‘s summer in Israel program, my wife, who had a trip planned already to Mexico, suggested that after I dropped Abby off at JFK airport, I should make it a long weekend playing poker in Vegas. She knew how much I loved no limit Texas hold ’em — a game that both rewarded my high school math skills and stoked my innate competitive fires — and that I so rarely got chance to play since online poker was made illegal.
Read the rest of… The RP: My Impossible Run Through the World Series of Poker
By Jonathan Miller, on Sat Jul 7, 2012 at 12:56 PM ET
It was a half hour past midnight, Vegas time. Of course, my body felt like it was 3:30 AM. This wasn’t way past my bedtime, it was approaching my time to get up.
Out of the field of 4260 in the World Series of Poker’s $1000 no limit hold’em tournament, there were 95 of us left. And I was the shortest stack of all. Only 16,000 chips. And the big blind was coming to me the next hand — that meant I’d have to post 6000 chips from my dwindling stack.
I was toast.
Despite my imminent elimination, despite the extraordinary fatigue of the late/early hour and having spent over 20 mind-numbing hours watching grown men (and a few women) play cards, I was beaming. Not only was I checking off my longtime bucket list moment of playing in the World Series of Poker; not only had I fulfilled the goal I set of playing to Day 2; not only had I passed my revised goal of making a little money; not only had I cracked the top 100 players left; I felt the unique zen of playing a perfect game — for me, of course — I had not make a single stupid decision; I hadn’t lost my cool and gone on “tilt”; I hadn’t lost my attention and failed to assess the circumstances correctly; I had done my best.
And now, as the Poker Gods had demanded, it was time to go home.
I looked down at my two cards and smiled. A Jack and a five. Known among in poker parlance as “Jackson Five,” it’s a pretty lousy starting hand. 99% of the time, I would have folded.
But I had no choice — if I folded now, I’d have such a small stack that I’d be leaving soon anyway. I went all-in. The player on the button called. He turned over an eight and a four.
Read the rest of… The RP at the World Series of Poker: How I Was Saved by the Jackson 5
By Jonathan Miller, on Fri Jul 6, 2012 at 12:15 PM ET
Today, at 1 PM PDT (4 PM EDT), Day 2 of the World Series of Poker $1000 non-limit Texas hold-em tourney begins, with the RP holding onto to 27,925 chips, placing him in 151st place among the 726 players still remaining from an original field of 4,620.
With a total prize pool of $1,566,000, the winner would receive more than $654,000. The RP’s immediate goal — being among the 468 survivors who win a cash prize. We should know that by Midnight PDT tonight. The final table will take place on Sunday afternoon.
Stay tuned to these pages, and if you are really a poker geek, you can head to this link to follow all of the action, including chip counts and commentary.
Good luck RP!
I hadn’t received my No Labels hat yet, so I was representing my two favorite basketball teams: Tel Aviv Maccabeans (shirt), and some semi-professional unit in the upper South (hat)
I’ve always dreamed of standing out in a crowd. Little known fact: The Lady Gaga song, “Poker Face” is NOT about me. The Carly Simon song, “You’re so Vain” is, however. At least I probably think so.
By Jonathan Miller, on Fri Jul 6, 2012 at 9:15 AM ET
In a vote that has been closely scrutinized and anticipated here at The Recovering Politician — and discussed in detail in this column I published at The Huffington Post last week — the Presbyterian Church (USA) rejected a misguided proposal to divest from companies that do business with Israel. The razor thin margin 333-331 proves the adage that every vote does indeed matter.
A deeply divided Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) on Thursday became the latest American church to shy away from divesting in companies that supply equipment to Israel to enforce its control in the occupied territories, after a passionate debate that stretched late into the evening and a vote that was nearly a tie.
The decision not to divest, the culmination of an eight-year process, was watched intensely by Christians, Jews and Palestinians in the United States and in the Middle East. It is likely to bring a sigh of relief to Jewish groups in Israel and the United States that lobbied Presbyterians against divestment, and to dismay the international movement known as B.D.S. — Boycott, Divest and Sanctions — which advocates using economic leverage to pressure Israel to return occupied land to the Palestinians.
By a vote of 333 to 331, with two abstentions, the church’s General Assembly voted at its biennial meeting in Pittsburgh to toss out the divestment measure and replace it with a resolution to encourage “positive investment” in the occupied territories. The results were so close that, when posted electronically in front of the convention, they evoked a collective gasp. After two and a half hours of passionate debate, the replacement resolution to invest in the territories passed more easily, 369 to 290, with eight abstentions.
Presbyterians in favor of divestment said that their church could not in good conscience hold stock in companies that they said perpetuate an unjust occupation and undermine the search for peace between Israel and the Palestinians. But opponents said that divestment would unfairly vilify Israel, and accomplish little but further polarization.
This is great news for justice, peace, and the historic alliance among Jews and Presbyterians. The close vote, however, confirms that much work needs to be done in educating American liberals about the extraordinary liberal democracy that is Israel.
By Jonathan Miller, on Thu Jul 5, 2012 at 11:00 AM ET
One of the many thousand reasons why I am glad to be a recovering politician and not a real politician anymore is that I no longer have to hide one of my favorite passions: playing tournament poker. Back in the days when I represented the constituents of a Bible Belt state, I’d have to play incognito, never at a nearby riverboat casino where I could be recognized, and certainly not in a public, highly publicized event like the greatest poker event around the globe — the World Series of Poker, held annually at the Rio Casino in Las Vegas.
But that’s all history, so this Independence Day, I freed myself to check off an item on my bucket list, and I entered the $1000 no-limit Texas hold ’em four day event, featuring more than 3,500 of the world’s best poker players.
I arrived in Las Vegas Tuesday night with two goals in mind:
First, I wanted to have a “respectable” finish. For me, that meant to try to survive until Day 2 of the four day tournament. Second, I wanted to wear the new No Labels hat that was ordered especially for these purposes.
(If you are new to this site, and/or not are familiar with the national grassroots political movement I co-founded, click here.)
Even if I never appeared on ESPN’s TV coverage, at least I’d get a good picture for the Web site.
On Wednesday (July 4), the two goals intersected. The No Labels hat had arrived via UPS in Las Vegas on Tuesday night, but my hotel would not accept delivery until Thursday AM. So I HAD to get to Day 2 of the tourney to play with my new hat and give our booming movement a little publicity.
