The Beat

Massillon

February 05, 2001

Talk about bad timing: In a scene in Finding Forrester, a high school teacher giving a lecture on Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven notes that Poe was obsessed with death and that the NFL Ravens are the only pro team named after a poem. To which a student says, 'There's a team obsessed with death; always get they ass kicked." Says screenwriter Mike Rich, "I wrote the script three years ago. I thought, What are the chances this will backfire? Well, my apologies to the fine folks of Baltimore." ... Answer: Charles Barkley, Martha Stewart and Survivor host Jeff Probst. Question: What odd trio of stars will appear on Jeopardy! on Feb. 6? The show, part of the Celebrity Jeopardy! series, was taped in Las Vegas last week. When they were off-camera, Barkley told Stewart and Probst that he was indeed planning a run for governor of Alabama, an idea Barkley has toyed with for some time One of the breakout hits at this year's Sundance Film Festival was Go Tigers!, a documentary about the Massillon (Ohio) High football team. The film portrays a dying rust belt town that is faced with losing its storied football program because of budget cutbacks. At a screening, one audience member said it was the saddest film she'd seen at the festival, pointing out in particular a scene in which a town resident says football has done more for Massillon than textbooks ever have. "That's the confusion of priorities we see in the film," says director Kenneth Carlson. Tigers was one of the few movies to find a distributor at this year's festival and will get a nationwide release later this year. Carlson intends to hold the premiere in—where else?