"Glory Road" is glorious

Red West called in and reported on the Hollywood premiere of "Glory Road," chronicling the 1966 story of Texas Western coach Don Haskins who put together the first all-black starting line-up for a college basketball team and took it to the NCAA national championship. The Jerry Bruckheimer-produced film stars Josh Lucas as Haskins, Red as assistant coach Ross Moore and Jon Voight as opposing coach Adolph Rupp. "The way it was edited, it didn't slow down for a minute," said Red, who attended the premiere at LA's Pantages Theatre with his wife Pat. The theater, he said, was packed and that's one of those old huge cinema palaces of days gone by.

Director James Gartner was thrilled and "Glory Road" gives him a nice feature debut to brag about. Before this, he directed commercials. Red said "he did a heckuva job for his first outing" and told one of Gartner's directing partners that the success meant the helmsman wouldn't be doing many more commercials.

The buzz is vivid on this movie and it's obviously reached Memphis -- press and sneak previews here have been at capacity. Three of us tried to go last night and there were only two tickets left at the Paradiso.