For the good, we have the 2005 film “Coach Carter,” starring Samuel L. Jackson in the lead role. “Coach Carter” is about a controversial real life high school basketball coach named Ken Carter who believed that academics, not just basketball, were also important to his player’s success in life. The film depicts Carter’s role in the Richmond High School basketball season of 1999 where he locked the gym and refused to let the team play until they all honored an academic and behavioral contract that they had signed at the beginning of the season.

While “Coach Carter” is similar to a number of other sports movies in its story, the movie does everything it needs to do correctly. There are some great scenes in the movie, courtesy of Jackson’s performance, the cinematography and directing is good, and the end basketball game does have some tension to it.

For the bad, we have “BASEketball,” directed and written by David Zucker, who also wrote and directed comedy classics like “Airplane!” and “The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!” The movie stars “South Park” creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone in the lead roles Joe Cooper and Doug Remar, two childhood friends who end up creating a sport that is a cross between basketball and baseball, which ends up becoming a professional sport. However, a greedy sports manager tycoon (Robert Vaughn), wants to change the rules—such as not allowing players to be traded—that have been put in place to prevent baseketball from ending up like other sports in order to make more money off the game.

With a director/writer and starring two actors who all have fairly decent track records with comedy movies, “BASEketball” is pretty disappointing. There is come chuckle-worthy material early on and there are a few scenes that are so ridiculous that they’re funny, but those are small oases in a desert of unfunny jokes and comedy sketches.

For the horrible, we have “Space Jam.” Released in 1996, “Space Jam” is a movie about a group of aliens coming to the world of the Looney Toons in order to enslave them and bring them to an amusement park as an attraction. To combat the aliens, the Looney Toons challenge the aliens to a game of basketball, and the aliens steal the talent from several basketball players to give them the upper hand. The Looney Toons in turn enlist the help of Michael Jordan, who has recently left basketball to play professional baseball, which he isn’t as good at.

“Space Jam” serves as an eighty-eight minute long ego trip for Michael Jordan, with characters constantly telling him he’s the best basketball player and no matter what he does, everyone seems to love him, even when he’s failing on the baseball field. Starring alongside Michael Jordan and the Looney Toons are Wayne Knight as Jordan’s wacky and bumbling publicist, and Bill Murray, for some reason. The biggest problem, however, is with the Looney Toons themselves. They aren’t wacky and eccentric like they were before, they’re annoying and obnoxious, like a high school student who still thinks it’s funny to put your arm over your mouth and blow raspberries so it sounds like farting.