Saturday night, the across-the-street in-laws and I decided on a nice quiet dinner of Egged shrimp, scallops, baked potatoes, Bud Lights and a viewing of the ESPN's "biopic" movie about the life of Dale Earnhardt titled "3".

The scallops and shrimp were wonderful, by the way. Just the right doneness and amazingly prepped by my wife and her sister. As soon as I get the recipe, I'll let you know.

Now, before we get started here I want to say a couple of things about books turned into movies, biographical movies (authorized AND unauthorized), and biographical cinema in general.

More often than not, if you were or are a big fan of the subject of the movie, then the movie really isn't for you. You see, anything made with the level of detail that would satisfy a fan is too deep for a 90 to 120 minute snapshot on that subject.

Another problem is just that: the movie is a 90 to 120 minute snapshot. There's no way to make every detail perfect and not leave anything out. Like in the movie "Blackhawk Down." The script writer and director made a character out of six or seven participants in the book because there was no way to have them all in there 100% accurate. It's impossible.

ESPN wasn't trying to make "Roots" or "The Blue and The Gray" here. They were making a made for cable TV movie about a man who was bigger than life to casual race fans, but almost too big to his fans. They were in a lose-lose situation.

As for authorized vs. unauthorized biographies, that's more often way more about money than content. Barry Pepper talks of sitting down for hours with Dale Jr. to talk about his dad and their life and racing and lots of other stuff. Authorized or not, that's where that stuff should come from.

The fact that the movie wasn't "authorized" by Theresa or Richard Childress simply means that they didn't get the money they wanted to be involved in the project. I posted at a messageboard this morning that whether it was "authorized" by RC is irrelevant. There isn't a story out there that hasn't been told by RC about Dale that was gonna get told for this movie. If it hasn't been told by now, it's not going to get told ever...authorization payment received or not. So that's all of no concern to me and, quite frankly, sounds a bit sour grapes-ish. ESPN broadcast NASCAR for years, brought them to the forefront in televised sports, and many people there already knew many of the stories.

Now, let's move along to the review.

I think it was a lot to ask for one guy to play senior from ages 16-49, but Pepper did as good a job as one could expect. I was impressed with his study of carriage and mannerisms much like his work in *61 (the movie about Roger Maris' chase of the Babe).

I heard that the guy originally cast to play Junior was replaced by a guy who was an instructor at a driving school Pepper was attending, and that guy hit Junior's speech and cadence when talking about dead-on. Everyone in the room agreed that these two did a good job, as did the actress that played Theresa. Obviously, Vern Schillinger from Oz was a good choice to play Ralph. That guy has a presence that was perfect for at least what I considered to be the "idea" of Ralph.

Maybe Childress decided not to authorize the movie when he found out that they had cast a very short fatass to play him, and he didn't like that.

I also thought they did a good job picking things that were relevant to the story and those that were not. Obviously, when the character dropped the "rattle his cage" remark while driving a wrangler chevy in the early 80's, that wasn't historically accurate. I attribute this to the script people and the producers wanting things to get in but not having time, so they combine a couple of factual events into one event. While it wasn't 1999 at Bristol, it was used to make a point about the man and the driver while not wasting 15 minutes telling the story.

The same goes for the deal with Ralph dying in the garage. He didn't. He died in the kitchen of that house, but it's not really relevant to the story. Hell, many people (drivers and announcers) STILL perpetuate this myth, but it doesn't really matter. Ralph died early in Dale's life and left him with plenty of questions.

Here are a couple things I liked about the movie in particular:

The scene where Junior, T. Wayne Robertson, RC and Dale sat in a cheap hotel room working out what would be the greatest patnership in NASCAR's history over cheap bourbon and a handshake. That's good stuff.

I liked how they took the time to handle the Kerry situation so people'd know what the deal was if they didn't already. I think that probably really ate at Senior over the years, but there's just wasn't much he could do other than try to put Kerry in cars whenver he could later in his life. To me, that seemed real.

I liked the guy that played Neil Bonnett and the way the character of Bonnett was written and portrayed. If you've read about these two at all, you know that there was a lot of middle-school type goofing between them, so I figure even if it's not spot on accurate, it was a good effort to capture them. Especially the part where, after winning a title in his second year, Dale shows neil a new rifle he's gotten. Neil says "Man, I gotta get me one of them." Dale pulls a second identical rifle out of the case and Neil says "now I gotta get me TWO of them things." That's funny stuff.

(I'd like to find out if it is true or not), but I like the moment where Junior had to tell Senior about Neil's death. That's the kind of stuff that is tough to get right on screen and they did a good job with it.

Overall I enjoyed the tough love relationship shared between all three generations and how it was adapted.

I enjoyed that they sort of brought the screwdriver story to light. If you weren't a big Earnhardt fan or someone who's read about this, then it may have gone over your head. I think this was a little "Easter Egg" for folks that were bigtime fans.

See, Ralph found that there was a particular screwdriver at Sears that, when it was cut down to the right length, made the perfect unbreakable axle key. When he did, he went to Sears and bought every one of those screwdrivers so no one else could buy them and do the same thing. That's a good Ralph Earnhardt story.

Now for some stuff I didn't like. The "Ralph's dead in the garage deal" was uneccessary. His father being dead was enough, and changing that wouldn't have added to the time needed like the "rattle his cage" stuff would have.

While it didn't matter, the radio chatter and stuff (especially during the 1998 Daytona 500) was just plain silly. There was no reason for it, and I'm sure that RC and Dale weren't re-living 1990 under green with 10 to go in 1998.

As for stuff that didn't matter, we all knew that they couldn't and wouldn't pay to use daytona or the actual tracks for the racing footage. They used Rockingham. They needed an available cheap track that was close because this wasn't a 60 million dollar epic. They couldn't afford to worry about that stuff.

Overall, I thought the movie was quite good. Could they have used a better script? Sure. Were some of the actors bad or at least poorly cast? Maybe. But since they didn't have 20 hours to tell the story, I think it was as good as any biography I've seen adapted to television. I mean, you can bet there were some inaccuracies in the movies "The Miracle" or "Rudy," but that didn't stop them from being good movies that made you feel many of your emotions while you watched.

I give it a four out of five stars. Hell, I watched the last half hour again last night (since the wife fell asleep during that part Saturday). We both agreed (and me still) that it was a good movie. I think I'm going to order the DVD.