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Article: Checkers documentary jumps expectations.(Suburban Living)(TV & Radio)
- Article from:
- Daily Herald (Arlington Heights, IL)
- Article date:
- August 19, 2003
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 Paddock Publications. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Byline: Ted Cox
Checkers has a reputation as a simple game. Yet, in a new HBO documentary, it opens up into life's profundities and takes a viewer places beyond the expected.
Debuting at 7:45 p.m. today on HBO2, "The Checker King" looks at 81-year-old Harold O'Brien, a widower living in Mason City, Iowa. O'Brien looks about as one would expect a checker player to look, right down to the plaid shirt and suspenders. Yet his story is so common as to be unique - surprising and poignant in its details - and the 40-minute documentary takes pains to tell it with care.
That's in part because it is narrated and directed by O'Brien's nephew, Kevin ...