THE WRITING ON (AND OFF) THE WALL CAN'T WE JUST KEEP IT REEL?

Byline: TOM HOFFARTH

It was something No. 1 Lakers fan Jack Nicholson once screamed at Tom Cruise in a moment of movie-quote lore. But don't believe it.

We can handle the truth.

And truth be told, we're not sure we got the cliche "110 percent" of it with the lot of best sports films from 2006.

On the night when Ellen DeGeneres generously tosses around Oscar statues like Roger The Peanut Man slinging Goobers at Dodger Stadium, the thing that has really been making us nuts lately is how more scriptwriters for sports-themed movies have decided they've got something better in their heads, and they aren't held more accountable for the revisionist history and fact twisting that violates the trust of the public.

Consider these top sports flicks from a year ago, along with the fine print that was included somewhere on each movie poster:

"Glory Road" ("Based on a true story.")

"Gridiron Gang" ("Based on a true story.")

"We Are Marshall" ("A true story.")

"Invincible" ("Inspired by the true story of Vince Papale.")

"World's Fastest Indian" ("Based on One Hell of a True Story.")

Based on all that, no wonder we should be conditioned once we commit ourselves to a darkened theater that anything close to this thing being considered a documentary is purely coincidental. The mind game becomes going scene to scene trying to figure out what really occurred.

Really, if the movie was good enough to make in the first place because of a real series of events, why not keep it real? Or are we too naive to think that some things are too trite to be true?

"It's a tough call, but I think I understand what the filmmakers are up against," said Randy Williams, the Santa Monica-based author of the recently released "Sports Cinema: 100 Movies, The Best of Hollywood's Athletic Heroes, Losers, Myths and Misfits" (448 pages, Limelight Editions, $24.95).

The first issue, thankfully, seems to be making things look as authentic as possible. No more Tony Perkins as Jimmy Piersall, or we'll all go insane. After that, time is of the essence.

"Film will always have a time problem because it can't explore a story like a novel," Williams said. "A sports movie could easily be a miniseries if they don't condense characters."

Tell that to Sandy Bianchini.

She's the ex-wife of Vince Papale. Not the one who threw him out of the house early in the movie "Invincible." That would be his first ex-wife. Bianchini was his spouse from '77 to '83 who already had a 9-year-old son and supported Papale through his Philadelphia Eagles tryout, short playing career and afterward. But she's the wife you don't see in the movie. Janet Cantrell, the barmaid played by Elizabeth Banks who ends up marrying him, is actually Papale's third (and current) wife.

"How can a movie be made, a true story about Vince's climb, without his family being acknowledged?" Bianchini asked in a letter sent to various media outlets when the movie came out last August.

"I have no control over the creative liberties taken in making the film," Papale replied when reporters asked about her complaint.

This is the same Papale, a former World Football League receiver who had actually been invited to the open tryout instead of just walking off the street, who won't even cop to the fact that he never really returned a fumbled punt for a touchdown as shown in the film's glorious climax (it was called back because the punt returner muffed it).

In "Gridiron Gang," do you ever recall seeing a story about a shooting at a Camp Kilpatrick football game that nearly forced the team to bow out of the CIF playoffs? Maybe because it didn't happen.

In "Glory Road," don't officials at Texas A&M University-Commerce have a right to ask the Disney corporation and filmmaker Jerry Bruckheimer to apologize for inaccurately linking their school to some of the film's most racially charged scenes involving the 1966 Texas Western basketball team's run to the NCAA title?

Maybe this issue funnels into the fact that to us, it was the group of excellent sports docs that stood out as the heroes of the silver screen in '06. "Heart Of The Game" made us care about a real girl, Darneila Russell. "Once In A Lifetime" made us mesmerized about how the NewYork Cosmos were put together for the greater good of American soccer. "In The Crease" made us understand youth hockey.

All for real. No rewrites.

"To be honest, when someone tells me about a sports movie, I don't ask who the filmmakers are or the actors in it -- just tell me the story," says Williams, a UCLA grad that once was a researcher at Fox Sports. "If that interests me, and the story was entertaining, I may go back after watching the movie and ask, 'Did that really happen?"'

In some cases, no. Honestly, maybe the best policy in this case would be to take every screenwriter's sports dramatic license and revoke it.

CAPTION(S):

4 photos, 2 boxes

Photo:

(1) Author Randy Williams recently released a book on sports films.

(2) MARK WAHLBERG

(3) TOMMY MORRISON

(4) VLAD RADMANOVIC

Box:

(1) The Pop Quiz

(2) sunday punch