Hoop Dreams (1994)

This is in my top 10 and along with Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel I think this is 1994's best movie! It's 172 minutes long but it's worth your time. The movie follows 2 boys who want to become NBA basketball players. This is limited to see(though as I write this it's free on Demand) and it needs more attention! Fun Fact: Steve James, the director, appreciated Roger's acclaim so much that he directed his biography! If you can't see it on Demand, you can get it for $30 at Barnes and Noble on DVD(that's how I own it.) This is very much worth your time- so please see it!

When I first moved to England in the mid-nineties, I took advantage of living in a city and having an art cinema near me for the first time ever. As a result I saw many things that I wouldn't have otherwise seen and Hoop Dreams was one of those things. At the time it was getting a lot of buzz about it being a rare film about real life and it also interested me as I had just started getting into basketball as well. Since then the film has become one of those films that is generally well remembered but not seen very often (at least it is in the UK). I eventually managed to get hold of it again recently (again thanks to some of the very kind users on IMDb) and I was looking forward to watching it again.Unfortunately this also meant appraising it again and it must be said that, watching with modern eyes almost 15 years from its release (and longer since it started being made) it doesn't stand up as well as I would have liked. As a rider on this it must be said that Hoop Dreams still has value considering what it is and when it was made. Nowadays we are used to every other programme being some sort of real-life fly-on-the-wall programme, simply because they are popular and cheap to make. However these differ from the ambition here, which is to chart the progress of two boys looking to basketball as their way to a better life – a project that spread over many years with many hundreds and hundreds of hours of video to edit down (and accordingly the film did get the Oscar for editing). So what we are left with is a film that does a solid job of telling these two stories and marks itself as a bit of a modern milestone in reality cinema. It must be noted though that being an important film in terms of what it does is not the same as it being a really good film.The problem is that it doesn't totally manage to tell the story in a way that engages on a personal level and inform on a more general basis – both of which appear to have been aims. The film is solid when it comes to the focus on the two boys but the problem is that, as individuals, the film doesn't make them particularly engaging people for the audience to care about and I didn't get a lot of drama from their respective journeys. OK they were interesting enough and also pulled together in quite a succinct manner but it never gave me much of a reason to really be held by the tale. Surprisingly bigger events in their lives are frequently just mentioned by the narrator (the father getting on and then off crack is dealt with in one line). Of course this is why it is important for a larger message to be clear and, in the case of Hoop Dreams, the bigger picture is the reality of the "making it out the ghetto via basketball" dream and the limited options to those who do not have this. In this regard the film doesn't achieve it because it is too tightly focused on the two boys and their families. There isn't a feel of the scale of this, of the challenges facing those who don't make it, of the desperation to make it and so on. This is a real shame because it could have made a good film into a great film and were the film made today one does think that it would be a pre-requisite. The dated presentation doesn't help – obviously visually it is of the time it was made but I remember the cheesy sax music as horrid and time has only made it worse.There is no doubt that the scale and aims of Hoop Dreams and its cinematic success makes it an important part of modern reality cinema – it is just that the film isn't as good to watch as its reputation deserves. The editing is good but the structure lacks a personal hook and doesn't manage to deliver much in terms of the bigger picture. It is still worth seeing and it is "good" but it is hard to understand why so many people lavish praise on it without pointing out its many faults.

Engrossing documentary about two inner city kids and their struggles to make it into professional basketball."Hoop Dreams" made a big splash when it was released in 1994, and there was a big controversy around Academy Award time when it was deemed ineligible in the Best Documentary category. It likely would have won had it been nominated, and it ranks right up there among some of the best documentaries of all time. This is mostly due to how engrossing the storytelling is. You forget you're not watching a fictional film, which just supports the claim that truth can be more compelling than fiction.You don't have to be a fan of basketball to enjoy this movie.Grade: A

I'll never understand the USA's obsession with high school sports. Putting this much pressure on 14-18 year old kids and calling them athletes and referring to their basketball as a 'career' is harmful. Sure, it's an entertaining game but that's all it is. Once business takes over all bets are off and lives are ruined. The promise of the American dream of wealth and success is nothing but a bald-faced lie. These topics were briefly touched on but for the most part the movie was a rather passive documentary that simply chronicled two different boys' lives in high school basketball for four years. That in itself was interesting enough for me to give this movie a good rating. The people are compelling and it was good to know that eventually at least one of the boys came to realize that his NBA dreams were unrealistic. The movie still presents a powerful portrayal of the lower-class inner city blacks in America and the desperation they have to endure. One of the only outs for their kids seems to be sports scholarships. Enter the over-zealous coach, competitive scouts and legions of fans. It's interesting to see because no one in Canada is as obsessed with high school sports. I think it's mainly because it's the only way out for poor, inner-city blacks in America. The concept makes for an entertaining, emotional documentary.