esrosedotblog

GOT GAME revised 800pm

I saw Hoop Dreams (1994)

today. It is a NYTimes Best 1176 Film and a documentary almost three hours long.

Two black kids from the projects are followed for four years as they wend their ways through the basketball machine.

It is a tough and uncompromising film. Like all good documentaries, it shows rather tells. In fact, it shows so well that it got a lawsuit from the school which 'hires' the boys out to the suburbs to play ball on scholarship.

A lot of levels are covered. It is quite a show. Almost three hours long.

I hung with it.

I thought that it was way long. But then I am not interested in basketball. I didn't play and can't even dribble. I don't know the deal.

But basketball is about the last thing that this film is really about. It is one thing but not the main thing(s).

I will give it a Netflix4 out of 5. I wouldn't want to have to see it again.

There is a ten year follow-up on the two men in the WaPo

Looking Back at Broken Dreams.