In honor of March Madness and Medora, how about your top basketball movies?
Here is a list from PBS: http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/blog/march-madness-best-basketball-films
The only basketball movies I've seen are Hoosiers, White Men Can't Jump, and Space Jam. Hoosiers is in my top 20 of all movies. And it's been too long since I've seen the others to comment. I have Hoop Dreams in my queue as I've never heard anything bad about it - that will be my nominee on my next go around.
Spoiler for my eventual review of Hoop Dreams: It's full-on A+ masterpiece.
ReplyDeleteThere was a documentary last year about Lithuanian basketball after the Soviet Union collapsed that I really liked called The Other Dream Team. It's really fun underdog story, and a forum for Aryvdas Sabonis, who is awesome.
Spike Lee's He Got Game was not great. I saw it in the late-90's when I was NBA crazy and it was a big letdown. I might have different feelings about it now, but Ray Allen was right to stick to his day job.
I realllllly need to see Hoop Drearms. I've heard it's so good, but I think I've delayed seeing it because I don't want to be let down. It came out at the peak of my basketball infatuation, so I'm generally wary of all things hoops from that time period. The Other Dream Team sounds fantastic. Sabonis has been a favorite of mine since I read an SI article about him circa 94 or so.
ReplyDeleteAdam Carolla Show did a Rotten Tomatoes contest today about basketball movies. Hoosiers, which is an A- for me, graded out at 88 I believe. 88 is decent praise, but I thought it'd be higher. The only reason I can't give it a straight-A is because there is some curious editing that has always bothered me in regards to the dude getting kicked off the team and then he's all of the sudden back on it. Maybe I'm being too harsh and this should be an A.
I've seen bits and pieces of He Got Game. Never really stuck out to me.
I remember enjoying Basketball Diaries, but that was probably more about drugs than hoops.
Space Jam is not a good movie. But I love it irrationally. I'm like a woman who was abused as a child who keeps going back to her abusive husband. WELCOME TO THE SPACE JAM! Really, no way the Quad City DJs know a damn thing about basketball.
White Men Can't Jump is will always be a child-hood favorite. I wonder how it holds up. Sunset will also always be a favorite, but I'm guessing it will hold up horribly. I knew Celtic Pride was bad as a 13 year old. I never wanted to admit it, but Coach Carter really wasn't that good. But it had basketball and angry Samuel L, so teenage me didn't care.
Came across this article on a preferred film site:
Deletehttp://thedissolve.com/features/forgotbusters/154-space-jams-cosmic-character-ruining-tackiness/
Not like it's going to change your mind about Space Jam, but the guy writes well.