Monday, July 05, 2004

"Hoop Dreams" retrospective.

Perhaps you recall the movie "Hoop Dreams" that came out about 10 years ago, documenting the lives of a couple of Chicago teens who wanted to become college basketball, and then NBA, players. Great movie, and at the time, the highest-grossing documentary ever (since passed only by two Michael Moore films and "Winged Migration").

The Post has a nice article today, looking at what has happened to those two teens since. Neither made it to the NBA, although one had tryouts scheduled before injury torpedoed his attempts. An interesting "where are they now?" story.

I saw "Hoop Dreams" when it came out; I saw it because Roger Ebert - at one of his shot-by-shot film study seminars at the Virginia Flm Festival - made everyone in the room stand up, raise their right hands, and swear that they would go see "Hoop Dreams" when it came to town, even though it was about basketball, and even though it was a documentary. Apparently enough people took the Roger Ebert Hoop Dreams Pledge that when it came to Charlottesville, the little repertory theater it showed in sold out for all showings, the entire three weeks it was there.

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