I strongly believe that the documentary, Hoop Dreams, was very effective in showing its point, while following the lives of two high school basketball players. It was excellent due to the great interviews, and effective cross cutting between both stories. There was great pacing between the shots and each character was equally as important. But aside from the editing, the content of the film was very eye opening. What I was surprised to notice was that I didn't see much mention in other reviews of the school reforms required to make this a better country, If colleges required a higher GPA, SAT/ACT score in order to receive a sports scholarship that way players will be able to gain a good education and not be thrown out on the streets the second they get injured. Currently students are willing to not go to classes in hopes of reaching professional sports, but they need something to fall back on just in case they don't make it. And in the small chances that they do make it to professional sports, what happens if they get injured, they have no career to fall back on. This movie was very effective and inspiring.

I have seen a few of the documentary films featured in the book of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, some are standard subjects, some are controversial, and some are unusual, but of course all are interesting for their own reasons, I was hoping this one would be another good one. Basically this film follows two African American teenagers, William Gates and Arthur Agee, both from inner-city Chicago, who dream of becoming superstar basketball players for the NBA (National Basketball Association). The film starts from their early beginnings in St. Joseph High School in Westchester, Illinois, and sees them grow and progress through the following five years, including starting and graduating college, and maturing into men. William and Arthur were both recruited into the same school that Isiah Thomas came from, and put into a team where white and black people mix, which then was not usual, we see their workouts, practises and struggles through learning all about the game, and obviously their skills come into play and they do rise to become noticed. By the end of the film one of the young men grows into the star he dreamt of becoming, while the other keeps trying, but they stay true to each other and support one another through whatever happens, and their families, friends and closest supporters are with them all the way as well. With narration by Steve James, and also starring Emma Gates - William's Mother, Curtis Gates - William's Brother, Sheila Agee - Arthur's Mother, Arthur 'Bo' Agee - Arthur's Father, Earl Smith - Talent Scout, Gene Pingatore - High School Basketball Coach, Sister Marlyn Hopewell - High School Guidance Counselor, Bill Gleason - Television Reporter, Patricia Weir - President: Encyclopedia Brittanica, Marjorie Heard - High School Guidance Counselor, Luther Bedford - High School Basketball Coach, Aretha Mitchell - High School Guidance Counselor, Shannon Johnson - Arthur's Friend, Tomika Agee - Arthur's Sister, Joe 'Sweetie' Agee - Arthur's Brother, Jazz Agee - Tomika's Daughter and Arthur's Niece, Catherine Mines - William's Girlfriend, Alicia Mines - William's Daughter, Alvin Bibbs - William's Brother-in-Law, Willie Gates - Himself - William's Father and film director Spike Lee. I will be honest that I faded in and out of the story because I did think the three hour length was a bit too much, obviously the five year span of filming makes sense for this length, however I did pay attention to the actual basketball stuff, and the two true life characters are likable, so it is I suppose a worthwhile sports documentary. It was nominated the Oscar for Best Film Editing. It was number 11 on The 50 Greatest Documentaries. Good!

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