We’re in
the midst of yet another exciting NCAA tournament and one of the most exciting
NBA seasons in recent memory. Thus, we at RT have decided to create a little
March Madness of our own. We’ve got a list of roundball movies that are as
electrifying as Dominique Wilkins’ windmill dunks, as inspiring as a Kevin
Garnett pep talk, and as well-crafted as Tex Winter’s triangle offense. (Best of
all, they don’t all conclude with endless fouls and timeouts.) And no, our
countdown does not include some of the best acting turns by hoopsters. So no
Airplane!
and no Kazaam.
Sorry!
The Year of the Yao (2006, 66 percent)
Towering
at seven feet and six inches, this documentary’s subject is the tallest guy
playing in the N.B.A. And there are even more reasons he stands out. There’s
his name (Yao Ming),
his country of origin (China), and the language barrier between him and his
Houston Rockets teammates. While Year of the Yao tackles the big stuff (Ming’s
mad court skillz, along with his role as an emblem of China), it also points out
Ming’s more subtle victories in America, including a scene of Ming patronizing a
Taco Bell whose absurdity is so deadpan and deep it’s Jarmuschian. It’s “a
surprisingly layered portrait of a rookie with the hopes of a nation — a big
nation — riding on his shoulders, and the frustrations and small victories that
entails,” wrote G. Allen Johnson of the San Francisco Chronicle.
White Men
Can’t Jump
(1992, 72 percent)
Long
before the days of And1 mixtapes, White Men Can’t Jump brought the
tricks, the trash talk, and the crazy skills of streetballers to the mainstream.
Wesley Snipes and
Woody Harrelson star as a pair of hoops hustlers who, despite
mutual antipathy, team up to make some big money; Harrelson has gambling debts
to settle, and Snipes wants to move out of Watts. Director
Ron Shelton has made
a number of smart sports movies, and WMCJ is no exception. Featuring
excellent performances (especially
Rosie Perez as Harrelson’s brainiac
girlfriend), wickedly sharp dialogue, and air of melancholy, White Men Can’t
Jump is a movie about why people play sports; as Perez says, “Winning or
losing is all one organic globule, from which one extracts what one needs.”
“Basketball really isn’t the central theme. It is really about relationships,
loyalty and honesty, qualities in short supply among hustlers,” wrote Robert Roten of Laramie Movie Scope.
Finding Forrester (2000, 74 percent)
Fresh from his attention over
Good Will Hunting,
Gus Van Sant made
another film about an underprivileged prodigy. Instead of math, Jamal Wallace
(Rob Brown) is a whiz at hoops and writing. Aided by mentor William Forrester
(Sean Connery, playing a sort of Scottish J.D.
Salinger), Wallace survives the
pitfalls of a high school and finds his “voice.” Critics who were familiar
with Van Sant’s previous efforts in sexy-caustic surrealism weren’t as rapturous
about this feel-good, anti-fringe film. Yet, even in their criticism, many
still appreciated this effort. Kimberly Jones of the Austin Chronicle
called it “A nice-looking, nice-feeling exercise in conventionalism that sure
could use a couple of transvestites and maybe a house falling from the sky.”
(Bonus points for giving the world one of Connery’s greatest line readings:
“You’re the man now, dawg!”)
He Got
Game
(1998, 80 percent)
Spike Lee is both a
die-hard Knicks fan and a movie buff; he’s said that when he began work on He
Got Game, he wanted a talented baller who could act, not the other way
around. Ray Allen is a better shooting guard than a thespian (that’s not faint
praise, since he’s averaging 21.5 points per game for his NBA career), but he
holds his own as Jesus Shuttlesworth, a world-weary high schooler dealing with
the pressures of choosing the right college program. He also has to contend with
his father Jake (Denzel Washington), who’s been promised parole from prison if
he can convince Jesus to attend the state university. In addition to being a
sharp examination of the sketchier aspects of big-time college sports, He Got
Game also features some muscularly beautiful streetball scenes, set to Aaron
Copeland’s “Rodeo.” “Lee paints intimate characters who are about more than the
game,” wrote Robin Clifford of Reeling Reviews.
Love and
Basketball (2000, 82 percent)
With a
title that riffs on Al Green’s classic song, writer/director
Gina Prince-Bythewood
shows that happiness is an orange inflated ball in her 2000 debut. Starring
Sanaa Lathan as Monica and
Omar Epps as Qunicy, Love and Basketball follows the
romantic drama template of boy meets girl, girl hates boy, boy and girl go their
separate ways, which both happen to involve professional b-ball. The movie hits
major heights with Lathan’s rough, no-nonsense performance and Prince-Bythewood’s
driving direction, which finds the small details in her characters’ lives and the
middle class world they inhabit. Amy Taubin of the Village Voice called
it “the most passionate, clear-sighted movie ever made about women in sports.”
One
on One
(1976, 82 percent)
Robby
Benson and Annette O’Toole co-star in this story about a promising high school
hoops star that lands a college scholarship, only to find himself at odds with
his new teammates and ill-tempered coach. Expectations for freshman Henry
Steele (Benson) are quite lofty, and before long he finds he is unable to live
up to them. Complicating matters off the court is Henry’s reading disability,
but when he is finally assigned a tutor (O’Toole), he finds in her a source of
strength and the motivation he needs to prove himself worthy of his
scholarship. Written by Benson himself and his father, One on One was O’Toole’s
first major film role and features a young
Melanie Griffith as a hitchhiker.
The
Heart of the Game
(2006, 86 percent)
Critics widely described
this doc about a girls’ b-ball team in Seattle as the female equivalent to Hoop
Dreams — and that was probably the best compliment the film could have
received. Director
Ward Serrill followed around the Roosevelt Roughriders for
six seasons, capturing in that time their developments as players, teammates and
young women. William Arnold of the Seattle Times called Heart of the
Game “[a] funny, charming, subtly touching documentary that captures the
passion and excitement that can be involved in even the most minor league of
amateur sports.” Minor league? Well, that’s a reality check.
Hoosiers
(1987, 89 percent)
Widely considered the definitive high school basketball movie,
Hoosiers is also one
of the greatest underdog stories committed to celluloid.
Gene Hackman is Norman
Dale, a former college hoops coach known for his fierce temper and relentless
coaching methods who takes on a new assignment at a small-town high school.
With only seven players on his roster, he’s got problems from the get go, but as his
harsh discipline begins paying off in wins, he slowly earns the respect of his
team and the town.
Dennis Hopper puts in an Oscar-nominated performance as the
local drunk-turned-assistant coach, and the director-screenwriter team of
David Anspaugh and
Angelo Pizzo would later give us another highly acclaimed
inspirational sports film in Rudy. “Basketball movies don’t get any better,”
wrote James Berardinelli of ReelViews.
Hoop Dreams
(1994, 98 percent)
In
1987, Arthur Agee and William Gates enrolled in Chicago’s St. Joseph High
School, Isaiah Thomas’s alma mater, with hopes of one day following their famous
alumnus to the NBA. In Hoop Dreams, director
Steve James chronicles the careers
of these two young basketball stars, beginning with their recruitment in the
inner city by St. Joseph and culminating in dramatic playoff runs during their
senior year. However, this stunning documentary depicts more than just the
boys’ on-court achievements, delving into the social and economic issues faced
by inner city families and the often ruthless nature of the collegiate sports
culture. Hoop Dreams earned high praise from critics and viewers across the
board with its intimate and dramatic portraits, cementing its place in
groundbreaking basketball cinema. Steve Rhodes of Internet Reviews calls
it “filmmaking at its absolute best.”
Quantum
Hoops
(2007, 100 percent)
An
excellent documentary about an inept college team, Rick Greenwald’s Quantum
Hoops is the story of the Caltech Beavers, a squad that’s more likely to
produce a Nobel Prize winner than an NBA benchwarmer. The film follows the
team’s 2006 season, in which Caltech hopes to snap its 21-year losing
streak (the last time the team won, its opponent was led by none other than
Spurs coach Gregg Popovich, who bemusedly appears in the
film). But these guys aren’t just lovable underdogs. With eight high
school valedictorians (and zero high school basketball players) on the team,
it’s clear the Beavers are true student-athletes, and Quantum Hoops has
something to say about the skewed balance between sports and academics in modern
institutes of higher learning. Bruce Feld of Film Journal International
calls Quantum Hoops “an unpretentious but goodhearted tale of exceptional
intellectuals surviving a state of perpetual frustration.”
Written by Tim Ryan, Ryan Fujitani, Alex Vo, and Sara Schieron
