News

Updated with new release date in New York of Nov. 3.

Exclusive: Greenwich Entertainment is maintaining a brisk pace of acquisitions. A day after picking up North American rights to the TIFF premiere documentary Sorry/Not Sorry, the independent distributor announced it has partnered with Kanopy to acquire U.S. and Canadian rights to the feature doc Subject.

Jennifer Tiexiera and Camilla Hall produced and directed the film, which premiered at the 2022 Tribeca Festival. Greenwich plans to open the film in theaters in New York and Los Angeles on November 3, while Kanopy will host a pre-theatrical screening and Q&a with the filmmakers online through public and college libraries. Tvod/DVD, college and public library streaming kicks off December 5.

“Subject goes behind the scenes of such famous nonfiction stories as Hoop Dreams, Capturing the Friedmans, The Wolfpack, The Square and The Staircase to explore the often murky ethical dilemmas and complex...

We all construct narratives about our lives, drafting and redrafting them with friends, family and ourselves. But what if they were packaged by a documentarian and broadcast on Netflix, a streaming platform with 230 million subscribers across 190 countries? How would it affect you, and would anyone care? This is the subject of Subject, a documentary about documentaries, and it is a process that Margie Ratliff knows all too well.

Ratliff was in her early twenties when she appeared in The Staircase, a documentary series about the trial of her father Michael Peterson, who was charged, convicted, and then released for the murder of his wife, Kathleen. In the interest of ‘transparency’, Peterson invited cameras into the trial and into Ratliff’s life, exposing her confusion and anguish for all to see. “I can’t tell you how painful it is,” says Ratliff, now in her 40s, “…reliving my mum’s death over and over again.

The subjects of The Staircase, Hoop Dreams, Capturing the Friedmans and others contribute to this thoughtful film about the duty of care film-makers owe those whose stories they tell

If you’ve seen the sensational true crime documentary series The Staircase, you’ll know the story. In 2001, after Kathleen Peterson was found dead at the bottom of the stairs at her home in North Carolina, police suspicion turned to her novelist husband Michael Peterson. When he allowed a documentary team to film what happened next, Peterson said it was because he was worried about getting a fair trial. His adopted daughter, Margaret Ratliff, 20 at the time, grief-stricken and terrified that her dad could be facing the death penalty, agreed to be part of the film. The loss of her privacy in the years since has been devastating, she admits now. “I can’t tell you how painful it is, reliving...

The relationship between documentary subject and documentarian has been fraught with conflict since the genre’s evolution beyond “actualities” and into a narrative format pioneered by Robert Flaherty. Interrogating what it means to become a “subject” in a documentary film that ultimately takes on a life and a folklore of its own, Jennifer Tiexiera and Camilla Hall have created an essential exploration of ethics with Subject.

It’s a code of ethics that some of the film’s scholars, critics, and festival programmers argue is needed more than ever in an era when nonfiction content is more in demand from all major streamers. For some, their story grows over time—like Margaret Ratliff, who as a teen agreed to participate in a documentary about the death of her mother and the murder conviction of her father, novelist Michael Peterson. She originally agreed to participate in the series to support her...

Documentaries are often crafted to explore the social issues of the world, either with an aim to simply bring these issues to light or in the hope of highlighting injustices in need of a fix. Some are made to inform and others, like any movie, to entertain. But what are the moral and ethical responsibilities of a documentary? What do their makers owe their real-life subjects? What does anyone? Such are the questions posited in Camilla Hall and Jennifer Tiexiera’s insightful documentary “Subject.”

to examine how they use their participants to craft a compelling narrative. But what does the word “compelling” mean when it involves real people and often the very real trauma of their lives? The directors attempt to answer this by following several prominent documentary participants, touching on their lives in the wake of becoming public figures through a documentary.

Margie Ratliff, daughter of convicted murderer Michael Peterson...

For anyone aiming to be a documentary filmmaker, Jennifer Tiexiera and Camilla Hall’s 90-minute doc “Subject” should be required viewing. “Subject” explores the ethical responsibilities nonfiction filmmakers face when they decide to capture people, often at their most vulnerable, thereby forever locking them in a moment in time that will live on through the ages no matter how much a person grows or changes.

Tiexiera (“P.S. Burn This Letter Please”) and Hall (“Copwatch”) focus on some of the most successful documentaries of the past three decades and the “stars” they created and left in their wake. The directing duo explore the psychological impact of being unpaid key participants in commercially successful projects including “The Staircase,” “Hoop Dreams,” ” Wolfpack,” “The Square” and “Capturing the Friedmans.” Below, Tiexiera and Hall discuss the making of the documentary before its June 11 premiere at Tribeca.

What made you want to make this documentary?...

Kanye West has become possibly the world’s most famous and revered rap star, dominating headlines with his music and his personal life. But there was a time – hard as it is to imagine – when he was pegged as “just” a great record producer, and not a performer in his own right.

The Netflix docuseries Jeen-yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy dials back to that time when Ye (as he calls himself now) struggled to be taken seriously as a solo artist. The series is directed by Coodie Simmons and Chike Ozah, who made some of West’s most important music videos. Simmons grew up in Chicago, as did Kanye, and began shooting video of West back in the late 1990s, well before the rapper released his first solo album.

Contenders TV Docs + Unscripted: — Deadline’s Complete Coverage

“To actually start documenting him, what inspired me was Hoop Dreams, the documentary...

Lena Waithe’s Hillman Grad Productions — the company the actor/writer/producer founded with Rishi Rajani — now has an exclusive, multi-year deal with Warner Bros. Television Group. At Wbtvg, Waithe and Rajani will develop television projects for, according to the announcement, “all platforms, including WarnerMedia’s HBO Max, external streaming services, cable and the five broadcast networks.”

Hillman Grad’s previous deal was with Amazon Studios, but moved to Wbtvg after a “highly competitive situation.” The terms were not disclosed.

Waithe’s first project in the new pact will be to develop “Hoop Dreams” as a scripted drama, with Aaron Rahsaan Thomas (“S.W.A.T.”) set to executive produce and write.

Yes, director Steve James’ 1994 movie “Hoop Dreams” — the documentary that changed documentaries — is getting a scripted adaptation more than 27 years after it won the Sundance Film Festival’s audience award for best documentary. Waithe and Rajani will executive produce, as will Colin Callender,...

Lena Waithe has signed a big exclusive overall deal with Warner Bros. Television Group. The studio landed the producer, actor and Emmy-winning writer and her Hillman Grad Productions in a very competitive situation.

Under the multi-year pact, Waithe and partner Rishi Rajani will produce new television programming through Hillman Grad for all platforms, including WarnerMedia’s HBO Max, external streaming services, cable, and the five broadcast networks.

In her first project under the deal, Waithe is developing a scripted drama inspired by the landmark documentary film Hoop Dreams, which was directed by Steve James, and produced by James, Peter Gilbert, and Frederick Marx.

Written by Aaron Rahsaan Thomas, the coming-of-age drama would be following two African American teenage boys in 1990s Chicago experiencing the privileges and pitfalls of being high school basketball phenoms at the height of the Jordan era, and the start of high school players turning pro.

To mark the release of Hoop Dreams on 2nd November, we’ve been given 3 copies to give away on Blu-ray.

For five years filmmakers Steve James, Frederick Marx, and Peter Gilbert followed William Gates and Arthur Agee, two inner-city Chicago teenagers, documenting their journey of fulfilling their dreams of making it to the NBA. Every day the boys travel 90 minutes each way from their city homes to St. Joseph High School in Westchester, Illinois, a predominately white suburban school famed for its basketball programme. The resulting film, Hoop Dreams, chronicled Gates and Agee’s daily struggles with school, family, and community pressures as they attempt to reach their goal of professional basketball fame and glory. Breaking the barriers of a sports film, Hoop Dreams addressed issues of race, class, and privilege, and provided a rare insight into the industry of professional sport.

Please note: This competition is open to UK...

"It begins with a game with a basket and a ball..." Dogwoof has released the original trailer for their new Blu-ray re-release of the classic, seminal documentary film Hoop Dreams made by the one-and-only doc filmmaker Steve James. The film originally premiered at the 1994 Sundance Film Festival, and remains one of the most iconic and groundbreaking films to come out of Sundance. Shot over five years, Hoop Dreams is a fascinating documentary film following the lives of two inner-city Chicago boys who struggle to become college basketball players on the road to going professional. It's about Arthur Agee and William Gates, and their families, following as the boys navigate the complex, competitive world of scholastic athletics. Roger Ebert praised the film, and wrote this in his review: "Hoop Dreams is not simply about basketball. It is about the texture and reality of daily existence in a big American city. And...

The absence of live sports during the novel coronavirus pandemic doesn’t mean a dearth of interesting sports narratives. There’s a whole ecosystem of documentaries telling tales from in and around the world of athletics that many sports fans have yet to discover.

The Last Dance, ESPN’s 10-part saga chronicling the final season of Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls championship dynasty, already has its hooks into hungry hoop heads. Den of Geek also recently offered choice selections from the meaty back catalog of docs available on ESPN+.

The 30 for 30 collection from ESPN is great and all, but the Worldwide Leader hasn’t cornered the market on brilliant non-fiction sports storytelling. Consider these 10 must-watch sports documentaries, all of which can be found either for free or included in streaming subscriptions, if you’re looking for more fascinating sports stories until the live action resumes.

Hoop Dreams

Streaming on HBO Now...

Movies which centre their stories on competitive sports will always find an eager audience at the cinema. They are often filled with drama, heart-stopping action, and perfectly capture the ever swinging emotional pendulum of hope and fear.

And whether the sports are played in a high school gym or a stadium filled with thousands and millions more watching on at home, the conflict and fortitude necessary to win against the odds will always resonate with us. This is exactly what excites sports fans too, with the online sports betting community at an all-time high with NBA odds being constantly updated.

Here we celebrate the some inspirational Basketball movies.

Hoop Dreams

Few documentaries have captured the rawness of hope better than Steve James and Frederick Marx’s Hoop Dreams. Originally planned as a half hour PBS special on two African-American Chicago high schoolers as they chase their dreams of playing professional basketball,...

This heartfelt and affecting film follows two teenagers chasing scholarships that hold out the chance of a brighter future

Twenty-five years ago, documentary-maker Steve James had a sensational success with his engrossing and moving film Hoop Dreams, now on rerelease in the UK. It was his epic three-hour study of two African American boys from tough neighbourhoods in Chicago: Arthur Agee and William Gates, whose heartbreakingly open, intelligent, trusting and hopeful faces beamed out from the screen. James boiled down 250 hours of footage shot over five years, showing them growing up from 14 to 19 years old; both basketball-mad, both hoping for basketball scholarships to college and to a dimly perceived better life after that, maybe even being actual super-rich-and-famous basketball stars in the NBA.

Hoop Dreams received the kind of passionate response that Michael Apted had got for his Seven Up! documentary TV series or that Richard Linklater would later get...

In a bit of pointed counterprogramming, Netflix released its latest original film “Amateur” — about a 14-year old basketball prodigy who gets recruited by a shady prep-school athletics program — in the middle of March Madness. The Ncaa has taken a lot of heat for its systemic exploitation of young college players, offering them academic scholarships but then forcing them to sideline their education in order to play ball full time, making the school millions in the process.

Based on his short film of the same name, Ryan Koo’s “Amateur” explores not only the corrupt business of athletic recruitment, but how those recruiters are targeting younger and younger players, forcing them to make difficult life-defining decisions before they’re even in high school — decisions that are often offered in bad faith. Given that the film is executive produced by current NBA superstar Tony Parker and former NBA All Star Michael Finley,...

Joe Swanberg has had one of the more interesting career upswings of any independent filmmaker out there. After being one of the essential founders of the mumblecore indie movement, he made a right turn of sorts a few years back. Opting for bigger stars and similarly simple premises, he’s found more acclaim than ever before. Between Drinking Buddies, Happy Christmas, and Digging for Fire, Swanberg is as exciting a writer/director as ever before. Most recently, Swanberg has teamed up again with frequent collaborator Jake Johnson for Win It All, a film that at once feels both different and similar than what he’s been up to lately. Above all else, it’s a great vehicle for Johnson, who does his best work when paired with Swanberg. The flick is a character study, centered on gambler Eddie Garrett (Johnson). He’s broke, but charming. A nice guy unable to resist a card game,...

Chicago – It has been 22 years since one of the greatest documentaries in film history was released, and it was created right here in Chicago by Kartemquin Films. “Hoop Dreams,” produced by Gordon Quinn (among others) and directed by Steve James, was a turning point for Kartemquin, which had at the time been making socially focused docs for over 30 years. As part of the film company’s 50th anniversary, Gordon Quinn revisits the groundbreaking film.

“Hoop Dreams” (1994) was the story of high schoolers William Gates and Arthur Agee, as they and their families experience the ups and downs of their path to basketball glory. Filmed as a fly-on-the-wall series of events, the documentary is a fascinating and emotional narrative on the levels of fulfillment in sports and in life. Snubbed at the Academy Awards for Best Documentary (it did get a nomination for Best Editing), the film earned a status as...

The editor of the BBC’s Storyville and executive producer of the award-winning India’s Daughter on the richness of today’s documentary film-making

• Ten film-makers’ choices of the 50 documentaries you need to see

Documentaries have acquired a certain chic in recent years. No longer the worthy exclusive property of public television, they’re seen in cinemas and online, at festivals and at gala screenings. Nowadays the likes of Sean Penn and Leonardo DiCaprio want to be executive producers. From a perch at the BBC, I’ve watched this transformation for the past 20-odd years. I can recall shoving a cassette of Hoop Dreams into a Vcr in 1994. I’d been told that the film was nearly three hours long, and would change the way I looked at things. I balked at the length and required persuasion, but I rapidly became immersed in the basketball lives of William Gates and Arthur Agee,...

When was the time you first felt that movies made from real life could be more entertaining, powerful and profound than fiction? For me it was seeing Hoop Dreams upon its release in 1994. At the time Forrest Gump and Pulp Fiction were the rage, breaking new ground in Hollywood with their respective use of special effects and postmodern non-linear narrative. Compared to the four decade sweep and CGI-spangled splendor of Forrest Gump's American epic, Hoop Dreams relies on grainy video to track four years in the lives of William Gates and Arthur Agee, two high school basketball stars in pursuit of their American Dream to play in the NBA.>> - Kevin B. Lee...

When was the time you first felt that movies made from real life could be more entertaining, powerful and profound than fiction? For me it was seeing Hoop Dreams upon its release in 1994. At the time Forrest Gump and Pulp Fiction were the rage, breaking new ground in Hollywood with their respective use of special effects and postmodern non-linear narrative. Compared to the four decade sweep and CGI-spangled splendor of Forrest Gump's American epic, Hoop Dreams relies on grainy video to track four years in the lives of William Gates and Arthur Agee, two high school basketball stars in pursuit of their American Dream to play in the NBA.>> - Kevin B. Lee...

“This is one of the best films about American life that I have ever seen”, Roger Ebert famously stated during the first of many reviews of director Steve James, cinematographer Peter Gilbert and editor Frederick Marx’s still remarkable basketball documentary, Hoop Dreams, on Siskel & Ebert over the course of the film’s 1994-95 run. Having set out to make a film on street basketball players in Chicago during the mid-80s, the fledgling filmmakers never could have conceived of the vast narrative of American life’s unpredictable twists and turns that Ebert so staunchly spoke of. Today, now over two decades old, restored by the Academy which originally snubbed it so shamefully back in 1995, it looks better than it ever has and still rings of supreme cultural relevancy within the interweavings of sport, family, education and poverty.

At its core, Hoop Dreams is essentially a parable for the American dream itself.

Few things are more exciting for hardcore cinephiles than the semi-annual Barnes and Noble Criterion sale. For a few precious weeks a year, super high-quality Blu-Rays of obscure and influential classic films are on the relative cheap. Most noteworthy: they look really, Really pretty.

Most Criterion-heads are lining up to pick up A Hard Day’s Night, Red River, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, and other newer (fiction) releases—as they should because they’re all awesome releases. But how about a little love for the documentary?

Maybe you don’t think docs have a ton of rewatch value, and maybe you’re right in some cases. Criterion’s A+ supplements and video quality—not to mention the timelessness of the films they choose—ought to be enough to sway you in the right direction. But if they aren’t, we’re diving a little deeper into ten of the best Criterion documentaries ever.

This weekend, as you search for a movie to watch, you can go see Million Dollar Arm, then pick one of approximately 14 billion options available on streaming over a variety of services, be it Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, On Demand, or other sites. Every Friday, Vulture tries to make life easier by narrowing it down to a handful of heartily recommended options. This week, a modern classic documentary, one of the rare bicycle dramas, and the life story of a boxer who fought a bear.Hoop Dreams (Stream on Hulu, Netflix, rent from iTunes, Vudu, Amazon) To this day, the Academy Awards' most egregious oversight was failing to even nominate Steve James's three-hour high-school basketball film for Best Documentary (Roger Ebert's investigation of why voters unanimously turned off Hoop Dreams after 20 minutes will make you weep). James follows teenagers Arthur Agee and William Gates as they weave through the grind...

Full Frame has announced that the festival will screen a collection of Steve James' highly regarded films over the course of the four-day event, and will welcome a variety of subjects featured in these works for Q&As. Arthur Agee, Jr. (Hoop Dreams), Ameena Matthews (The Interrupters), and Reverend Carroll Pickett (At the Death House Door) are expected to attend, along with many of James’s collaborators from Kartemquin Films. Full Frame will also feature “Hoop Dreams at 20,” a panel conversation in celebration of the landmark documentary’s 20th anniversary that will feature outtakes, insider commentary, and special guests. "I'm excited to have so many of my films...

Sundance Institute today announced that the newly-restored, acclaimed documentary Hoop Dreams will screen in the "From the Collection" program at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival, 20 years after the film made its world premiere at the 1994 Festival.  The recently completed restoration represents the collaborative effort of Sundance Institute, UCLA Film & Television Archive, the Academy Film Archive and Kartemquin Films. Filmmakers Steve James, Peter Gilbert and Frederick Marx and subject Arthur Agee are expected to participate in an extended Q&A immediately following the January 20 screening. The 2014 Festival will be January 16-26 in Park City,...

Festival top brass will mark the 20th anniversary of Steve James’ celebrated basketball documentary with a screening in From The Collection.

Hoop Dreams premiered in Park City in 1994 where it won the audience award for best documentary.

The film has been restored under the auspices of the Sundance Institute, UCLA Film & Television Archive, the Academy Film Archive and Kartemquin Films.

Film-makers James, Peter Gilbert and Frederick Marx and subject Arthur Agee are expected to participate in an extended Q&A following the January 20 screening.

“Hoop Dreams completely changed the way we experience documentary films and the stories they tell,” said Sundance senior programmer John Nein. “And that profound impact is still being felt 20 years later.”...

Fighting, dying, hoping, hating … great sports films are about far more than sport itself. Here Guardian and Observer critics pick their 10 best

• Top 10 superhero movies

• Top 10 westerns

• Top 10 documentaries

• Top 10 movie adaptations

• Top 10 animated movies

• Top 10 silent movies

• More Guardian and Observer critics' top 10s

10. This Sporting Life

Lindsay Anderson brought to bear on his adaptation of David Storey's first novel, all the poetic-realist instincts he had been honing for the previous decade as a documentarian in the Humphrey Jennings mould. (Anderson had won the 1953 best doc Oscar for Thursday's Children.) Filmed partly in Halifax and Leeds, but mainly in and around Wakefield Trinity Rugby League Club, one of its incidental attractions is its record of a northern, working-class sports culture that would change out of all recognition over the next couple of decades.

The story of Frank Machin, a miner who becomes a star on the rugby field,...

Article by Dan Clark of Movie Revolt

Welcome to the first installment of Streaming for Your Pleasure where I highlight interesting and unique films now available on Netflix streaming. In each segment I will focus on one major overall category – this first time round I am looking at some intriguing documentaries that are worth checking out.

Chasing Ghosts: Beyond the Arcade

Directed By Lincoln Ruchti

Synopsis: At the unassuming Twin Galaxies arcade in Ottumwa, Iowa, early gamers fought for bragging rights at the 1982 Video Game World Championships. See how competitive gaming started, and meet arcade owner Walter Day, who still oversees scoring.

Why You Should Check It Out: There is just something about that arcade experience that I really miss. Today’s online gaming world is full of foul mouth preteen kids mocking you in almost every turn. Back in the day those kids were standing right next to you...

We're picking out your finest responses to our My favourite film series, for which Guardian writers have selected the movies they go back to time and again.

Here's a roundup of how you responded in week three, when the selections were American Splendor, The Red Shoes, The Princess Bride, Rio Bravo and Hoop Dreams

Who was Harvey Pekar? He was a grouch, a slouch, a miserablist. He griped and bitched about everything. But he did it in style. And he did it publicly, through American Splendor – a series of autobiographical comic books and the subsequent movie adaptation, which Amy Fleming chose to open the third week of our My favourite film series.

"Harvey didn't do happy," wrote Amy. "But he did funny and truth, and so does this movie – beautifully." Robert Pulcini and Shari Springer Berman's film was a cinematic holiday from Hollywood's gloss and fantasy, she said. Trudging around,...

In our writers' favourite films series, Christian Bennett explains why the story of two teenagers aiming to make it big in basketball is a slam dunk of a documentary

• Did this review miss the hoop? Score on the rebound with your own attempt – or prepare for a basketbrawl in the comments

For a 17-year-old, the prospect of legitimately missing a few hours of college and going to the cinema was always appealing. So with the blessing of our tutors, a group of us folded ourselves into my F-reg Austin Metro, cranked up Elastica on the tape deck, and made the short trip across Sheffield to attend Newcomers Day at the the Showroom cinema, home to what was then a relatively new documentary festival. The curators had scheduled two features to inspire prospective young film-makers. Despite getting into a spirited – and still unresolved – argument mid-film about the motivations of the baliff in Roger and Me,...

Current's countdown of 50 Documentaries to See Before You Die ends tonight, and it will name Hoop Dreams as its number-one pick. The film is a 1994 documentary about two black teenagers recruited to play basketball at a suburban Chicago high school, and on the conclusion of the special tonight, Morgan Spurlock will talk to its stars, Arthur Agee and William Gates. (Spurlock's own Super Size Me is number five on the list.) The rest...

The Duke's grandson Brendan gets the Wayne family back in the saddle, while comic horror Attack the Block takes on new significance in the wake of the UK riots

Wayne's world

A piece of the old west lives on in the blockbuster Cowboys & Aliens, in which a spaceship lands in an Arizona town in 1873. Manning up in the posse alongside Hollywood stars Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford is a certain Brendan Wayne, grandson of cowboy legend John Wayne. California-born Brendan grew up on rodeos and film sets and does all his own stunts playing Deputy Lyle in the new film, finally fulfilling a boyhood dream hatched while watching Duke on set in the original True Grit. Having decided late to study acting at university, Brendan even majored in his grandfather's movies. Now married to an actress and with three daughters, Brendan owns two horses, Out of Money and Deuces, neither...

They are the shock troops in the city's battle against endemic street violence – peacemakers who once lived by the gun. As a documentary on their work reaches cinemas, we visit Chicago to see the campaigners in action

On the stoop of a house on a dilapidated block in Englewood, the south side Chicago neighbourhood that tops the city's statistics for murder, drug addiction, teen pregnancy and most of other indices of social dysfunction, are eight young African-American men and two or three women. It's an oven-hot summer afternoon and the group is kicking back, drinking, shouting and laughing.

"I don't like crowd scenes," says Shango, a member of the city's anti-violence project, CeaseFire, as we pull up outside. He explains that such gatherings increase the chances of becoming a victim of a drive-by shooting.

The street we're in stands in the middle of a few blocks that have seen three murders in recent days,...

This one is coming up late, due to Criterion jam packing a ton of releases on Friday, right while I was finishing up the original post. I think they wanted to mess with me, which is very funny. But being the premier (and only) site that gives you the best coverage of Hulu Plus movies, I don’t mind taking the time at all. I’m hoping it has nothing to do with the recent shake-up going on that Josh just reported on the other day (here), and with Hulu wanting to be bought because of financial problems stemming from multiple sources, this makes one wonder what’s going to happen to the Criterion Collection and their deal with Hulu. I’m crossing my fingers that whoever buys the service, be it Amazon, Google or Yahoo (who is the frontrunner), it doesn’t ruin the deal in place for Criterion and its films.

This spring no less than three British-made sports documentaries get a cinematic release. Does this mark the start of a new relationship between sport and film?

Sport and cinema have been uneasy bedfellows over the years, their dual history mapped out by a series of rather awkward public conjoinings. Football has long been something close to a running joke on film, its high points restricted to the Brian Glover Pe teacher bits in Kes, the luminous pre-modern internationalism of Escape to Victory, and any action movie in which geezer-for-hire and former Wimbledon clogger Vinnie Jones takes a beating.

Perhaps sport and film stand apart as poles: an oil-and-water collision of the loud, the outdoor and the boisterous with the dimly lit, the indoor and the ruminative. That might be about to change. This month three British-made sporting documentaries have had a cinematic release. Two are cricket films: From the Ashes...

[From the Editor: I'm publishing this Mother's Day list tonight, before the holiday, so that readers will have the opportunity to head out to their local video store, and get these films before their Sunday viewing. That is assuming, of course, that you still have a local video store. I'll link to the Hulu Plus / Netflix pages under the films. I'm also linking the covers to their corresponding Amazon pages. Don't forget, many of them are still on sale right now!]

Mother’s Day weekend, besides being one of those pleasant harbingers of spring and typically the occasion for a time of family togetherness, can also be a bit of an awkward time for your typical film geek. Sure, some of us have awesome moms and we enjoy the opportunity to let her know just how wonderful and special she is to us. But let’s admit it, parental relationships also create their share of awkwardness and tension. Even though none of us came into this world by any other route than through our mother, things happen along the way in that pivotal mother-child attachment that tend to complicate the situation going forward.

So even though today is an occasion to celebrate all those wonderful characteristics about Mom that we love and appreciate so much, there’s always more to the story. Let’s take a stroll through a few of the many moods of Motherhood,...

Today, fifteen years after I first saw it, I believe "Hoop Dreams" is the great American documentary. No other documentary has ever touched me more deeply. It was relevant then, and today, as inner city neighborhoods sink deeper into the despair of children murdering children, it is more relevant. It tells the stories of two 14-year-olds, Arthur Agee and William Gates, how they dreamed of stardom in the NBA, and how basketball changed their lives. Basketball, and this film.

Photo copyright by Roka Walsh. Used with permission

"Hoop Dreams" observed its 15th anniversary Wednesday night at the Gene Siskel Film Center. Agee and Gates were both there. Gates, now a minister, observed that in one period of time he buried 20 victims of gang violence, 16 of them under 16. Agee said when he looks at his friends in the film today, "ten of them are no longer with us." Yet there they sat,...

Gilbert Reveals Anxieties, Triumphs Over “Hoop Dreams”

The 1994 film Hoop Dreams is the product of uncompromising persistence and hard work from a very small group of people who made the success of the project possible. Directed by Steve James and Produced/Photographed by Peter Gilbert originally as a 30 minute segment for PBS, the cinema verite docu-drama turned into much more than the filmmakers had hoped for. The concept of the film which involves following two inner-city basketball players who hope to one day play in the N.B.A. was supported by a social documentary organization established in 1966 called Kartemquin, which produces films that follow and examine real people to serve as critical social commentary. Funding for the film came from the National Endowment for the Arts and PBS in the amount of just five thousand dollars. Over 250 hours of footage resulted and the filmmakers scrambled in the editing room...