Hoop Dreams (1994)**** (out of 4)Wonderful documentary from Steve James who spent nearly five years with teenagers William Gates and Arthur Agee, two kids dreaming of making it up through the ranks of basketball and getting into the NBA one day. HOOP DREAMS is one of the most respected documentaries ever made and I hadn't seen it since it was originally released but this second viewer really made it clear how well this thing has held up over the years and what a remarkable piece of work it actually is. Obviously, since I was just fourteen when I originally viewed the film the entire thing really didn't hit home as well as it did today, when I'm older and understand the ups and downs of life. It's just so strange to see a documentary on people you don't know that can hold your attention for nearly three hours. Throughout that time we follow their careers through high school where both struggle with their grades and this impacts what their future might hold because of needing to reach a certain level to be eligible to get into college. We also get to see their home lives, which aren't always the best due to being in poor incomes where we even learn that their power and gas has been turned off. What works so well with this film is that it really gives you a clear portrait of life in general. I don't see how anyone could watch this film and not feel or understand what these two kids are going through and at the same time you really cheer for them even if you see some of the paint on the wall saying that things aren't going to turn out as planned. It's rare for a film to be insightful, heartbreaking and uplifting at the same time but HOOP DREAMS is quite a remarkable little gem.

Plan and simple, the Oscars should have been shut down for good when this film was ignored. A basketball fanatic, I remember being quite taken with Hoop dreams at age 14 not as a "basketball" or "sports" film, but as a human drama I would never forget.Today, as a daily and documentary photojournalist, I am equally taken not just by the excellent and dense human story, but also by the absolute and unwavering commitment by the filmmakers to see this film through from beginning to end.This movie proves there is no greater honor you can earn in Hollywood, than to never win an Oscar.

I'd heard a lot about this documentary, but had never seen it. I've even read comments by few people calling it their favourite film, "even though it's a documentary" (as if that was a bad thing!). It's understandable to see why this film speaks to the hearts of so many people."Hoop Dreams" follows two teenaged Chicago residents, Arthur Agee and William Gates, and their dreams of becoming professional basketball players - more than that, basketball superstars a la Michael Jordan. From their first year of high school until they start college, we observe all of the expectations, efforts, joy, disappointments, and numerous obstacles that make their journey.Will Agee and Gates manage to overcome all the obstacles and become more than most of their peers even dream to achieve? The suspense is well-built through clever editing and a good sense of rhythm, pace and storytelling (documenting is also storytelling, after all), and the film doesn't feel 170 minutes long. By the end, you realize you've watched two real people growing up and doing what they can or cannot - failing and trying again - to achieve their goals and dreams, no matter what are the odds imposed by their economical and social backgrounds. Hoop Dreams come(s) true as both a slice of life and a fascinating socio-anthropological study. Not bad for a 'basketball documentary'.

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.