rbischoff

I sincerely tried to watch this series because of the good buzz from the critics, but finally gave up after watching the first 5-6 episodes. It was very painful and took much willpower to make it that far.

Unfortunately, I remember the 50s and 60s very well. Far from being a wonderful time, they were, as the series suggests, full of stupid actions and opinions---smoking, racial prejudice, gender prejudice, etc. But I don't need to be reminded of that.

Beyond that, the plots, such as they are, are dull, slow-moving and predictable. Which leads one to ask, "If I don't like the characters or the premise, and nothing is happening, why am I watching?"

The overall effect of the series is like that of movies where special effects are overused, thinking they will wow watchers to such an extent that they will forget about the lack of plot. Simply having everyone smoke and wear ugly 60s clothing while sitting on ugly 60s furniture and spouting uninformed, narrow viewpoints isn't enough to hold viewer interest. At least not mine.

Acting on a neighbor's recommendation, my wife and I went to see "streetballers" during its premier week. Our verdict? "WOW!" I can say with little fear of contradiction that this film is an event completely unprecedented in St. Louis history. Not only was it SHOT in St. Louis, but ALL the talent--cinematographers (gorgeous shots!), soundtrack (original songs!), editing--in fact, ALL creative and every other kind of work was performed by St. Louis locals. This film is a complete St. Louis production.

Local production doesn't necessarily translate to high quality, of course. There are many St. Louis residents who could produce SOME kind of film using strictly local talent and resources, but--and here's the kicker--"streetballers" has truly world-class production values! Let me repeat, world-class! The film, despite being shot on an unbelievably small budget of $1.5 million (movies of this quality require budgets of $25-50 million) has absolutely no low-cost "indie" feel to it. Although Matt Krentz originally wrote the screenplay about 7 years ago, it took him until now to: shop it around to all the major studios, who liked it but turned him down because he was too young, didn't have a "big name", and has never been to film school; decide to do it himself; raise the money; put together a production company; and, finally, to actually make the movie.

Some St. Louis folks have already seen "streetballers", since it was screened during SLIFF (the St. Louis International Film Festival), where it won the top award for audience choice, outscoring previous years' winners "Slumdog Millionaire" and "Juno." This weekend was its first actual opening in theaters, two of which are in St. Louis.

We simply can't recommend "streetballers" highly enough. Our only caveat is that the language is more than a little rough at times, if your ears are easily offended. (Think "Spike Lee" film--and "streetballers" doesn't suffer by the comparison!) We purchased the soundtrack CD at the showing, and have pre-ordered a DVD of the movie itself on their website. The website also contains an amazing amount of information on all the people involved. (Did you know that one of the stars, Jimmy McKinney, was a basketball star at the University of Missouri from 2003-2006? Many of the players have similarly astounding court skills.) By the way, the schoolyard where the protagonist practices his basketball is behind Sigel Elementary, located in McKinley Heights on Allen at Serbian Way. The girl's house is on Russell at the corner.

Just saw this movie Saturday night at an Italian film festival. It came out in Feb. 2009 and was nominated for and won several awards. There are numerous interwoven stories, with a talented cast of veteran actors who are perfectly chosen for their parts. Filled with episodes of both roll-on-the-floor hilarity and tears-in-the-eyes poignancy. Best movie of any kind, in any language, that we've seen in the last couple of years. If only it were easier to rent (from Netflix, Blockbuster, etc.) or in general distribution in U.S. theaters! The only way to get a copy that I can find is on Amazon--at $30+ for Region 2 (Europe) DVD! The soundtrack is terrific, too. All in all, a perfectly put together movie. Not sure why the 312 IMDb.com ratings thus far average only 6.3...