Customer Reviews

Gunnin' For That #1 Spot (Special 2 Disc Set)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Wow - Saw this at the Tribeca Film Festival in NYC. Great characters, the b-ball scenes were so well blended with music from Jay-Z and NAS and others. A great Doc as well as a great sports flic.

This movie was pretty cool. I liked how it showcased the backgrounds of several players, showing how hard they work to be as good as they are. My 8th graders can learn a thing or two on how to become a great player by watching some of the things these guys go through. The music was awesome. My wife was inspired as we have two daughters (2 and 5) who she would like to see play basketball. She was wondering if there's anything comparable for girls basketball?

The game itself was just okay. The guy kept saying "and they're playing defense" but the D was a joke, seriously save for a few swats and a couple steals. Blue was giving up the longball all day, no rotations to help, too much one on one. Still, you got guys who can't risk injury, guys trying to build a rep at the Rucker, so that's what you get. Could've done without so much slow motion in the game, and the triple replays. Some of it was done on to some mediocre plays, and some just lasted waaaay too long.

Overall it was a good watch. I'll be showing it to all my ball players and the kids I work with who play ball.

If you are a basketball player or fan, chances are you will enjoy "Gunnin' for that #1 Spot." This chronicles an elite group of 24 high school ballers who are invited to play an exhibition game in Harlem's famed Rucker Park.

All these kids are "beasts" in their respective orbits around the country, but here they get to test their mettle against other elite players. You learn the back-story on eight specific players, some of whom - like Kevin Love and Michael Beasley - have already jumped to the NBA after a one-year college "career." You also get some perspective on Rucker Park and its iconic status in American basketball.

The movie is not all hype job, though. It touches upon some darker issues in the scholastic hoop frenzy, such as:

* Elite players are scrutinized closely and often can't live just a normal life
* Some prep rating services are glorified cut and paste jobs, more concerned with generating subscription revenue than anything else
* Sneaker companies drilling down as far as promising 5th, 6th and 7th graders to "brand" their shoes and build brand loyalty
* College coaches who text players they have never met three times a day to say, "I love you and can't wait for you to come play here ..."
* The lack of loyalty among some players; to wit, in high school, Michael Beasley attended four different schools in four years.
* Concerns about whether perfecting highlight dunks on Sports Center may eclipse emphasis on other aspects of the game . (I'm not saying team defense is dead, but the final score of the exhibition game is something like 131-128 - judge for yourself.)

If you like hip-hop music and rap, you will also enjoy this movie!

This isn't an important film by any stretch of the imagination, but sports nuts and especially basketball fans will find it a fun watch. In September 2006 the top 24 high school basketball players in the country gathered in Harlem to inaugurate the first annual "Elite 24" all-star competition. The game is held at the legendary outdoor playground court in Harlem's Holcombe Rucker Park, where for sixty years many of basketball's greats lit up the score board in front of a raucous urban crowd, hecklers, urban rap music, and trash-talking announcers. This is a venue where you would never presume to give yourself a nickname; your opponents do that after you prove your mettle. The documentary focuses on eight high schoolers in particular, interviewing their families, coaches, and scouts. An interesting sub-text is how the attendant media, shoe companies, professional rankers, recruiters, and sponsors all point toward one thing -- money that results from basketball stardom. By the way, the final score was 141-139, but you'll have to watch the film to see which team won.

When I read New York Magazine's recommendation of Gunnin' as their top pick of the 300+ flicks at TriBeCa Film Festival, I took a couple days off from work just to check it out. It turned out to be a magical trip. The audience at Tribeca talked to the screen the way any good congregation does on a Sunday morning. Neal Usatin, the film's lead editor, got a particularly good reception when his credit floated on a ball across the screen. (Makes me think I should keep my eyes on his work.) I loved it so much I went back to NYC for its theatrical premier, just down the street from the Rucker in Harlem, to see how it had been tweaked. And I'm not even a basketball fan.

This film fits the way I think. It's fast, and like good comedic timing, presents the player's stories in a way that left me wanting more -- if I'm interested, I'll look it up. The imagery goes from Redacted-style website searches, to fisheye trips over and through NYC, VHS-quality home video, to YouTube footage and HD slow-mo. It's like every photographic and film experiment ever discovered, sampled and flashed before my eyes. On that level, it's the ultimate style collage.

I bought an educational license and showed it to my high school varsity basketball team. They rolled at Bobbito's nicknames (Shampoo!) the way only those who live it know how it sounds. In fact, they loved the soundtrack so much, I'm buying a copy so they can warm-up to it.

The stand-outs in my book are the bird's-eye, fisheye tour of New York to the smooth sounds of "Let's Do it Again" (on loop). The lens makes Manhattan seem like it's half the world. I love chapter 16's fisheye tour at ground-level; especially when the beat hits on the pigeon and taxi moving in opposite directions. Chapters like this in a movie make for perfect party background pieces. I show them to my friends who don't have time to see the whole movie, but know a good visual over a beat.

You could rent it, but this is also a great example of the artistry of packaging. It's a stand-out example of graphic design gone fine art. From the paper and ink choices, to the colors and the trading cards. (Would have been cooler if they'd been actual cards. Maybe an add-on purchase soon?), this is one of those instant classics that deserves to be in any film-lover's permanent collection.

Gunnin' for that #1 spot was a neat glimpse into the world of the top high school basketball players. The lives of the high school players was way more intense than I would have imagined. On the outside, they all seemed like your typical high school boys, but their passion and skills for the sport really set them apart from other high school students. The mere fact that they had college coaches and sponsors trying to recruit them all the time showed that these guys were on a completely different level than your average high school basketball player. The determination of the college coaches to have their chosen player recruited to join their school and play for them was really astounding. I didn't realize that so much effort went into recruiting high school players. The kids seemed way older than 17-18 years old because they had to deal with so much, and some of them had to make some really mature decisions regarding their futures.


The visual effects made the movie fresh and not monotonous. It was able to hold my attention and kept me wanting more. I feel like the visuals mixed with the music really added a lot to the documentary and made it even more entertaining. I absolutely loved the music all throughout the film.

Great Documentary & Funny to see these kids now are big NBA Stars !! A+++

It's almost hard to believe that this kind of film, so focused on the livelihood and future of a couple of teenagers, could actually ignore emotion completely. A very important topic, not completely neglected, just not focused on as much as I thought was necessary. I just thought it numbed how much emotion is actually put into these basketball players' games. From what I perceived from the film, basketball was most likely going to be these kid's main means of support. So what was to happen if they lost? Without the emotion of the players how are we supposed to relate to the film and genuinely understand how much basketball means to them? Not a complete miss, the characters were well explained otherwise, with statistics and coach support, also explaining how competitive High School basketball is. As a documentary you are allowed to get so personal with your subject, which is something the film COULD have accomplished easily.