The Basketball Diaries
by Scott Kalvert
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: James Madio, Leonardo DiCaprio, Lorraine Bracco, Marilyn Sokol, Patrick McGawDirector: Scott Kalvert
Brand: Team Marketing
Producer: Chris Blackwell
Producer: Dan Genetti
Producer: John Bard Manulis
Producer: Kathie Hersch
Producer: Liz Heller
Writer: Bryan Goluboff
Writer: Jim Carroll
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 102 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2004-10-19
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Palm Pictures / Umvd
Product features:
- Classic DVD
- Exclusive interviews, highlights, and behind the scenes coverage
- DVD's main menu allow you to jump directly to the action
- Presented in full-screen digital video
Movie Reviews of The Basketball Diaries
Movie Review: Excellent, why else would I be buying it?
Summary: 5 Stars
I watched this movie many years ago. I knew who Jim Carroll was long before I ever heard of The Basketball Diaries. When I saw the movie I did not even realize that Jim had actually written these diaries. Personally I love reading other peoples diaries or watching them on a movie. It makes me feel good to know that other people out there are just like me. Don't get me wrong I have never been hooked on heroin, but I was once in the "major" partying scene for a very long period in my life. I knew several people who were hooked on heroin. I chose at an early age not to do heroin, partly because it scared me and partly because my best friend told me she would kick my a** if I did (she saw what it did to her two sisters). I was a little surprised at the Amazon review. Maybe the guy is really young because everyone I know who has seen this movie knew who Jim Carroll was, even my sister who is 9 years younger than me and all her friends. Considering that she grew up in the 90's I think that says a lot for Jim Carroll. I am buying this movie because I have two sons, ages 9 and 11 and soon enough they will need a little taste of "the real world". We live in a small community and there is not much "reality" when it comes to the world of drugs. They have their annual drug talk and come home and tell my husband he is using drugs when he drinks a beer with a friend. I am the real "druggie" in the household since I actually smoke cigarettes everyday (God forbid!). This is what this town sees and thinks of drugs and that culture. This movie is perfect for showing what actually happens. Yeah, drugs are a lot of fun. I am admitting the cold hard truth. But everyone has to pay the piper, yeah I guess that is kind of a pun. You stay with the peers and the drug culture, the clubs, the bars, the apartments and yes, even the basketball courts and the drugs will bring you down. I find it amazing that there are actual people in this world who still care enough for other people to work hard to get them out of the drug scene. Most people I know have just had to remove themselves from the scene or they would succumb to it once more, even when they absolutely did not want to. The lure, the wild promise of a great time, probably one of the best times you will have had in a really long time is to much to turn down. So while inside your screaming "NO, NO NO!!!!" your eyes are looking right into the eyes of "the friend" offering whatever it is you have done and are about to do again. I really do not want that life for my boys but I can not be a hippocrite either. Thats why this movie is the best. Plus they can identify with Leonardo DiCaprio, both of them watch Titanic at least 3 times a year! I hope this review helps someone. I hope it helps in whatever way you need it to help.
Summary of The Basketball Diaries
Film adaptation of street tough Jim Carroll's epistle about his kaleidoscopic free fall into the harrowing world of drug addiction. As a member of a seemingly unbeatable high school basketball squad, Jim's life centers around the basketball court and the court becomes a metaphor for the world in his mind. A best friend who is dying of leukemia, a coach ("Swifty") who takes unacceptable liberties with the boys on his team, teenage sexual angst, and an unhealthy appetite for heroin -- all of these begin to encroach on young Jim's dream of becoming a basketball star. Soon, the dark streets of New York become a refuge from his mother's mounting concern for her son. He can't go home and his only escape from the reality of the streets is heroin for which he steals, robs and prostitutes himself. Only with the help of Reggie, an older neighborhood friend with whom Jim "picked up a game" now and then, is he able to begin the long journey back to sanity.The pre-Titanic Leonardo DiCaprio stars as Jim Carroll, the poet and musician who spent much of his adolescence addicted to heroin and shooting hoops with fellow Catholic high school kids. As a biography, the film doesn't amount to more than the sum of its gritty scenes of smack use, violence, perversions (poor Bruno Kirby plays a lecherous coach who comes on to young Jim), and the usual scream-and-puke dramas that go along with a cold-turkey session. Director Scott Kalvert doesn't seem to realize that most people don't know who Carroll is and therefore can't possibly understand why they should care about his gutterball youth. DiCaprio, having nowhere to go with his performance but maintain Carroll's tailspin, is boring and redundant. Some kind of allusion to the literary and rock & roll life that follows the mess we're watching might have been helpful. --Tom Keogh
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