Hoop Dreams Film Analysis

The purpose of the documentary “Hoop Dreams” directed by Steve James, is to show how people from different backgrounds can create their own destiny based on the choices they make for themselves. The beginning of the documentary introduces the viewers to William Gates and Arthur Agee’s aspiring dreams to become NBA basketball players. Steve James uses rhetorical and cinematic techniques to achieve this purpose.

Mike Lupica, ESPN commentator and well-known sports writer for young adults, wrote Summer Ball. Summer Ball is primarily set at Right Way Basketball Camp. The main character, Danny Walker, and his friends, Ty Ross, Will Stoddard, and Tarik Meminger go to Right Way along with boys from all over the country to improve their basketball skills. They also hope to make new friends and possibly catch the eye of college scouts over the length of summer camp. Right Way helps Danny learn how to prove himself against outside expectations and self-doubts. Danny experiences his troubles when his Right Way coach, Edward Powers, doesn 't believe in Danny and tries to break him down any way he can. Coach Powers represents all of Danny 's fears around basketball and his place as a basketball player. At Right Way Camp, Danny and his friends work hard and struggle through tough games in order to prove themselves as basketball players.

David Zucchino’s captivating book, Myth of the Welfare Queen, sticks to his journalistic roots and reads like an extended news article as it captures two separate yet interconnected stories of women struggling to get by in Northern Philadelphia. Philadelphia was—and is—an impoverished city in many ways, with huge percentages of the population struggling to get by at or bellow the poverty line. Zucchino spent much of 1995 with woman and families on welfare as it was a time when welfare was a particularly hot topic directly preceding the passing of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act. Zucchino strove to cut through the stereotypes and misinformation surrounding welfare and those relying on it. In his own words, “this book is the story of

I have never seen such ambitiousness and hope, I was amazed how strong everyone in the video were, not just Arthur and William ,but also their family and friends. Such attitude and hard work is what we real need to be successful. There were so many obstacles that were in both of the players yet they fought for what they love and their goals. The Hoop Dreams show how our system is set to only benefit those who have the money not those who have the dream and the skills. If william and Arthur had a stable financial, their life would have been so much easier to make it to the professional level. There are many issues that these two athletes faced in young aged, money, family issues, struggles in school are the common issues both Arthur Agee and William Gates faced.

In the documentary “hoop dreams” the director uses a variety of techniques to attract the viewer. In the beginning scenes we meet william gates and arthur agee to boys with high hopes of playing high school and college basketball both coming from poor neighborhoods which appeals to pathos create a sympathetic feeling in which you want the 2 main characters to succeed in their dreams. William gates and arthur agee live and play basketball as part of their everyday life, which can be reflected from their family arthur father played in his earlier years and william's brother curtis talked about his carrera the director uses a voice over narration with photos of him playing at high school and college level, curtis dropped out of college after being unable to keep up his academics. The director uses a point of view shot when a small recruiter finds arthur and william playing in local courts, he takes them to tryout at St. Joseph's a private school. The director uses a small pause when telling the viewer if william or arthur made the team, they announced william makes varsity and narration of

At a campaign rally in 1976 Ronald Reagan talked about welfare queens and poverty. He said, “She used eighty names, thirty addresses and fifteen telephone numbers to collect food stamps, social security and veteran’s benefits for four nonexistent deceased veteran husbands as well as welfare. Her tax free cash income alone has been running 150,000 thousand dollars a year.”The welfare system is full of gender stereotyping. Stereotyping is when we make perceptions on what we make about others. In the past forty years America welfare system has been designed around Reagan’s fake welfare queen (Black, Sprague). This slur has had negative effects for the families on welfare that urgently need support and are struggling. This paper will discuss the lies of the welfare queen and how it originated and its negative effects on African American families and young girls.

“Cold, shiny, hard, plastic.”, one of the most popular quotes from the movie, Mean Girls. Mean Girls is a teen comedy film directed by Mark Waters and screenplay by Tina Fey. This film is loosely based on a book called “Queen Bees and Wannabees” by Rosalind Wiseman which is a self-help book that describes all of the cliques in high school and how they can have a huge effect on girls. But the movie itself is about the sociopolitical climate of the average American “high school”. The movie was made in 2004 and set in Evanston, Illinois, but the film was shot in Toronto, Canada. The film stars Lindsey Lohan, Rachel McAdams, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler and many more comedic actors and actresses. I chose to do an analysis on the movie, Mean Girls, because I wanted to see if people would agree with my perspective, which is that this movie does correctly show the real life mean girl situations and how girls can overcome the popularity contests.

    “Tonight I gotta cut loose, footloose, kick off my sunday shoes. Jack, get back, come on before we crack.” (Footloose, Kenny Loggins) For this essay, I chose to watch Footloose made in 1984 and directed by Herbert Ross and Footloose made in 2011 directed by Craig Brewer. Both movies centered around the town of Bomont, a secluded town with out of the ordinary beliefs. In this town, dancing and partying of any sort was strictly against the law and teenagers were seemingly miserable. There was little to no self expression and even listening to provocative music or any music too loud, could get you a ticket with a hefty fine. The reason behind the strict rules is that several years back, five teens from Bomont High School died in a car wreck after they were drinking and dancing too much. Each of these movies have some things in common, but have more differences than anything. Some of the main differences are the opening credits of each movie, how and who Ren arrives to Bomont at the beginning of the movie, the “chicken” races between Ren and Jeff, and the book burning in town square.

Teamwork is an extraordinary characteristic for any organizations or groups to strive to its fullest potential. According to the Greenberg text “An organization is a structured social system consisting of groups and individuals working together to meet upon some agreed-upon objectives.” In the movie Miracle, the theme of teamwork is portrayed through the Men’s Hockey Team’s head coach Herb Brooks leadership in training recent college graduates to play hockey in one of the most challenging competition in the world, which were the 1980s Olympics.

The Miracle Movie in 1980 Victory of U.S. Olympic Ice Hockey Team and the Soviet Union. This movie show that the coach make the team united and won the game.

This feature repeatedly explains why Viola winning an Emmy in 2015 is so monumental by referencing experiences Viola had prior to achieving the success she now has. Readers can understand that she did not have a silver spoon life and she arose from humble beginnings. Readers unaware about the social

One of cinema's most unexpected, artistically fertile iterations in the 21st century is the viral video, a Warholian flash of lightning: brief, often concept-less, zigzagging across the globe on bright computer/phone screens, and then, just as quickly, vanishing from relevance. This new medium's Meliesian pioneer is a mercurial figure whose fifteen minutes of fame has miraculously protracted into a decade's-worth of cultish, vaudevillian mini-movies; their deranged comedy, hot-topic commentary, and punning, shade-infused manifestoes of give-no-fucks self-reliance are devotedly watched and shared by a small legion of loyal fans. When Chris Crocker, frail, snaggletoothed, lachrymose, uploaded a wailing defense of Britney Spears onto YouTube during

Synopsis: When the USSR hockey team took on the United States in the 1980 Olympics, more than just a gold medal was on the line. Probably one of the most political games in history, this particular game symbolized one of many “battles” of the Cold War. In the, movie Miracle, this story of the underdog is told over, with a strong focus on American coach Herb Brooks and his relationship with his team. The movie highlights the extremely hard work done by the team and the demanding Coach Brooks unrelenting passion to win no matter what. The crux of the movie lies within the game with the Soviet union and those stomach wrenching moments before the game even started, as players knew that at this point it was make it or break it.

Where ‘Hoop Dreams’ shows the clear-cut dignity and respect to it’s social actors, Asif Kapadia’s expository documentary (Bill Nichols, 2001)’Amy’ has more of a clouded interpretation, showing respect to the film’s subject, Amy Winehouse, but not necessarily to it’s social actors; her friends and family. The film’s patchwork of voiceover from interviews and archival footage allows the audience to interpret the film in a different ways, while maintaining a high sense of a driven narrative. Clips of Amy drinking and using drugs accompanied by the interviewees testimonies that they all struggled in their own way to assist her forces the audience to view the interviewees as unreliable narrators. As their faces are not able to be seen, their stories

The documentary Eyes on the Prize offers beautiful and impactful artistic interpretations to instill emotion and passion onto the viewer. The director carefully and deliberately included different choices in the documentary to evoke emotions through the images and videos they show. Documentaries matter so much (and now more than ever) because they show the world the truth about the past and what is currently happening. As fortunate US citizens living in 2018, we tend to forget the tragedies currently happening in the world, and we often overlook the freedoms we currently have—forgetting that a brave soul fought continuously for our freedom today. Documentaries are especially important because they remind us of such things. educate us on the past, warn to not to repeat the past, and most importantly, to stand up when similar things do happen. Watching documentaries is a keen reminder of what it means to struggle for freedom and justice and will hopefully, in turn, make the viewer more compassionate.