The Basketball Diaries
by Scott Kalvert
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DVD details
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, 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
DVD Reviews of The Basketball Diaries
DVD Review: This 'bomb' didn't explode
Summary: 1 Stars
This just can't be me alone! I could not finish this disjointed, boring, bad acting mistake called a movie. I like Leo, but bought it for Mark Walberg. I either didn't recognized him or he didn't make the first half of this waste of film and my time. Skip this one. Watch Leo in "Titanic" or "Blood Diamonds" or Mark in "Shooter" or "Planet of the Apes". These in my humble opinion are good films and should be seen. I would rather try to stomach a plate of brussel sprouts than start this film over. DVD Review: satisfied
Summary: 5 Stars
received in time. did not watch yet. But LEo is really a kid in this movie :)DVD Review: PAINFUL to Watch But Truly BRILLIANT !!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
Leonardo DiCaprio takes us on a journey into the agonies of a teenager on the worst path possible. This movie descends into the depths of depravity and sadness. DiCaprio, as another reviewer wrote ,amazingly was but 20 years old when he turned in this powerhouse of a performance. Little by little we see the way he gets into this lost soul and makes him so believable and pathetically authentic. One of the best moments is when Dicaprio and the 2 buddies who followed him down into the sewers of human existence see the young man who
was a part of the gang but he stayed clean and persued his dreams as a basketball player. He is up there on the television living a healthy happy life than any of the three others could have shared. The look in Leonardo's eyes says it all, even in his drugged up state there was a miniscule possibility that he could get himself together and return to a decent life. Another wonderful scene was when the actor Ernie Hudson, takes DiCaprio home, seeing himself many years ago in a similar crisis and wanting to do the right thing to help a fallen friend. That was heartwrenching with DiCaprio deprived of heroin having a meltdown while Hudson tried to be a support, ignoring the most disgusting behavoir by Leonardo who looked like a wounded bird just trying to make it through the next 15 minutes. Also as brilliant as DiCaprio is Lorraine Bracco, who we will always of course think of as Tony Soprano's shrink, playing DiCaprio's Mom with love and she too has her own emotional meltdown in that wonderful scene where she is on one side of the door, and he is leaning in across the chain, desperate for a few bucks to feed his habit. She is forced to call the cops on her own out of control son. Of course this movie is based on a real man who found his way back to a happy and healthy and sane existence. How triumphant !!! Mark Wahlberg gave his own gritty and skilled performance of a teenager as lost as DiCaprio. Painful, but well worth watching.
DVD Review: DiCAPRIO - UNBELIEVABLE PERFORMANCE!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
After Jim Carroll passed away this past week, I finally watched this movie. I was totally blown away by Leonardo DiCaprio's performance as Carroll. I was totally riveted to my sofa on this one!DVD Review: quick and as stated
Summary: 5 Stars
A reality story. Reality about the disease of addiction. Excellent acting and incredible story line. My son watched it during addiction treatment and he suggested it for the family to watch. I am glad we did. It is sad, but true!!!
Description 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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