Pulp and Popcorn 1993 - 1995 • "32 Days of Movies" Day 28

Twenty-eighth chapter in "32 Days of Movies", an audiovisual tour through 366 films

(2015 update: included Vimeo embed after the jump)


View "Chapter 28: Pulp and Popcorn"

Pulp and Popcorn

Here is where the history of the movies truly begins to coincide with my own personal movie history. I was ten years old in the fall of 1993, and already an avid movie buff, combing the weekly listings to see what was coming out, studying the box office reports as if they contained esoteric messages from the beyond, and wandering down the hallway of coming attractions at the local movie theater to study the teaser posters. That said, I think I only saw one of these films in theaters at the time - however, I was aware of the presence of all of them, and it was only a few years later that I would see them on video as a teenager.

(continued below, along with NSFW warnings)

Hoop Dreams

The other night, in composing my Shoulda Won the Oscar list, I selected Hoop Dreams as a kind of compromise for 1994, while my head suggested Pulp Fiction and my heart Forrest Gump. Actually, Hoop Dreams probably is the best picture of the year, appealing to both head and heart, and gut too (feel free to throw the liver in for good measure). Hoop Dreams' great gift is specificity which, when done correctly, opens out to infinite possibilities. Through the narrow focus on two kids trying to use basketball as their ticket out of Chicago's inner city, we come to a greater understanding of African-American communities, sports as business, family life, the American economic structure and the way it affects individual lives, the power of the media, and all the intersections thereof. And none of this is conveyed with voice-of-God narration (a neutral voiceover pops up once in a while to give us crucial information before going into hiding again), an overabundance of talking-head interviews, or stylized, finger-pointing editing.