Quantum Hoops
By Marshall Fine
Rating:
Who's in it: Narrated by David Duchovny
What's it about: This documentary looks at the hapless CalTech basketball team, a group of mental giants who haven't won a game in more than 20 years.
Dribbling: Writer-director Rick Greenwald examines the California Institute of Technology, which doggedly fields a basketball team every year, despite not winning a game since 1985. The film focuses on the 2006 team, which is trying to break the streak, but jumps back in time to offer history of the school (which has produced more Nobel Prize-winners than any other college) and its bittersweet love affair with athletics. Its academic standards are so high that its teams usually resemble pick-up squads; the teams are made up of the tallest guys on campus who can be talked into playing, as well as a few - a very few - with experience playing high-school ball. It's refreshing to see student-athletes whose emphasis is on the student part of that equation. This movie is a lot of fun and, in the end, surprisingly thrilling.
Long story short: It's a slam dunk.
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