Acting on a neighbor's recommendation, my wife and I went to see "streetballers" during its premier week. Our verdict? "WOW!" I can say with little fear of contradiction that this film is an event completely unprecedented in St. Louis history. Not only was it SHOT in St. Louis, but ALL the talent--cinematographers (gorgeous shots!), soundtrack (original songs!), editing--in fact, ALL creative and every other kind of work was performed by St. Louis locals. This film is a complete St. Louis production.
Local production doesn't necessarily translate to high quality, of course. There are many St. Louis residents who could produce SOME kind of film using strictly local talent and resources, but--and here's the kicker--"streetballers" has truly world-class production values! Let me repeat, world-class! The film, despite being shot on an unbelievably small budget of $1.5 million (movies of this quality require budgets of $25-50 million) has absolutely no low-cost "indie" feel to it. Although Matt Krentz originally wrote the screenplay about 7 years ago, it took him until now to: shop it around to all the major studios, who liked it but turned him down because he was too young, didn't have a "big name", and has never been to film school; decide to do it himself; raise the money; put together a production company; and, finally, to actually make the movie.
Some St. Louis folks have already seen "streetballers", since it was screened during SLIFF (the St. Louis International Film Festival), where it won the top award for audience choice, outscoring previous years' winners "Slumdog Millionaire" and "Juno." This weekend was its first actual opening in theaters, two of which are in St. Louis.
We simply can't recommend "streetballers" highly enough. Our only caveat is that the language is more than a little rough at times, if your ears are easily offended. (Think "Spike Lee" film--and "streetballers" doesn't suffer by the comparison!) We purchased the soundtrack CD at the showing, and have pre-ordered a DVD of the movie itself on their website. The website also contains an amazing amount of information on all the people involved. (Did you know that one of the stars, Jimmy McKinney, was a basketball star at the University of Missouri from 2003-2006? Many of the players have similarly astounding court skills.) By the way, the schoolyard where the protagonist practices his basketball is behind Sigel Elementary, located in McKinley Heights on Allen at Serbian Way. The girl's house is on Russell at the corner.
