My initial interest in this documentary was sparked because of my love of basketball. The film revolves around the auctioning of the documents of the original rules of basketball, but is really about a Kansas superfans desire to aquire these documents for his university.
This could be a cool premise to explain why these documents are important, the history of basketball, how the university hierarchy works, why the university would want them, how auctioning works, who would be interested in these sorts of memorabilia, but in the end it mostly concerns itself with Kansas superfan Josh's desire for the documents. And that part of the film totaly works, you will be in no doubt of Josh's commitment to achieving this goal, but it feel like enough substance to drive the whole hour long film.
So the premise for the first quarter of the film is that Josh pretends to make a documentary, with the intent of interviewing Kansas alumni and try to convince them of sponsoring the estimated cost of the auctioning. But Josh simply isn't a good interviewer, and what could have been insights into Kansas legends perspectives, just turns into cringy conversations cut short, and replaced by usual documentary background music. Once one of the alumni actually agree to sponsor the project, Josh kind of leaves the rest of the work to them, but the film still focuses on Josh, even though his part doesn't contribute any more to the story.
And thats probably the films biggest weakness, a clear picture of an actual plan. From the start the end, the plan seems to be "we have to do this" or "i had to make it happen", its never really clear how, or what the consequences of failure would be.
The film gets points for Josh's passion and raw emotion. Accurate portrayal of Kansas basketball history. A bit of insight into auctioning. And a final moment of emotion between Josh and Kansas fans.
All in all 4 out of 10. I dont feel like this was a story that absolutely needed to be told, and i dont know which demografic would feel that way. Maybe if youre a Kansas superfan you will find this more interesting than i did, but to me its not a must watch for basketball fans.
This could be a cool premise to explain why these documents are important, the history of basketball, how the university hierarchy works, why the university would want them, how auctioning works, who would be interested in these sorts of memorabilia, but in the end it mostly concerns itself with Kansas superfan Josh's desire for the documents. And that part of the film totaly works, you will be in no doubt of Josh's commitment to achieving this goal, but it feel like enough substance to drive the whole hour long film.
So the premise for the first quarter of the film is that Josh pretends to make a documentary, with the intent of interviewing Kansas alumni and try to convince them of sponsoring the estimated cost of the auctioning. But Josh simply isn't a good interviewer, and what could have been insights into Kansas legends perspectives, just turns into cringy conversations cut short, and replaced by usual documentary background music. Once one of the alumni actually agree to sponsor the project, Josh kind of leaves the rest of the work to them, but the film still focuses on Josh, even though his part doesn't contribute any more to the story.
And thats probably the films biggest weakness, a clear picture of an actual plan. From the start the end, the plan seems to be "we have to do this" or "i had to make it happen", its never really clear how, or what the consequences of failure would be.
The film gets points for Josh's passion and raw emotion. Accurate portrayal of Kansas basketball history. A bit of insight into auctioning. And a final moment of emotion between Josh and Kansas fans.
All in all 4 out of 10. I dont feel like this was a story that absolutely needed to be told, and i dont know which demografic would feel that way. Maybe if youre a Kansas superfan you will find this more interesting than i did, but to me its not a must watch for basketball fans.
