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‘Lenny Cooke’
Three stars
With Lenny Cooke, Carmelo Anthony, LeBron James, Kobe Bryant. Hot-shot basketball hopeful goes from hoop dreams to gritty reality. Directors: Josh and Benny Safdie (1:30). Not rated: Language. Lincoln Center.
In every game there are winners and losers. But in the high-stakes world of professional sports, careers — and lives — can be destroyed before any points are on the board.
Such is the tale of Lenny Cooke, a Brooklyn-born superstar high school player who fell through the cracks of the (now altered) NBA draft and NCAA admissions rules. This melancholy documentary shows how championship dreams can turn into a nightmare.
We meet 18-year-old Cooke, via shoddy video, at the top basketball camps in 2001, alongside chum Carmelo Anthony and rival LeBron James. Cooke’s big decision is whether to pursue college or double-down on the NBA straight from high school. He gambles, loses and when we meet him again (now on crisp HD) we see how one mistake can last a lifetime.
The film maintains a fly-on-the-wall approach, leaving Cooke’s relationships and the mechanics of the NBA vague — perhaps mirroring the state of mind of kids dazzled by riches. It’s a small film, but as a cautionary tale? Swish!
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‘For No Good Reason’
Two stars
With Johnny Depp, Hunter S. Thompson. An ungonzo look at the life and art of cartoonist Ralph Steadman (1:29). Not rated: Language. AMC Magic Johnson.
Rarely has a film’s title been so apt. It’s not that the cartoon drawings and surrealist paintings of Ralph Steadman — best known for the iconic doodles that accompanied the brazen writing of Hunter S. Thompson — aren’t fascinating. But is the man’s biography and artistic process worthy of a film?
After his work became linked with Thompson, Steadman became something of the house artist at Rolling Stone with his exaggerated, sometimes lewd but always clever visualizations. They were equal parts fatalism and deranged beauty.
When this film focuses on the work, it’s engaging. But as narrated by professional Thompson fanboy Johnny Depp (who’s played the journalist twice on film), there’s lots of adoring footage of the actor leafing through books mumbling “amazing,” while wearing flamboyant hats.
ON A MOBILE DEVICE? CLICK HERE FOR A CLIP FROM ‘FOR NO GOOD REASON’
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